Constructing and deconstructing the Gender:
Nature, Women and Monsters
In Psychomachia’s illustrations, the body is hardly ever disclosed and revealed as attributes defining the virtues and vices as feminine and masculine are hidden beneath the clothing. Gender identification of a virtue or vice keeps changing and transforming from one scene to another. The changing of details destabilise gender categories and questions the viewer. Instability and mutability are key concepts in the process of deconstructing stereotypical roles and heteronormativity.
In these Anglo-Saxon illustrations, the stylization of the body takes place in the repetitions of it across the images and gender is performed through actions.
Judith Butler’s definition of performativity as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame” is essential to understand how gender binary has been constructed also through medieval illustrations. Nonconformist illustrations destabilise the expected depictions of gender and medieval societal expectations, contributing to the creation of narrative tensions.
The traditional wall between female and male action is overturned: women, whether embodying vice or virtue, are militant, encompassing the masculine role of warrior. However, the female virtue often turns out to have more masculine attributes as victory approaches, while the ambiguous or queer vice is feminized as defeat and death get closer. In many death scenes, a vice turns out to be feminine and it is often surrounded by floral decorations. As in the existential dialectic of misogyny, this is another example where mind and reason are associated with masculinity and the ability to act, while body and nature are the mirror of femininity.
Libido attacks Pudicitia
Apart from the weapons each hold, the only difference in appearance is the hairstyle. Pudicitia’s hair pinned up underneath her helmet, while Libido’s hair trails down her back.
In this scene, the representation of gender is ambiguous.
Libido's death
The floral decoration becomes overwhelming when the vice falls backwards, as underlying her feminine and wild nature. Without surprise, when Pudicitia wins, her enemy’s femininity is highlighted.
Male figures
As seen in established traditions, men are dressed in long tunics , or in short tunics with leggings. They were usually associated with Germanic or ecclesiastical dress.
Female figures
Despite being ambiguous, women are shown with long gowns, long hair, hair pulled back or hair in a veil, a cloak clasped on both shoulders or in the centre.
Avaritia
A breast-bearing Avaritia (Greed) is portrayed as a mother but is rendered in masculine terms in other scenes. Avaritia’s portrait reminds the audience to starve vice rather than nurture it, and calls into question how gender may change the understanding of the vice.
Fluidity and Avaritia
Avaritia's representation in the manuscript is intetionally fluid. Avaritia’s changing gender overturns constructs around motherhood and introduces damnation as something that can be nurtured.
Gender binary
In portraying Pax and her troops’ victory against a series of vices, gender is stringently defined. The figures perform the gender of heteronormative patriarchy. As warriors, Pax’s troops appear male.
Religious Women
The same figures are shown rejoicing and appear female. The Psychomachia suggests that individual female soldiers, and not groups of females, are an exception to the male stereotype of the warrior. Groups of women therefore should simply pray and rejoice.
