Early Modern Body

"A Living Relic: Venice’s Doge and His Paradoxical Two Bodies"

by Michelle Laughran

Presented April 2, 2012 at the Royal Body Conference at Royal Holloway University of London, UK

Analysis of the dual role of the doge as titular ruler and yet simultaneously primus inter pares, following the lines... more Analysis of the dual role of the doge as titular ruler and yet simultaneously primus inter pares, following the lines of a Kantorowiczian political theology is, of course, not new in Venetian studies. Paradoxically, though, Kantorowicz is not seamlessly transferable to the Venetian context, however rampant dual-body imagery was in the city’s ceremonial life. After all, the king’s immortal body royal had to depend symbiotically on its body natural, relying upon the later’s unique capacity for biological reproduction in order to ensure continuity of the dynastic bloodline which would allow the monarchy, at least in theory, both to endure in perpetuity. In Venice, however, such a formulation was impossible, not least because, as part of the measures to limit potential ducal reigns, doges – like popes – tended to be elected at an advanced age. Hence, a different formulation of the two-bodies model had to be devised for the Venetian context. Only by becoming the living incarnation of the relics of Saint Mark could the otherwise constitutionally (and perhaps, for that matter, even biologically) largely impotent doge manage to embody both a widely-recognized, powerfully stabilizing influence and a monarchic sacrality.

Presentation given at the conference “Developments in dress history” at Brighton University December 8th-10th 2011

by Eva Andersson

This is a presentation I made at a conference. It is not written as an article, but as something I would read out loud (or at least glance at while talking). Stil it is a presentation of some of my research in English, something that I don't have a lot of.

Clothing and perceptions of gender and body in the medieval an early modern period


Fashion and... more Clothing and perceptions of gender and body in the medieval an early modern period


Fashion and perceptions of gender and body are closely intertwined. Clothes are thus an important source to often unspoken ideas of masculinity and femininity. In the Middle Ages manners of dress were affected by an Aristotelian perception of gender, where the difference between men’s and women’s bodies was seen as a difference in degree rather than in kind. This led to fashions with similar garments for men and women, differing mainly in length, but not in cut. Gender was marked with smaller items of dress, such as headwear, which weren’t linked to physical differences between men and women, but instead to their social roles. In the late 15th century a change in how clothing was used to present men’s and women’s bodies occurred as the clothes now emphasized bodily difference, indicating a new way of thinking about gender and the body. According to historian Thomas Laqueur the break with the Aristotelian model occurred in the 18th century. This period saw a fundamental break in the development of masculine and feminine dress, but judging from the development of fashion it seems that there was another break, though less radical, in the perception of sex at the end of the Middle Ages.

'Inside and outside, cavities and containers: the organs of generation in seventeenth-century English medicine' in P. Baker, C.J. van t Land-van Wesenbeeck and H. Nijdam (eds), MEDICINE AND SPACE: BODY, SURROUNDINGS AND BORDERS IN ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES

by Helen King

http://www.brill.nl/medicine-and-space
published 31 December 2011

This paper looks at the gendering of body space in English vernacular medicine of the 17th century. Focusing on Jane... more This paper looks at the gendering of body space in English vernacular medicine of the 17th century. Focusing on Jane Sharp's The Midwives Book (1671), I develop Elaine Hobby's analysis of Sharp's sources and discuss Sharp's division of body parts, looking at the terminology and imagery of the womb and the penis in both male and female writers of this period.

"'A Man Must Not Embelish Himself like a Woman: The Body and Gender in Renaissance Cosmetics"

by Michelle Laughran

Presented at the 15th Annual Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Interdisciplinary Symposium, University of Miami, 2006

The introduction of cosmetics into the Renaissance fashion system was more than simply a straightforward... more The introduction of cosmetics into the Renaissance fashion system was more than simply a straightforward socio-economic indicator in terms only of direct financial investment in fashion.  Instead, socio-economic status was communicated by more than just expensive materials; it INCARNATED the very conceptions of health and character, both of which were supposed to be products of a noble complexion and both of which varied depending upon one's gender.  As a result, overt cosmetics' use would become more socially acceptable by women than by men.

“‘Grandissima Gratia’: The Power of Italian Renaissance Shoes as Intimate Wear”

by Michelle Laughran

Co-authored with Andrea Vianello, in _Ornamentalism: The Art of Renaissance Accessories_ (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011).

In an age where women wear pants and men can fashionably sport kilts, it seems as though accessories are now a... more In an age where women wear pants and men can fashionably sport kilts, it seems as though accessories are now a defining touch of gender expression, indicating gender boundaries with which an individual is either identifying or testing. Women wearing neckties or men carrying handbags are not out of the question in the early twenty-first century Western fashion system, but nevertheless there are few dress acts which are more immediately visually challenging to cultural expectations of gender roles. Thus, in a world of Manolo Blahniks, we are accustomed to footwear being one of these highly visible and very public representations of gender identification and/or expression. Yet in the premodern and early-modern fashion system, we argue that gender identification and expression though shoes were primarily based on degrees of their invisibility.


Premodern men and women's footwear were initially unisex and utilitarian in design, and women's shoes were distinguished primarily by the fact that they tended be to some of the less visible aspects of contemporary female costume. Indeed, with the advent of Renaissance conspicuous sartorial consumption, women's shoes would become even less readily visible, draped as they were in dresses constructed of layers of far more expensive fabric. Ironically, however, this is the very same period in which footwear styles of men and women would begin significantly to diverge for the first time. How to explain this apparent paradox?


A parallel development interestingly occurred simultaneously in what would come to be called lingerie. The deeper women's undergarments were buried under myriad strata of clothing, the more diverse (and eventually sexualized) they became. In this article, we will argue that early-modern footwear in this same way essentially became a kind of gendered intimate wear, the increased fascination with which relied on the power of what was usually unseen, but a glimpse of which might be granted to or stolen by the viewer.

Pro gradu abstrakti

by Soile Ylivuori

The King’s Privates: Sex and the Soldier’s Place in John Fletcher’s The Humorous Lieutenant (ca. 1618)

by Vimala Pasupathi

Research Opportunities in Medieval and Renaissance Drama XLVII (2008): 25–50.

The Body Embarrassed? Rethinking the Leaky Male Body in Eighteenth‐Century England and France

by Lisa Smith

Gender and History, 23, 1 (2011): 26-46.

'Images of Old Age in Early Modern Cheap Print: Women, Witches,and the Poisonous Female Body' in Old Age in Pre-Industrial Society, eds. S.Ottaway, L. Botelho, and K. Kittredge (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, October, 2002), pp. 225-46.

by Lynn Botelho

Lynn Botelho, 'Old Age and Menopause in Rural Women of Early Modern Suffolk' in L. Botelho and P. Thane, eds, Women and Ageing in British Society since 1500 (London, 2001), pp. 43-65.

by Lynn Botelho