Document Type
Article
Peer Reviewed
1
Abstract
This article analyzes the intersection of the anti-Judaic and gendered motifs presented in English theologian and preacher Odo of Cheriton’s (d. 1246–1247) sermon for the tenth Sunday after the Holy Trinity. The sermon features an exemplum that is a distorted reinterpretation of a story originally found in Jewish historian Flavius Josephus’s Bellum iudaicum, which describes the siege and fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. In one memorable passage Josephus tells how a Jewish woman named Mary loses her mind because of the hardships of the siege and hunger, kills and roasts her baby boy, and eats it. Yet Odo of Cheriton relied upon Pseudo-Hegesippus’s fourth-century Latin version, which strips all the compassionate elements from Josephus’s story about Mary and presents it as evidence of the inhumanity of the Jews. In juxtaposing homiletic depictions of the cannibalistic Mary and the Virgin Mary, we illustrate the exemplum’s role in defining gender and then queering it to maintain the gendered power structure and interfaith hierarchies of medieval Christianity. We suggest that Odo emphasized misogynistic images of the threatening and uncontrollable powers of motherhood as a tool to reinforce anti-Judaic messages for his Christian audiences.
Acknowledgements
This article is part of the Special Issue, titled, “Intersections of Gender and Genres in Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” Research for this article was conducted within the framework of the research project, “Writing Religious, Transcultural, and Gender Identities and Alterities in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean,” financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Universidades, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación y la Unión Europa, ref. no. PGC2018-093472-B-C32 (2019-2022) and (RELGEND II), ref.: PID2022-137836NB-C32, MCIN/aei/10.13039/501100011033/“ERDF”.
Keywords
Odo of Cheriton, Christian anti-Judaic Preaching, Bellum iudaicum, gender and intersectionality, femininity, motherhood, Jewish women, Jewish minorities, exemplum
Recommended Citation
Hanska, Jussi and Katajala-Peltomaa, Sari "“Softer Than a Woman?" Gendered Images in Odo of Cheriton’s Anti-Judaic Sermon." Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality 61, No. 2 (2026)
