Francesca Ash

Thesis title:

Gender-Neutrality and Gender-Fluidity in Old English Literature

This dissertation questions what constitutes man and woman, textually, from an early medieval English viewpoint. With a particular focus on Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, this work sets presentations of gender in Old English prose hagiographies against their social and religious backgrounds, considering audience, Latin sources, and patristic influences. By reconstructing gender paradigms through textual evidence found in Old English prose hagiographies, this dissertation separates present-day biases to facilitate readings of Old English hagiographies that are independent of the boundaries of heteronormative and binary gender.

Research Area

Languages and Literature
Medieval Literature

Publications

Francesca Ash, ‘Understanding the Old English Poetic Body: An Examination of Corporeal Compounds’, English: The Journal of the English Association (Oxford University Press, 2025)

Conferences

International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England (Heinrich Heine University, 2025)
- 'Monastic Communities and Gender in Ælfric's Life of Saint Eugenia and the Anonymous Life of Saint Euphrosyne'
Ælfric's Afterlives: Copying, Editing, Studying, Teaching and Remembering the Most Prolific Author of Old English (Leiden University, 2025)
- 'A History of Gender Scholarship and Ælfric's Lives of Saints'
Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (University of Cambridge, 2024)
- 'Physical and Spiritual "Wellness" in Ælfric of Eynsham's Lives of Saints'
Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland Annual Meeting (Edgehill University, 2024)
- Lightning Talk: 'Gender Boundaries in Ælfric of Eynsham's Lives of Saints'

Public Engagement & Impact

2024/25 University of Birmingham M4C Student Advisory Forum Representative