Antonia Anstatt

Research Topic

Holy Couples, Memory, and Gender in the Middle Ages

Supervisor: Professor Julia Smith

My doctoral research focuses on the central and late medieval cults of holy couples: saints who were married to another saint. Using a variety of sources from the period between the saints' deaths and the Reformation, I am investigating the construction and interaction of sainthood and gender in these cases, and how the marriages were perceived within the cults and helped shape them. From there, I am hoping to gain wider insights into the perception of marriage and family, gendered sainthood, and chaste marriages in the Middle Ages. The couples I am researching are Emperor Henry II (d. 1024) and Cunigunde of Luxembourg (d. 1033); Landgrave Louis IV of Thuringia (d. 1227) and Elizabeth of Hungary (d. 1231); and Count Elzear of Sabran (d. 1323) and Dauphine of Puimichel (d. 1360).

My wider research interests include religious, cultural, and gender history in western Europe (especially Germany, France, and England) in the central and later Middle Ages.

I came to Oxford in 2019 for my Master of Philosophy in Medieval History. Before that, I completed a Bachelor of Arts in History and Management at the Ruhr-University Bochum, which included semesters abroad in Shanghai and Seville.

My doctoral research is supported by the 'Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes'.