An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Hope Doherty-Harrison (Centre for Research Collections Fellow, 2024)
Gender, Anti-Judaism and the Bodies of Edinburgh MS 113
From early Christianity, theologians sought to make arguments for reading the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament—as scripture and history that could only be interpreted ‘correctly’ through prophecies of Christ. These arguments were foundational to medieval Christian culture, and to the development of anti-Judaism and antisemitism in medieval Europe. Anti-Judaism was also often expressed through ideas of the feminine body, particularly through the figure of Synagoga, the usually feminine personification of Jewish faith and community in Christian culture. While Synagoga has primarily been considered in visual culture and art history, my work seeks to demonstrate the influence of Synagoga upon literary allegory in Latin and Middle English writing. Examining a key text in Crucifixion literature, the Stimulus amoris (the goad or sting of love), and its variant text in Edinburgh MS 113, this seminar will link these seemingly local and individual manuscript variations to their reverberations in vernacular literature and visual culture.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/81857401179
Passcode: 6aSe7GF7