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Der Beitrag untersucht, wie Gendervorstellungen, Geschlechtsidentitäten und Körperkonzepte in dem altfranzösischen Roman performativ konstruiert werden. Anknüpfend an die Gender- und Queertheorie Judith Butlers wird gezeigt, dass das vermeintlich natürliche Geschlecht der Protagonistin nicht essentialistisch, sondern als kulturelle Kategorie zu verstehen ist.
Fertilität und Macht: Die Reproduktionspflicht mittelalterlicher Herrscherinnen und Herrscher
(2021)
Fertility was a key theme of medieval rulership. To conceive and give birth to sons – and thus to ensure the succession to the throne – was one of the foremost duties of medieval kings and queens. But what happened when a male child died in infancy, no male child was born, or no pregnancy ever came about? Barrenness could have dramatic consequences in the Middle Ages, for example expulsion, divorce or conflicts over royal succession. Against this historical background, it seems logical that the fate of the childless ruler would be recounted in the form of a ‘Passion narrative’. In the German literature of the Middle Ages, however, there are also interpretative models of a contrary vein to be found. In the year 1220, for instance, Ebernand of Erfurt construed the wedded life of the imperial couple Henry and Kunigunde as a tale of resistance against the royal obligation to reproduce. In his versified legend, composed in the vernacular, the couple secretly agrees not to fulfil society’s expectations, but to lead a chaste marriage. Yet above and beyond legend, childless rulers were also subject to the impact of multifarious legal, religious, medical, narrative and discursive factors. Taking Michel Foucault as a point of departure, this contribution shows how fertility became a field of power on which hierarchies between rulers and subjects, men and women were negotiated, while also shedding light on how religious and secular ideals clashed in the assessment of infertility.
The study uses the category of disgust in order to analyse the representation of the human body and the corpse in one of the most influential medieval treatises, the De Miseria Condicionis Humanae (1195) written by Pope Innocent III, and its little known old French adaptation Double lay de fragilité humaine (1383) by Eustache Deschamps. Analysing how both use disgust as an aesthetic means, which appeals to emotions and turns off reason, helps to point out the pedagogical and moral function of the texts. The comparison between them shows that Deschamps stays faithful to his Latin model, but that he nevertheless has to make certain modifications in order to adapt the prose text into a lyrical form. Furthermore, this approach clearly elucidates what differences there are between the conceptions of the human body and death in the two texts, revealing at the same time divergent theological points of view.