Mediterranean Crossings: Sexual Transgressions in Islam and Christianity (10th–18th Centuries). Umberto Grassi, ed. Viella Historical Research 18. Rome: Viella, 2020. 170 pp. €30.

Abstract

are discussed in the book’s second chapter. Both men and women, for instance, participated in pilgrimages, yet the length of the journey tended to be codified by sex. While men were permitted to make long journeys, women were encouraged to visit local shrines. The relationship between women and the practice of worshiping saints, particularly with the help of wax votives, prayers, fasting, and/or chants, is also examined. Men, by contrast, used their positions at work and at home to facilitate their religious experiences, namely through concepts of independence, authority, and responsibility. Secular and clerical masculinities are also discussed, along with the concepts of male chastity, willpower, and role-twisting, further queering traditional gender norms. The third and final section examines performed religion and gender in the religious sphere, spanning sainthood and episodes of spiritual ecstasy to demonology and witchcraft. According to Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo, early modern bodies appeared to be dualistic entities, forced onto a continuum that stretched from holy to diabolical and understood as vessels that could connect with God or the devil. As a result, one’s corporeality, especially in relation to male and female monasticism, needed to be continuously monitored and controlled. The hierarchical distinction between virginity and chastity is similarly explored. Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo also discuss the rise of demonology and witchcraft cases in fifteenth-century Europe. They caution against an oversimplification of these events and note that cases varied by geography, time period, dominant local religion, and source material. In territories located in the northeast of Europe—like Finland, for instance—the popular image of the witch was male, as men were convicted at higher rates in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although the vast range of topics can leave the reader feeling a bit overwhelmed at times, Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo provide an extremely thoughtful and convincing analysis based on archival sources from an assortment of geographical locations. Gender categories most certainly existed, yet Katajala-Peltomaa and Toivo demonstrate their consistent instability, encouraging historians to look more carefully at the complex systems used to negotiate identities in the lived experience of many distinct historical communities.