The Preudomme

Gender expectations were a major part of the medieval social habitus, and they were conveyed by an idealized superior male (called in French a preudomme, in German the biderbe man), a concept applied across the social spectrum to laity and clergy alike and the subject of conduct manuals. The preudomme offers in fact a contemporary and widely accepted European medieval definition of masculinity, so far ignored by gender historians. He was very much crafted to assist success in courtly society. This chapter defines and analyses the concept and offers a new avenue into the study of medieval gender which to date has concentrated on data drawn from clerical sources.