Books by Zubin Mistry
When a Spanish monk struggled to find the right words to convey his unjust expulsion from a monas... more When a Spanish monk struggled to find the right words to convey his unjust expulsion from a monastery in a desperate petition to a sixth-century king, he likened himself to an aborted fetus. Centuries later, a ninth-century queen found herself accused of abortion in an altogether more fleshly sense. Abortion haunts the written record across the early middle ages. Yet, the centuries after the fall of Rome remain very much the "dark ages" in the broader history of abortion.
This book, the first to treat the subject in this period, tells the story of how individuals and communities, ecclesiastical and secular authorities, construed abortion as a social and moral problem across a number of post-Roman societies, including Visigothic Spain, Merovingian Gaul, early Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and the Carolingian empire. It argues early medieval authors and readers actively deliberated on abortion and a cluster of related questions, and that church tradition on abortion was an evolving practice. It sheds light on the neglected variety of responses to abortion generated by different social and intellectual practices, including church discipline, dispute settlement and strategies of political legitimation, and brings the history of abortion into conversation with key questions about gender, sexuality, Christianization, penance and law. Ranging across abortion miracles in hagiography, polemical letters in which churchmen likened rivals to fetuses flung from the womb of the church and uncomfortable imaginings of resurrected fetuses in theological speculation, this volume also illuminates the complex cultural significance of abortion in early medieval societies.
Journal Articles by Zubin Mistry
Early Medieval Europe , 2019
Ermentrude's consecration in 866 has long been interpreted as the quintessential example of queen... more Ermentrude's consecration in 866 has long been interpreted as the quintessential example of queen‐making as fertility rite. More recent scholarship has illuminated how Carolingian queen‐making articulated richer definitions of queenship and reflected wider political roles of queens. This article re‐examines the significance of fertility at Ermentrude's consecration. Close analysis of the introductory address that survives alongside the liturgy for anointing and coronation shows that fertility was an unusually important theme at Ermentrude's consecration – but not simply the queen's fertility. By modelling royal fertility on biblical templates, the consecration communicated not only hopes of future children but also political messages about divine sanction of dynastic continuity and good kingship.
Gender & History , 2013
The Latin lives of three early Irish saints, Brigit of Kildare, Aed mac Bricc and Cainnech of Agh... more The Latin lives of three early Irish saints, Brigit of Kildare, Aed mac Bricc and Cainnech of Aghaboe, contain an unusual 'abortion miracle' motif: the saint encounters a nun who has become pregnant but, through the saint's intervention, the pregnancy miraculously disappears. The motif has been read, variously, as an archaic 'pagan' practice fossilised in a Christian text and as evidence for broader attitudes to abortion in early medieval Ireland. The question of what made the motif miraculous has not, however, been fully explored.
This article reads the motif in light of a critical juncture between early medieval gender and religion: the protection and promotion of chastity in religious communities. Monastic theorists distinguished the lives of religious men and women from their lay counterparts. Chastity was a crucial mark of religious distinction. For women, it entailed avoiding the ugly toils of marriage, sexuality and childbearing - and also the symbolism of these toils. In a religious context, sexual sin was a rude reminder to individuals and their communities of the gender roles which religious orientation sought to transform. The miracle motif was one unusual response to such lapses which healed individuals and communities in the aftermath of sexual sin.
Book Chapters by Zubin Mistry
This is a preprint of what will be the final chapter in a volume on penitentials (confessors' han... more This is a preprint of what will be the final chapter in a volume on penitentials (confessors' handbooks before c.1100) The chapter uses penitentials to contribute to the ongoing task of fleshing out the early medieval body and forms of bodily healing; and centres the body in a rereading of penitentials and the ways they envisaged penance.
Cultural Constructions of the Uterus in Pre-Modern Societies, Past and Present, ed. M. Erica Couto-Ferreira and Lorenzo Verderame, 2018
Papers by Zubin Mistry
Conference paper: Leeds IMC 2017.
