Disguised Sanctity: The Motif of Female Cross-Dressing Saints from Eastern Hagiographies to Western Literary Traditions

Objective

DiSCuS – Disguised Sanctity: Cross-cultural Saints and Cultural Transfer in the Medieval Mediterranean explores how stories of female saints who disguised themselves as men to enter monastic life travelled across cultures and languages in the Middle Ages. Originating in Eastern Christian traditions (Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic), these narratives spread to Latin and Romance literatures, where they were reinterpreted within new social and theological contexts, within and beyond hagiography. They offer a unique lens to study how ideas of gender, identity, and authority were negotiated across the Mediterranean. The project has three objectives: (1) to identify and map all known manuscript witnesses of these narratives in Eastern and Western traditions; (2) to produce OA digital editions and English translations of the main texts, presented in a synoptic format for direct comparison; (3) to develop a comparative model explaining how such motifs were adapted, re-used, and transformed across time and cultures. DiSCuS combines philology, history, gender studies, anthropology, and DH, ensuring a strongly interdisciplinary approach. The research will take place across three institutions: Yale (Eastern hagiography and manuscript studies), Helwan (Arabic and Coptic traditions), and the University of Genoa (Romance philology, digital editing, and reintegration). This three-way collaboration will guarantee knowledge exchange, innovative methodologies, and long-term sustainability. By producing the first comprehensive corpus of cross-dressing saints and making it freely accessible, DiSCuS contributes to Horizon Europe Cluster 2 (“Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society”) and to the UN 2030 Agenda (Quality Education, Reduced Inequalities). The project will create durable resources for scholars, teachers, and cultural institutions, while engaging the wider public in rethinking the Middle Ages as a period of cultural interaction and diversity.