Celibate and Childless Men in Power

Almut Höfert is Professor for Medieval Transcultural History at the University of Zurich.Matthew M. Mesley is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Huddersfield.Serena Tolino is Junior Professor for Islamic Studies at the University of Hamburg.

• Introduction: Celibate and Childless Men Placed into a Shared Focus: Ruling Eunuchs and Bishops Between the Intersections of Power, Networks, Sacredness and Gender[Almut Höfert]Part 1: Bishops and Eunuchs as Parts of the Ruling Elites1. The Bishop in the Latin West 600–1100[Julia Barrow]2. Guarding the Harem, Protecting the State: Eunuchs in a Fourth/Tenth Century ʿAbbasid Court[Nadia Maria El Cheikh]3. Muʾnis al-Muẓaffar: An Exceptional Eunuch[Hugh Kennedy]4. Harem and Eunuchs: Liminality and Networks of Mughal Authority[Ruby Lal]Part 2: Networks and Kinships5. Celibate, But Not Childless: Eunuch Military Dynasticism in Medieval China[Michael Hoeckelmann]6. Spiritual Heirs and Families: Episcopal Relatives in Early Medieval Francia[Rachel Stone]7. Eunuchs and the East India Company in North India [Jessica Hinchy]Part 3: Religious Authority and Sacredness8. Physical and Symbolic Castration and the Holy Eunuch in Late Antiquity, Third to Sixth Centuries CE[Mathew Kuefler]9. Monastic Superiority, Episcopal Authority and Masculinity in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum[Matthew M. Mesley]10. The Chief Harem Eunuch of the Ottoman Empire: Servant of the Sultan, Servant of the Prophet[Jane Hathaway]Part 4: Gender and Masculinities11. Byzantine Court Eunuchs and the Macedonian Dynastie (867–1056): Family, Power and Gender[Shaun Tougher]12. Eunuchs in the Fatimid Empire: Ambiguities, Gender and Sacredness[Serena Tolino]13. Under Pressure. Secular-Mendicant Polemics and the Construction of Chaste Masculinity Within the Thirteenth-Century Latin Church[Sita Steckel and Stephanie Kluge]

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