Sev Munro

‘Certain Virgins’ and Hagiographical ‘Straightening Devices’ in the Historia Divae Monacellae

Introduction

‘certain virgins’ and hagiographical ‘straightening devices’ in the historia divae monacellae. A literary analysis of Historia Divae Monacellae, using affect, gender, and queer theory to explore 'queer virgins' and women's religious life in medieval Wales. Offers new social insights.

Abstract

This paper offers a literary analysis of the Latin Life of Saint Melangell, Historia Divae Monacellae (HDM), grounded in affect, gender, and queer theory. Melangell is a native Welsh saint described by the HDM as a ‘virgin’ who was granted land by the local prince. She then went on to ‘institute and establish certain virgins in the same region’ (Pryce 1994:39–40) and I posit that the HDM provides insight into what kinds of ‘less institutionalized’ communal expressions of women’s religious life may have existed in medieval Wales beyond the three documented nunneries – a topic for which there is scant extant evidence (Cartwright 2008:207–8). I begin with a brief background on the text, an introduction to theoretical lenses used, and an explanation of my use of the term ‘queer virgins’ to describe women who refused marriage on religious grounds in medieval Wales. I then develop a close reading of the text attentive to power, gender, sexuality, virginity, and ecology. Drawing on comparative textual examples from hagiography, law, and poetry, as well as scholarship on ecclesiastical discourse and women’s religious communities in medieval England, I attempt to situate aspects of the HDM in its wider social context. The paper concludes with a discussion about what insight the HDM might offer into medieval Welsh social attitudes to queer virgins.

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