Celibate and Childless Men Content

CELIBATE AND
CHILDLESS MEN
IN POWER
RULING EUNUCHS AND BISHOPS
IN THE PREMODERN WORLD
EDITED BY
ALMUT HÖFERT, MATTHEW M. MESLEY,
AND SERENA TOLINO
Celibate and Childless Men in Power
This book explores a striking common feature of pre-modern ruling systems

on a global scale: the participation of childless and celibate men as inte-
gral parts of the elites. In bringing these two different groups of ruling men
together, this collection shows that the integration of men who were norma-
tively or physically excluded from biological fatherhood offered pre-modern
dynasties the potential to use different reproduction patterns. The shared
focus on ruling eunuchs and bishops also reveals that these men had a specific
position at the intersection of four fields: power, social dynamics, sacredness
and gender/masculinities. The 13 chapters present case studies on clerics in
Medieval Europe and court eunuchs in the Middle East, Byzantium, India
and China. They analyse how these men in their different frameworks acted
as politicians, participated in social networks and provided religious author-
ity, and they discuss their masculinities. Taken together, this collection
sheds light on how the political arena before the modern nation-state of the
nineteenth century excluded these unmarried men from the circles of politi-
cal power, and it offers a new perspective on pre-modern global history.
Almut Höfert is Professor for Medieval Transcultural History at the

University of Zürich.
Matthew M. Mesley is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Huddersfield.
Serena Tolino is Junior Professor for Islamic Studies at the University of

Hamburg.
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Celibate and Childless
Men in Power
Ruling Eunuchs and Bishops in
the Pre-Modern World
Edited by Almut Höfert, Matthew

M. Mesley and Serena Tolino
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First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Almut Höfert, Matthew M. Mesley
and Serena Tolino; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Almut Höfert, Matthew M. Mesley and Serena Tolino to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[CIP data]
ISBN: 978-1-4724-5340-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-56665-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
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Contents
List of contributors vii

Preface xiii
Introduction: Celibate and childless men placed into a Shared

Focus: Ruling eunuchs and bishops between the intersections
of power, networks, sacredness and gender 1
ALMUT HÖFERT
PART I
Bishops and eunuchs as parts of the ruling elites 41
1 The bishop in the Latin West 600–1100 43

JULIA BARROW
2 Guarding the harem, protecting the state: Eunuchs

in a fourth/tenth-century Abbasid court 65
NADIA MARIA EL CHEIKH
3 Muʾnis al-Muẓaffar: An exceptional eunuch 79

HUGH KENNEDY
4 Harem and eunuchs: Liminality and networks of

Mughal authority 92
RUBY LAL
PART II
Networks and kinships 109
5 Celibate, but not childless: Eunuch military dynasticism

in medieval China 111
MICHAEL HOECKELMANN
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vi Contents
6 Spiritual heirs and families: Episcopal relatives in early
medieval Francia 129
RACHEL STONE
7 Eunuchs and the East India Company in north India 149

JESSICA HINCHY
PART III
Religious authority and sacredness 175
8 Physical and symbolic castration and the holy eunuch

in late antiquity, third to sixth centuries CE 177
MATHEW KUEFLER
9 Monastic superiority, episcopal authority and masculinity

in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum 192
MATTHEW M. MESLEY
10 The chief harem eunuch of the Ottoman empire: Servant

of the sultan, servant of the Prophet 211
JANE HATHAWAY
PART IV
Gender and masculinities 227
11 Byzantine court eunuchs and the Macedonian dynasty

(867–1056): Family, power and gender 229
SHAUN TOUGHER
12 Eunuchs in the Fatimid empire: Ambiguities,

gender and sacredness 246
SERENA TOLINO
13 Under pressure: Secular–mendicant polemics and the

construction of chaste masculinity within the
thirteenth-century Latin church 268
SITA STECKEL AND STEPHANIE KLUGE
Bibliography 297
Index of eunuchs 345
Index of bishops 347
General index 349
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CELIBATE AND

This book explores a striking common feature of pre-modern ruling systems

Almut Höfert is Professor for Medieval Transcultural History at the

Matthew M. Mesley is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Huddersfield.

Serena Tolino is Junior Professor for Islamic Studies at the University of

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Edited by Almut Höfert, Matthew

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List of contributors vii

Introduction: Celibate and childless men placed into a Shared

1 The bishop in the Latin West 600–1100 43

2 Guarding the harem, protecting the state: Eunuchs

3 Muʾnis al-Muẓaffar: An exceptional eunuch 79

4 Harem and eunuchs: Liminality and networks of

5 Celibate, but not childless: Eunuch military dynasticism

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7 Eunuchs and the East India Company in north India 149

8 Physical and symbolic castration and the holy eunuch

9 Monastic superiority, episcopal authority and masculinity

10 The chief harem eunuch of the Ottoman empire: Servant

11 Byzantine court eunuchs and the Macedonian dynasty

12 Eunuchs in the Fatimid empire: Ambiguities,

13 Under pressure: Secular–mendicant polemics and the

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