The Cross-Dressing Female Saints in Wynkyn de Worde’s 1495 Edition of the «Vitas Patrum»

This book presents a study and a first modern text edition of the lives of women cross-dressers in the late Middle English Vitas Patrum, translated by William Caxton, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495. The text edition is accompanied by a critical commentary, glossary and indices. The main study provides an extensive analysis of the motif of cross-dressing in the lives. A constellation of questions is addressed: why do the women take up the male disguise? What were the Church’s and medieval theologians’ views on pretending to be a member of the opposite sex? Can, as has often been argued by feminist scholars, these cross-dressing women saints be seen as early feminists? Two further studies give insights into the prospective reading public of the 1495 edition and the woodcut illustrations appended to the vitae.