Reviews by Zubin Mistry
The Mediaeval Journal, 2014
Thesis by Zubin Mistry
This thesis is primarily a cultural history of abortion in the early medieval West. It is a histo... more This thesis is primarily a cultural history of abortion in the early medieval West. It is a historical study of perceptions, rather than the practice, of abortion. The span covered ranges from the sixth century, when certain localised ecclesiastical initiatives in the form of councils and sermons addressed abortion, through to the ninth century, when some of these initiatives were integrated into pastoral texts produced in altogether different locales. The thesis uses a range of predominantly ecclesiastical texts – canonical collections, penitentials, sermons, hagiography, scriptural commentaries, but also law-codes – to bring to light the multiple ways in which abortion was construed, experienced and responded to as a moral and social problem. Although there is a concerted focus upon the ecclesiastical tradition on abortion, a focus which ultimately questions how such a tradition ought to be understood, the thesis also explores the broader cultural significance of abortion. Early medieval churchmen, rulers, and jurists saw multiple things in abortion and there were multiple perspectives upon abortion. The thesis illuminates the manifold and, occasionally, surprising ways in which abortion was perceived in relation to gender, sexuality, politics, theology and the church. The history of early medieval abortion has been largely underwritten. Moreover, it has been inadequately historicised. Early medieval abortion has been rendered strangely familiar because it has been approached through alien concepts and assumptions, whether pre-medieval, later medieval or modern. Through vigilance against conceptual dangers, a thoroughgoing and sometimes microscopic approach to reading and contextualising early medieval sources, and an interest in bringing the history of abortion into conversation with other areas of early medieval historiography, the thesis seeks to historicise perceptions of and responses to abortion in the early medieval West.
Conferences Organised by Zubin Mistry
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Books by Zubin Mistry
This book, the first to treat the subject in this period, tells the story of how individuals and communities, ecclesiastical and secular authorities, construed abortion as a social and moral problem across a number of post-Roman societies, including Visigothic Spain, Merovingian Gaul, early Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and the Carolingian empire. It argues early medieval authors and readers actively deliberated on abortion and a cluster of related questions, and that church tradition on abortion was an evolving practice. It sheds light on the neglected variety of responses to abortion generated by different social and intellectual practices, including church discipline, dispute settlement and strategies of political legitimation, and brings the history of abortion into conversation with key questions about gender, sexuality, Christianization, penance and law. Ranging across abortion miracles in hagiography, polemical letters in which churchmen likened rivals to fetuses flung from the womb of the church and uncomfortable imaginings of resurrected fetuses in theological speculation, this volume also illuminates the complex cultural significance of abortion in early medieval societies.
Journal Articles by Zubin Mistry
This article reads the motif in light of a critical juncture between early medieval gender and religion: the protection and promotion of chastity in religious communities. Monastic theorists distinguished the lives of religious men and women from their lay counterparts. Chastity was a crucial mark of religious distinction. For women, it entailed avoiding the ugly toils of marriage, sexuality and childbearing - and also the symbolism of these toils. In a religious context, sexual sin was a rude reminder to individuals and their communities of the gender roles which religious orientation sought to transform. The miracle motif was one unusual response to such lapses which healed individuals and communities in the aftermath of sexual sin.
Book Chapters by Zubin Mistry
Papers by Zubin Mistry
Reviews by Zubin Mistry
Thesis by Zubin Mistry
Conferences Organised by Zubin Mistry
This book, the first to treat the subject in this period, tells the story of how individuals and communities, ecclesiastical and secular authorities, construed abortion as a social and moral problem across a number of post-Roman societies, including Visigothic Spain, Merovingian Gaul, early Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and the Carolingian empire. It argues early medieval authors and readers actively deliberated on abortion and a cluster of related questions, and that church tradition on abortion was an evolving practice. It sheds light on the neglected variety of responses to abortion generated by different social and intellectual practices, including church discipline, dispute settlement and strategies of political legitimation, and brings the history of abortion into conversation with key questions about gender, sexuality, Christianization, penance and law. Ranging across abortion miracles in hagiography, polemical letters in which churchmen likened rivals to fetuses flung from the womb of the church and uncomfortable imaginings of resurrected fetuses in theological speculation, this volume also illuminates the complex cultural significance of abortion in early medieval societies.
This article reads the motif in light of a critical juncture between early medieval gender and religion: the protection and promotion of chastity in religious communities. Monastic theorists distinguished the lives of religious men and women from their lay counterparts. Chastity was a crucial mark of religious distinction. For women, it entailed avoiding the ugly toils of marriage, sexuality and childbearing - and also the symbolism of these toils. In a religious context, sexual sin was a rude reminder to individuals and their communities of the gender roles which religious orientation sought to transform. The miracle motif was one unusual response to such lapses which healed individuals and communities in the aftermath of sexual sin.