Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe.

Valerie R. Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe, The New Middle Ages 1, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 1991 (New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1996). xii + 201 pp. ISBN 0-8153-2369-7. $30.00.

These volumes are representative of Garland's new medieval series, which focuses particularly on gender and women's history; both contain a wealth of material relating to the construction of gender in the medieval period. Hotchkiss takes the motif of cross-dressing as one that sheds light on understandings of both masculinity and femininity, while the essays edited by Cohen and Wheeler address numerous aspects of `becoming male'. Hotchkiss's study explores at once the authority gained by the female transvestite and the ways in which the choice to cross-dress supports the traditional hierarchy of the sexes. She considers the motif of cross-dressing in the early saints' lives and sets against this the strange historical example of Hildegund of Schonau, who entered a monastery disguised as a man, but died in her first year as a novice, killed, at least metaphorically, by her own womanhood. Cross-dressing confined to the cell finds a contrast in the more military example of Joan of Arc, whose need to adopt a male authority model Hotchkiss explores perceptively. The power of the idea of cross-dressing is most evident in the emergence of the myth of the female pope, a myth that plays on both fascination with and fear of the man-woman. In secular literature, cross-dressing is more overtly linked to ideas of sexual transgression: women cross-dress to discover or test their husbands' fidelity, while the motif forms part of the carnivalesque and often scurrilous and misogynist impact of the fabliaux. This work finds an interesting counterpart in Ad Putter's lively essay `Transvestite knights in medieval life and literature' (Cohen and Wheeler, pp. 279-302), which explores the way that cross-dressing can comically assert the masculinity of the great knights in Arthurian romance. Hotchkiss's study is most interesting in its revelation of the `tolerant view of ... transgression' (p. 12) and the interest in both sacred and secular female heroism in the medieval period, despite the endorsement of male authority represented by the act of cross-dressing. Hotchkiss's perceptive treatment of this topical theme makes the book as a whole seem slighter than its subject matter and range demand. More detailed exploration of the saints' lives and romances, and of the links between sexuality, eroticism, and disguise, would have been particularly welcome, while links to Renaissance comedy and romance beg to be made. More comparison with the dominant motif of male disguise and proof of identity, especially in romance texts, would also be fruitful.

If Hotchkiss's work is tantalizing in its suggestiveness and brevity, Wheeler and Cohen's collection of nineteen essays is overwhelming in copiousness and variety. Masculinity is broadly interpreted, to include subjects as distinct from each other as werewolves (Dunton-Downer), dog-men (Cohen), and the castrated Abelard (Irvine, Wheeler, Ferroul); transvestite knights (Putter) and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount (Goldstein); the `resistant' heroine of the Waltharius (Townsend) and monastic homosexuality (Frantzen); Jewish eunuchs (Wolfson) and pagan, emasculated enemies (Kruger); morris dancers and morality plays (Epp, Sponsler); and ChauCer's Pardoner and Miller (Burger, Sturges). Judith Butler's phrase `the materiality of the body' is the leitmotif of the book (see especially Smith, Uebel), and in these essays `becoming male' is the result of difference, transgression, and aberration; indeed, the book offers many examples of interrogation of `male authority' (p. xvi) and of its (re)construction, but almost no examination of the nature of traditional masculinity and its implications in literature and history. Such basic questions have been replaced by the opacity of contemporary theories of body and gender, and at times the `polysemous, relational and oppositional' quality of the subject seems to obscure its promised `specificity', at least in terms of its place within the broader study of medieval literature and history (p. xviii). Indeed, the `transdisciplinary' nature of this Garland series means that this collection, much more noticeably than Hotchkiss's compact study, ranges very widely over period, place, and genre, yet offers almost no contrasts or conclusions in terms of chronological or generic development. In both cases, more cultural specificity might have resulted in more cohesive and conclusive works on provocative subjects.

CORINNE SAUNDERS

Durham