Jesus’ Side Wound Gender and Theological Perspectives on the Divine Body in the Middle Ages

Pages: 48 - 68

Language: eng

The topic of the body, gender and sexuality as part of the discourse of the High and Late Middle Ages has been the subject of research by Western and Western-oriented scholars for several decades, and visual culture has been an integral part of it. The body of Christ, divine and human, mortified and resurrected, painful, sacrificial, procreative and sexual, is a pillar among the visual representations of the Christian Middle Ages. The vision of his body, present and past, is the subject of the present paper, which thematizes the intersections between sacred and erotic seeing/reading/contemplation, et cetera, of Christ’s corporeality as a whole or its individual parts. It is Christ’s side wound that presents a rich area for the interpretation of the associations and practices that a medieval viewer might have adopted towards the image of the saviour. The strict heteronormative subtraction of the sacred body is thus confronted with visions of medieval monasticism and priesthood, metaphors and models of identification, private and lay piety, or apotropaic functions that offer a particular view of Christ’s body as transcending gender. In contrast to medieval thought, however, we also work with the vision of today’s viewer, whose view of ancient art may be queer. By juxtaposing such perspectives, we aim to take research in new directions in the study of medievalism – towards a queer medievalism.

Štrbo, D. 2025. Jesus’ Side Wound Gender and Theological Perspectives on the Divine Body in the Middle Ages. In ARS, vol. 58, no.1, pp. 48-68. 0044-9008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/ars-2025-0004

Štrbo, D. (2025). Jesus’ Side Wound Gender and Theological Perspectives on the Divine Body in the Middle Ages. ARS, 58(1), 48-68. 0044-9008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/ars-2025-0004