What Your "Moder" Gave You:
Fears and Fantasies of Maternal Heredity in Medieval England
Friday, March 24 at 5:00 pm (VIRTUAL)
In a strongly patriarchal society like medieval England, reproduction was meant to reinforce likeness between father and son. While medieval men might have wished to pretend otherwise, mothers, too, had tremendous impact on their children. Join us as Dr. Samantha Seal explores medieval fears about the feminine influence on children, using examples from medieval romance and the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, in which mothers subvert fathers’ biological connection with “their” sons, bestowing their own maternal traits — magic and monstrosity, holiness and hereditary power — and challenging which sex was more powerful.
