RT Conference Proceedings
T1 Transvestite Holy Women in Early and Proto-Byzantine Christianity
T2 Les saintes travesties dans le christianisme primitif et proto-byzantin
A1 González Palacios, Héctor
K1 Travestismo
K1 Historia medieval
K1 Hagiografía cristiana
K1 Mujeres en el cristianismo
K1 Cristianismo
AB Transvestite nuns is a really common topic in Byzantine hagiographicalliterature. The stories of saints like Marina, Matrona of Perge, AnastasiaPatrikia or Euphrosyne of Alexandria, among many others, as well as inother situations in hagiographies in which women dress up like men (i.e. inSaint Tarasius Life, when a group of women in disguise to enter the saint'stomb) reflect a common practice during Late Antiquity. Although it has beenstudied as a peculiar case of Byzantine society or in a Medieval context, Ibelieve that this is the result of a long process about the role of womenin society that starts in Classical Greece and Rome and hatchs out with thearrival of the new religions in the Mediterranean, specially Christianity.Dress in Antiquity does not only mean clothes, but identity: dressing as aman suppose the asuming of a maculine role or, at least, a denial offeminity (and what it involves: marriage, children, housekeeping...).Through cross-dressing and the renunciation of sexuality (another of theirclassical primary functions), these women were able to preach and convertas males, although they were not unanimously seing positively by theirpeers. Christianity in Late Antiquity and Proto-Byzantine Period allowedwomen an alternative discourse through asceticism, in which they couldassume an asexual masculine role. Asceticism meant a threat, especially inLate Antiquity, to classical patriarchal family, because chastity and itsconsecutive sanctity became a new element of prestige through which theindividual could arise. Christian transvestite Holy Women fought betweenfame and marginalisation, between the new models that radical forms ofChristianity proposed and the classical patriarchal ones that defendedother Christian leaders, like Saint Paul or Tertullian.
YR 2020
FD 2020-09-18
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/19798
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/19798
LA eng
NO Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech.
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 19 ene 2026