We hardly scratched the surface of the topic, though the contributions were excellent and we learned a lot. Thank you all. And to Jeffrey, our next host, my special thanks and very best wishes. The discussion will range over the possibilities of medieval manhood, and will tend toward plurality and multivocality rather than the kind of specious unity that tendto haunt the term. The Internet has enabled new bonds of collegiality to be formed, and I'd like to see as many people participate in and take advantage of this electronic forum as possible.
Masculinity is simply a cover term under which an entire array of gendered behaviors are clustered.
Rethinking gender seems to me an urgent contemporary imperative, with wide implications in the world outside academia's walls. A word on bibliography. Essays concerned with masculinity in the Middle Ages are rather scarce - hence the importance of this discussion. Besides scattered articles, I know of no good introduction to the subject, or collection on the theme. I'm open to suggestions for further reading.