Celibate and Childless Men in Power

Introduction: Celibate and Childless Men Placed into a Shared Focus: Ruling Eunuchs and Bishops Between the Intersections of Power, Networks, Sacredness and Gender

[Almut Höfert]

Part 1: Bishops and Eunuchs as Parts of the Ruling Elites

1. The Bishop in the Latin West 600–1100

[Julia Barrow]

2. Guarding the Harem, Protecting the State: Eunuchs in a Fourth/Tenth Century ʿAbbasid Court

[Nadia Maria El Cheikh]

3. Muʾnis al-Muẓaffar: An Exceptional Eunuch

[Hugh Kennedy]

4. Harem and Eunuchs: Liminality and Networks of Mughal Authority

[Ruby Lal]

Part 2: Networks and Kinships

5. Celibate, But Not Childless: Eunuch Military Dynasticism in Medieval China

[Michael Hoeckelmann]

6. Spiritual Heirs and Families: Episcopal Relatives in Early Medieval Francia

[Rachel Stone]

7. Eunuchs and the East India Company in North India

[Jessica Hinchy]

Part 3: Religious Authority and Sacredness

8. Physical and Symbolic Castration and the Holy Eunuch in Late Antiquity, Third to Sixth Centuries CE

[Mathew Kuefler]

9. Monastic Superiority, Episcopal Authority and Masculinity in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum

[Matthew M. Mesley]

10. The Chief Harem Eunuch of the Ottoman Empire: Servant of the Sultan, Servant of the Prophet

[Jane Hathaway]

Part 4: Gender and Masculinities

11. Byzantine Court Eunuchs and the Macedonian Dynastie (867–1056): Family, Power and Gender

[Shaun Tougher]

12. Eunuchs in the Fatimid Empire: Ambiguities, Gender and Sacredness

[Serena Tolino]