Medieval Studies Annual Lecture 2025

MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN WEEK 2025: Expanding our Horizons

Medieval Studies Annual Lecture 2025 – Edward Woodville’s Teeth: Warfare and Masculinity in the Late Middle Ages

Tuesday 8 April, 6pm-7:30pm – Co-Op Lecture Theatre (MB0312), Minerva Building, Brayford Campus, University of Lincoln
If you are planning to attend one of the performances, please register here: https://forms.office.com/e/hv0vrgDnJi

Medieval Studies Annual Lecture Speaker: Professor Katherine Lewis

Abstract:

In 1486, Edward Woodville (brother-in-law of Edward IV of England) joined the campaign being waged by Isabel of Castile and Fernando of Aragon against the Emirate of Granada. While scaling the walls of the town of Loja, Edward was struck by a rock thrown from the ramparts which smashed out his front teeth. This paper considers the gendered implications of Edward’s loss of teeth, by suggesting the impact which this injury had on Edward’s masculinity. Edward’s injury and accounts of reactions to it in contemporary chronicles are examined against the wider experience of medieval warfare and attitudes to physical injury and disfigurement.

Bio:

Professor Katherine Lewis is honorary chair at the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Lincoln. Her research focuses on medieval gender history. She has published on the cults of female saints, especially St Katherine of Alexandria and other virgin martyr saints, as well as on Margery Kempe, Chaucer’s Prioress and Robin Hood. She is the author of Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England (2013), and co-editor of Crusading and Masculinities (2019). Her research also encompasses medievalism, exploring modern depictions of medieval gender as both identity and experience.

Banner Image: from Anciennes chroniques d’Angleterre, by Jean de Wavrin, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 77, fol. 329v (public domain/BNF-Gallica).

Story submitted by Renee Ward
rward@lincoln.ac.uk