François Soyer

The 'Catalan Hermaphrodite' and the Inquisition (eBook, PDF)

Early Modern Sex and Gender on Trial

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

This book examines the life of Maria Duran, who was born with female genitalia, but was accused of being a man and subsequently put on trial for sorcery by the Portuguese Inquisition during the 18th century. François Soyer uses Maria's story to open a window onto the world of the experience of 'transing' gender, as well as the gendered attitudes and responses to the transgression of gendered norms that were adopted by churchmen, medical practitioners and ordinary lay men and women.

Drawing on the surviving (and staggeringly 736-page long) sorcery trial dossier, Soyer analyses the secretive life of an individual who actively and deliberately 'transed' gender. The dossier analysis enables insights into aspects of life so rarely recorded in early modern documents: the transgression of gender norms, transgressive sexuality and sexual violence in female religious institutions, in addition to the fears and debates about the power that the Devil could wield over the human body. The 'Catalan Hermaphrodite' and the Inquisition also reveals how the Inquisition gathered a number of doctors, surgeons and midwives to conduct careful examinations of Maria's body in general and genitals in particular. Their reports and the discussions of the inquisitors are discussed by Soyer and offer further fascinating evidence of attitudes towards sex and gender in early modern Europe.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK
• Seitenzahl: 208
• Erscheinungstermin: 19. Oktober 2023
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781350377608
• Artikelnr.: 69185113

Autorenporträt

François Soyer is Associate Professor at the University of New England, Australia. He is the author of several books, including Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories in the Early Modern Iberian World (2019) and Ambiguous Gender in Early Modern Spain and Portugal (2012). He is also the co-editor of Emotions in Europe 1517-1914: Revolutions, 1715-1789 (2021) and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Inhaltsangabe

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Chronology of the Life and Trial of
Maria Duran List of Abbreviations Maps Introduction Part I: The Remarkable
Life of Maria Duran 1. The Fugitive Wife from a Small Village in the
Pyrenees 2. Maria Becomes a Soldier 3. Maria Duran Travels to Lisbon 4. Sex
and Suspicion in the Recolhimentos of Lisbon 5. The Nuns and Novices of Our
Lady of Paradise 6. Enter the Inquisition 7. Maria on Trial 8. "A Real
Woman and Not a Hermaphrodite": The Anatomical Examination of Maria Duran
9. Torture, Verdict and Punishment 10. Maria on Display: the Auto-da-fé of
21 June 1744 Part II: The Maria Duran Mystery: Transgressive Sexuality,
Transing Gender and Gender Performativity in the Trial of Maria Duran
Epilogue Bibliography Index