Gender, Nation, and Empire in Music for St. Katherine of Alexandria, 1050-1400

FAIN: FT-286570-22

James Joseph Blasina
Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390)

Research and writing leading to a book about liturgical music written in honor of St. Katherine of Alexandria in Normandy, England, and Italy, and its subsequent dissemination throughout Europe and West Asia, from 1050 to 1400.

In seeking to clarify the widespread popularity of St. Katherine of Alexandria in the fourteenth century, my monograph investigates chant written in honor of the saint during the earliest stages of her cult, three centuries earlier. Hitherto neglected musical sources reveal new details about paths of cultic transmission, those who revered her, and the reasons for which she was appealing. This project considers three distinct musical traditions that evince the gendered and political factors that impacted cultic embedment. Representation of Katherine’s speech was deployed to reinforce state formation and imperialism in the name of Christian orthodoxy, but also gave voice to expressions of gendered dissent not evident elsewhere. This project grounds the widespread fourteenth-century popularity of St. Katherine’s cult in the social, political, and religious contexts of its first century.