Feminine and Jewish Discrimination "Bleeding" into the Medieval Era

Feminine and Jewish Discrimination "Bleeding" into the Medieval Era

During the Middle Ages, differences between men and women were established through physiological capabilities, such as men producing sperm and women producing menstrual blood. According to Galen, a man who claimed to be an authority on the female body, women were incomplete and deformed versions of men. Women’s ovaries and menstrual blood were thought to be crude mimics of a man’s testicles and sperm. This idea was based on the thought that women did not receive enough heat in the womb, preventing them from fully developing into men who received plenty of heat and were the perfect form of humanity. The notion of woman being a lesser man was integrated into many tales written in the Medieval era, one such tale being Beroul’s Tristan. In this story, Beroul utilizes female menstruation as a form of othering, degrading the leper Ivan as simultaneously feminine and Jewish.

Under Galen’s belief that women were deformed versions of men, a parallel can be drawn between Ivan the Leper and women. Leprosy is a disease that causes deformation of the body through loss of body parts, such as an arm or leg. This disease can be connected to women because of their incomplete bodily construction, i.e. their inability to have testicles and sperm. These missing body parts portrayed women as deformed as well, and since both leprosy and being a woman were seen as deformities, there is a connection between Ivan and the female body. Such a connection allows for the ridicule of Ivan, especially in the manner of how he is killed.

Ivan, the leper to whom Queen Isolde is given as a form of punishment for sleeping with another man, is abruptly put in his place by Tristan and Gorvenal who end up saving the Queen. As recited in the story, “Gorvenal indeed, snatching up an oak sapling, crashed it on Ivan’s head till his blood ran down to his misshapen feet” (Beroul). Notice here that blood ran from Ivan’s head down to his feet. This occurrence could invoke imagery of menstruation because the blood is running down Ivan’s body and presumably down his thighs and lower legs. Ivan’s bleeding mixed with his deformities mirrors the biological and conceptual ideas thought about women in the Medieval era since women bled between their legs and were “deformed” men.

Perhaps if we examined this a little more, we might notice how Ivan’s bleeding is reminiscent of the notion that Jewish men menstruate. It was believed that Jewish men were not fully formed either, and because of this they would menstruate from their anus or even their penis. Such a thought lumps Jews right in there with the grossness of women and demonstrates a form of othering that Christian males would often use back in the Middle Ages. This othering could certainly have been utilized when depicting Ivan because he noticeably bleeds from his head. In this case the word head may be representing the head of a penis instead of the cranium, meaning that Ivan would not only be deformed like a woman, but also bleeding from his male genitalia like a Jewish man.

Whether Beroul was actually attempting to other Ivan as female and Jewish can be debated, but textual evidence along with the prevalent theories about women during the Medieval era seem to point to the conclusion that he was.