Table Of ContentTHE NEW MIDDLE AGES
BONNIE WHEELER, Series Editor
The New Middle Agesis a series dedicated to transdisciplinary studies of medieval cultures,
with particular emphasis on recuperating women’s history and on feminist and gender analyses.
This peer-reviewed series includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections.
PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE:
Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Chaucer’s Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies
Patronage, and Piety of Discourse
edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly by Robert S. Sturges
The Ethics of Nature in the Middle Ages: On Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on
Boccaccio’s Poetaphysics Medieval European and Heian Japanese Women
by Gregory B. Stone Writers
edited by Barbara Stevenson and
Presence and Presentation: Women in the Cynthia Ho
Chinese Literati Tradition
by Sherry J. Mou Engaging Words: The Culture of Reading in the
Later Middle Ages
The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: by Laurel Amtower
Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century
France Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of
by Constant J. Mews Investiture
edited by Stewart Gordon
Understanding Scholastic Thought with
Foucault Representing Rape in Medieval and Early
by Philipp W. Rosemann Modern Literature
edited by Elizabeth Robertson and
For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de Christine M. Rose
Burgh
by Frances A. Underhill Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in
the Middle Ages
Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman and
the Middle Ages Pamela Sheingorn
edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela
Jane Weisl Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages:
Ocular Desires
Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon by Suzannah Biernoff
England
by Mary Dockray-Miller Listen, Daughter: The Speculum Virginum and
the Formation of Religious Women in the
Listening to Heloise: The Voice of a Twelfth- Middle Ages
Century Woman edited by Constant J. Mews
edited by Bonnie Wheeler
Science, the Singular, and the Question of
The Postcolonial Middle Ages Theology
edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen by Richard A. Lee, Jr.
Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to Eloquent Virgins: From Thecla to Joan of Arc
the Renaissance by Maud Burnett McInerney
edited by Thelma S. Fenster and
Clare A. Lees The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative
Adventures in Contemporary Culture
Malory’sMorte D’ Arthur:Remaking by Angela Jane Weisl
Arthurian Tradition
by Catherine Batt Capetian Women
edited by Kathleen D. Nolan
The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval
Religious Literature Joan of Arc and Spirituality
edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, edited by Ann W. Astell and
Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren Bonnie Wheeler
Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle The Texture of Society: Medieval Women in the
Ages: Image Worship and Idolatry in England Southern Low Countries
1350–1500 edited by Ellen E. Kittell and
by Kathleen Kamerick Mary A. Suydam
Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, and Charlemagne’s Mustache: And Other Cultural
Literary Structure in Late Medieval England Clusters of a Dark Age
by Elizabeth Scala by Paul Edward Dutton
Creating Community with Food and Drink in Troubled Vision: Gender, Sexuality, and Sight
Merovingian Gaul in Medieval Text and Image
by Bonnie Effros edited by Emma Campbell and
Robert Mills
Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses:
Image and Empire Queering Medieval Genres
by Anne McClanan by Tison Pugh
Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Sacred Place in Early Medieval Neoplatonism
Objects, Texts, Images by L. Michael Harrington
edited by Désirée G. Koslin and Janet
The Middle Ages at Work
Snyder
edited by Kellie Robertson and
Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady Michael Uebel
edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John
Carmi Parsons Chaucer’s Jobs
by David R. Carlson
Isabel La Católica, Queen of Castile:
Critical Essays Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on
edited by David A. Boruchoff Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity
by John M. Ganim
Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses of Male
Same-Sex Desire in the Fourteenth Century Queer Love in the Middle Ages
by Richard E. Zeikowitz by Anna Klosowska
Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, Performing Women in the Middle Ages: Sex,
and Politics in England 1225–1350 Gender, and the Iberian Lyric
by Linda E. Mitchell by Denise K. Filios
Necessary Conjunctions: The Social Self in The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the
