Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- For my Mum and Dad With Love
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 William of Malmesbury and his World
- 2 William's Construction of Gender: Violence and its Expression
- 3 William's Construction of Gender: Sexual Behaviour
- 4 The Presentation of Gentes
- 5 Gender, Nation and Conquest
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - William's Construction of Gender: Violence and its Expression
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- For my Mum and Dad With Love
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 William of Malmesbury and his World
- 2 William's Construction of Gender: Violence and its Expression
- 3 William's Construction of Gender: Sexual Behaviour
- 4 The Presentation of Gentes
- 5 Gender, Nation and Conquest
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
DURING THE Rouen riot of 1090 the ringleader of the rebels, Conan, was captured and brought before Robert Curthose and Henry I to hear his fate. Robert thought Conan should be imprisoned for life for his treasonous actions. Henry did not agree. Instead he took Conan to the top of the keep at Rouen,
and told him carefully to survey the wide prospect visible from the tower's tops, with the assurance (it was a bitter jest) that all would soon be his; he then caught him off his guard, and, with a helping hand from the companions who were with him, threw him from the battlements down headlong into the Seine below.
This important passage provides a starting point for a discussion of gender and violence on a number of levels. The Conan story is clearly relevant to debates about the eleventh and twelfth centuries as a period of significant shifts in the practice of warfare and violence, and it is within this context that what Malmesbury has to say must be seen. At the same time Malmesbury's telling of this story is only one of those circulating during this period. However, I am concerned with Malmesbury's representation of it and perhaps how this is affected by, if at all, these contemporary shifts. These eleventh- and twelfth-century shifts are – whether historians have made it explicit or not – significant for the history of gender and for the construction of one significant masculinity, that of the warrior.
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- Information
- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008