This book provides an overview of the gender rules encountered in Europe in the period between approximately 500 and 1500 C.E. The essays speak to how best to uncover the experiences of ordinary people from archives formed mainly by and about elite males, and how to combine social histories of lived experiences with cultural histories of gendered discourses and identities. The collection focuses on Western Europe in the Middle Ages but offers some consideration of medieval Islam and Byzantium.
This collection explores the impact of religion on the formation of men and masculinities in twentieth-century Britain. Religion is explored beyond the traditional boundaries of church worship and institutional structures to encompass the diverse cultures of male sexuality, home life, war, work, immigration, leisure and sectarian politics. Issues of change, such as the decline of single-sex associational settings, the theological shifts and changing fortunes of sects, the varying visibility of queer and homosexual cultures, and the shifting boundaries and collapsing distinctions between clergy and laypeople are explored in depth.