Medieval England Medieval Religious Renewal Movement
by David Gary Shaw by Patricia Ranft
Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages On the Purification of Women: Churching in
edited by Kathryn Starkey and Northern France,1100–1500
Horst Wenzel by Paula M. Rieder
Medieval Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Jeremy Writers of the Reign of Henry II: Twelve
duQuesnay Adams, Volumes 1 and 2 Essays
edited by Stephanie Hayes-Healy edited by Ruth Kennedy and
Simon Meecham-Jones
False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later
Middle English Literature Lonesome Words: The Vocal Poetics of the
by Elizabeth Allen Old English Lament and theAfrican-American
Blues Song
Ecstatic Transformation: On the Uses of Alterity
by M.G. McGeachy
in the Middle Ages
by Michael Uebel Performing Piety: Musical Culture in Medieval
English Nunneries
Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early
by Anne Bagnell Yardley
Modern Cultures: New Essays
edited by Lawrence Besserman The Flight from Desire: Augustine and Ovid to
Chaucer
Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages
by Robert R. Edwards
edited by Jane Chance and
Alfred K. Siewers Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature:
Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D.Kirk
Representing Righteous Heathens in Late
edited by Bonnie Wheeler
Medieval England
by Frank Grady
Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles,
Byzantine Dress: Representations of Secular Clothwork,and Other CulturalImaginings
Dress in Eighth-to-Twelfth Century edited by E. Jane Burns
Painting
by Jennifer L. Ball Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France?:
The Case for St. Florent of Saumur
The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the by George Beech
‘Work’ of the Text in Medieval Britain,
1350–1500 Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the
by Kellie Robertson Middle Ages
by Erin L. Jordan
The Dogaressa of Venice, 1250–1500: Wife
and Icon Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in
by Holly S. Hurlburt Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles
by Jeremy Jerome Cohen
Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius,
Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the Medieval Go-betweens and Chaucer’s
Absence of Things Pandarus
by Eileen C. Sweeney by Gretchen Mieszkowski
The Surgeon in Medieval English Literature The Medieval Chastity Belt: A Myth-Making
by Jeremy J. Citrome Process
by Albrecht Classen
Temporal Circumstances: Form and History in
the Canterbury Tales
Claustrophilia: The Erotics of Enclosure in
by Lee Patterson
Medieval Literature
Erotic Discourse and Early English Religious by Cary Howie
Writing
by Lara Farina Cannibalism in High Medieval English
Literature
Odd Bodies and Visible Ends in Medieval by Heather Blurton
Literature
by Sachi Shimomura The Drama of Masculinity and Medieval
English Guild Culture
On Farting: Language and Laughter in the
by Christina M. Fitzgerald
Middle Ages
by Valerie Allen
Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood
Women and Medieval Epic: Gender,Genre, and by Holly A. Crocker
the Limits of Epic Masculinity
edited by Sara S. Poor and Jana K. The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women
Schulman by Jane Chance
Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema
Manmade Marvels in Medieval Culture and
edited by Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh
Literature
by Scott Lightsey
Allegory and Sexual Ethics in the High
Middle Ages
by Noah D. Guynn
England and Iberia in the Middle Ages,
12th-15th Century: Cultural, Literary, and
Political Exchanges
edited by María Bullón-Fernández
MANMADE MARVELS IN
MEDIEVAL CULTURE AND
LITERATURE
Scott Lightsey
MANMADEMARVELSINMEDIEVALCULTUREANDLITERATURE
Copyright © Scott Lightsey, 2007.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-1-4039-7441-9
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quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2007 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-53502-6 ISBN 978-0-230-60564-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230605640
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For Debra
If in his Studie he hath so much care
To’hang all old strange things, let his wife beware
——John Donne, The Antiquary
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CONTENTS
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction:Clever Devices 1
1. By Angel’s Hand: “Piers Plowman” and London’s
Crowning Gesture 27
2. Chaucer and the Culture of Commodified Mirabilia 55
3. Chaucer’s Body: The Subject of Technology 81
4. Monstrous Body Politic(s): Alexander in
theConfessio Amantis 107
5. Craft and Idolatry: “Sotylle”Devices in Mandeville’s Travels 137
Conclusion: Marvelous Craft 159
Notes 163
Bibliography 191
Index 205
