From Castration to Misogyny. Meaning of Liudprand of Cremona’s Humour
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/APH.2015.112.08Keywords
gender, sex, violence, nudity, castration, humourAbstract
Liudprand of Cremona is one of the most interesting authors of the tenth century. He is well known for his description of the Byzantine court and also for his jokes in Antapodosis – a first chronicle of Europe. Based on these tales, he is treated by scholars as a prime example of medieval misogyny. Lately the more political view of these narrations emerged, but still women in Liudprand’s works are seen mainly as victims. This essay shows that this view is wrong and that there is much more to be found in the text. Through Liudprand’s jokes emerges a much more complicated view of the position and role of woman in the society. To see this, the stories have to be put in the context of the tenth-century society.References
Primary Sources
Liudprand, Liudprand de Crémone: oeuvres, trans. François Bougard (Sources d’histoire médiévale, 41, Paris, 2015).
Liudprand of Cremona, The complete works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. Paolo Squatriti (Washington, DC, 2007).
Liudprandus Cremonensis, Opera omnia, ed. Paolo Chiesa (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, 156, Turnhout, 1998).
Liudprand von Cremona, Die Werke Luidprands von Cremona, ed. by Joseph Becker (Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores rerum germanicarum in usum scholarum, 41, Hannover and Leipzig, 1915).
Liutprando, Antapodosis, trans. Paolo Chiesa (Scrittori greci e latini, Milano, 2015).
Secondary Sources
Atkinson Clarissa W., Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1994).
Balzaretti Ross, ‘Liutprand of Cremona’s Sense of Humour’, in Guy Halsall (ed.), Humour, history and politics in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (Cambridge and New York, 2002), 114–28.
Balzaretti Ross, ‘Men and sex in tenth-century Italy’, in Dawn M. Hadley (ed.), Masculinity in medieval Europe (London and New York, 1999), 143–59.
Buc Philippe, ‘Italian Hussies and German Matrons. Liutprand of Cremona on Dynastic Legitimation’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, xxix (1995), 207–25.
Grabowski Antoni, ‘Ostatnie studia o Liudprandzie z Cremony’, Studia Źródłoznawcze, li (2013), 93–103.
La Rocca Cristina, ‘Liutprando da Cremona e il paradigma femminile di dissoluzione dei Carolingi’, in eadem (ed.), Agire da donna: modelli e pratiche di rappresentazione (secoli VI–X) (Turnhout, 2006), 291–307.
Pieniądz Aneta, ‘Kobieta, honor i polityka we wczesnym średniowieczu’, in Agnieszka Bartoszewicz et al. (eds.), Świat średniowiecza: studia ofiarowane Profesorowi Henrykowi Samsonowiczowi (Warszawa, 2010), 408–24.
Pieniądz Aneta, ‘Wokół “Antapodosis” Liutpranda z Cremony’, in Stanisław Rosik and Przemysław Wiszewski (eds.), Cor hominis: wielkie namiętności w dziejach, źródłach i studiach nad przeszłością (Wrocław, 2007), 29–35.
Sivo Vito, ‘Studi recenti su Liutprando di Cremona’, Quaderni medievali, 44 (1997), 214–25.
Skinner Patricia, ‘“The light of my eyes”: medieval motherhood in the Mediterranean’, Women’s History Review, vi, 3 (1997), 391–410.
Sutherland Jon N., Liudprand of Cremona, bishop, diplomat, historian: studies of the man and his age (Biblioteca degli ‘Studi medievali’, 14, Spoleto, 1988).
Tyszka Przemysław, The Human Body in Barbarian Laws, c. 500–c. 800: the corpus hominis as a cultural category, trans. Guy R. Torr (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 2014).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Title, logo and layout of journal are reserved trademarks of APH.Stats
Number of views and downloads: 413
Number of citations: 2