Lisa M. Bitel

I like the main idea Bitel is exploring here—looking at the cults of two early medieval female saints, Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare, within the religious, political, gender and material landscapes in which they lived. I think there's a lot of interesting work which remains to be done, exploring the interstices of gender, religion and topography, and Bitel does quite well at sketching out the landscape in which fifth century Gaulish and Irish holy women lived.

I do have some serious reservations, however. Genovefa and Brigit are largely discussed separately, to the extent that the book feels more like two essays welded together rather than a comparative study. I would have liked to see more comparison, and perhaps more discussion of early Christian women who had similar careers—the Empress Helena springs to mind. As with previous works of Bitel's that I've read, I have big methodological problems with her writing. The sources for such early figures are of course limited, and must be used with care; however, Bitel never really engages with the problem of using hagiographic texts to reconstruct a reality, and at times the line seems to be blurred between discussing the actual historical figures called Brigit and Genovefa and the later creations of multiple hagiographers.

Additionally, some of the archaeological evidence Bitel uses (especially about early Christianity in Britain is outdated, and she occasionally has a tendency to state as fact things which are disputed—no one is certain as to where St Patrick was born, for example, and if you're going to take a firm position on that, then you need to footnote the fact that there are alternative points of view. I also have some issues with her grasp of Irish, particularly issues of transcription/transliteration. I am only familiar with Modern Irish, of course, but it's not so dissimilar from Old/Middle Irish that I don't have some reservations. When my confidence is undermined about such small issues, I'm a little less minded to buy Bitel's overall argument.… (mehr)

This is a brief book—five short essays plus an introduction—which nonetheless presents some interesting (though perhaps not groundbreaking) ideas about the intersections of religion and gender in the lives of medieval Western Europeans. In her introduction, Bitel asserts that medieval historians should aim for greater "binocularity" in their work, as using gender as a single lens through which to look at the Middle Ages will create distortions. All the essays ably demonstrate just how much work remains to be done in the field of gender studies, though I think it's Karras' essay to which I will return the most. I haven't quite worked out if I agree with her or not (in part because I'm not sure if she's arguing that medieval European culture only admitted of two genders, with variations thereof, or if she's arguing that that holds true in other cultures? I'm not sure how trans people/genderqueer people would fit into her schema of the Middle Ages, or even if she'd admit of her existence. Possibly this could be resolved with more discussion of medieval gender theory versus gender practice/experience?)… (mehr)

There are aspects of this that I would quibble with, and some of her stylistic choices drove me batty (why she insisted on contracting the place name Cluain Mhic Nois to Cluain is a mystery, especially given the predominance of places either called Cluain, or which have 'Cluain' as a prefix), but overall it's really an okay example of scholarship in what is still an emerging field.

I like how she uses literary representations of gender roles to dissect gender ideologies, and how she takes a more common sense (and to my mind, correct) approach as to the relative rights and freedoms which Gaelic women enjoyed in early medieval Ireland. Her lack of precision is frustrating, though; there's a lack of a chronological sense to some parts of the book, and while she states the pitfalls of the longue duree approach she uses, still falls into them at times. Reasonable introduction to the area, however.… (mehr)