Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• FITZGERALD, JILL M.

Titel

ANGELUS PACIS: A LITURGICAL MODEL FOR THE MASCULINE 'FÆLE FRIĐOWEBBA' IN CYNEWULF'S "ELENE"

Ist Teil von

• Medium aevum, 2014-01, Vol.83 (2), p.189-209

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In conceptualizing the peace-weaver as not stricdy feminine and allowing Constantine to play a crucial part in bringing about God's design for unity between the earthly and heavenly kingdoms, Cynewulf resignifies the performance of peace-weaving as a role available to men and women alike. [...]through incorporating the roles of diplomat and guardian of safe passage more explicitly into his peace-weaver, Cynewulf thereby spiritualizes the secular logic of feminine peace-weaving. In her examination of virgin martyrs, Trilling finds a correlation between saintly women and peace-weavers wherein social life is 'predicated on bonds that run between men through women's bodies ... the very fabric of society depends on the exchangeability of the female body, and that exchange can bear spiritual as well as social fruit'.77 Cynewulf's depiction of Constantine's role in his own process of conversion, and of the masculine peace-weaver's in Constantine's, creates a mechanism of salvation independent of the exchange of the female body through the mediation of the angel of peace.