Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages at The Met Cloisters an illuminating counternarrative to pop culture depictions of the Middle Ages, dominated by cisgender regulations, gender-normative binaries, and exclusively heteronormative sexualities.
The 13th through 15th centuries were a time of increased persecution of anyone who defied traditional gender and sexual standards. Sodomia became an all encompassing sin for any sex act that was non-procreative or any gender expression that defied Biblical binaries. But, as the exhibition’s objects demonstrate, Medieval art tells a far more complicated story: Instead of strict gender roles, people in the Middle Ages performed and identified gender through actions.
For instance, the German textile “Two Riddles of the Queen of Sheba” (ca. 1490–1500) captures the moment the queen asks King Solomon two interrelated riddles: How can one tell a boy and girl apart if they are dressed the same? Similarly, how can a real and an artificial flower be distinguished?
Unknown artist, “Two Riddles of the Queen of Sheba” (German, c. 1490-1500)
It depends on which one the bee flies toward, and how they pick apples: The girl will always kneel when gathering them, whereas the boy will not. Dress is not a timeless indicator of identity, the king asserts — fittingly, given that while his clothing differs greatly from contemporary examples of male dress, it does not change his identity. In the same vein, the two saints in the statue “Meeting of Saints Joachim and Anne at the Golden Gate” are clothed in strikingly similar gold flowing fabric.
Genderplay was, in fact, an essential part of Medieval religious art. Among a series of illuminated manuscripts displayed along the Cloisters’ walls is an illustration of “Saint Wilgefortis on the Cross” from a 14th-century book of hours. After praying to God to escape marriage to a pagan king, she was blessed with a beard that scared off the suitor. The image depicts the bearded saint’s crucifixion at the hands of her furious father, who had arranged the marriage. Another illustration portrays a haloed Saint Marinos kneeling in black a habit in front of other monks. Assigned female at birth, Marinos dressed and lived as a man throughout his adult life, only to be outed after his death — he is also depicted laying on his deathbed in the artwork.
Unknown artist, “Pair of Altar Angels” (French, c. 1275–1300)
In general, angels were depicted as androgynous, as seen in works such as the French 13th-century “Pair of Altar Angels” in the building’s chapel. Although Thomas Aquinas argued that angels do not assume physical bodies, he did believe that they do not conform to traditional gender binaries. In the sculpture, the figures are “courtly lovers with wavy hair, flowing robes, and gentle facial features,” the wall text explains. Like Saints Wilgefortis and Marinos, they reflect how Medieval artists visualized the divine — unknowable and non-corporeal — as transcending human constructs of gender.
Jesus served as the prototype for this approach. In a tempera and gold painting titled “Man of Sorrows,” blood gushes down Jesus’s naked torso post-resurrection. Although not explicitly visible in the piece, the wall text states that this side wound assumed traits that were traditionally coded as female, including “a lactating breast as well as a womb that gave birth to the Church.” “Many medieval artists and authors aligned in their thinking that Christ has female aspects,” the label notes.
A particularly yonic example is found in Bonne of Luxembourg’s prayer book. Historically, Christians were instructed to connect the suffering of Jesus’s crucifixion to child birth. Here, the wound’s resemblance to a vulva is unmistakable.
“The Wound of Christ” from the prayer book of Bonne of Luxembourg, Duchess of Normandy (before 1349)
As a result, Jesus’s body became a devotional and potentially eroticized object not only for lay people but also for religious women and men who entered into a mystical marriage with Christ. A 14th-century oak sculpture, “Christ and Saint John the Beloved,” reflects this narrative. Its portrayal of John the Baptist laying his head on Jesus’s shoulder is based on the belief that John had left his bride at the altar to pursue a spiritual marriage. The sculptor emphasizes the union by positioning the pair in the pose of Medieval couples, just as Mary and her cousin Elizabeth “join their right hands in a gesture resonant of a betrothal” in another walnut sculpture on display, “The Visitation.“
Other works on view are pointedly sensual or sexual. A particularly homoerotic wooden sculpture of Saint Sebastian, his hands tied behind his back before his martyrdom, prominently displays his rippling abs.
A raunchier example is a copper vessel titled “Aquamanile of Aristotle and Phyllis,” in which the latter rides the famed philosopher like a horse. Next to this work is a 15th-century copper alloy plate depicting a woman beating her husband’s bare buttocks. Both play on the Medieval joke of an assertive woman and submissive man. At the same time, they warn against the threats of women’s sexuality while also visualizing them in a position of sexual and social power.
Left: Unknown artist, “Plate with a woman beating her husband” (South Netherlandish, c. 1480); right: Unknown artist, “Aquamanile of Aristotle and Phyllis” (South Netherlandish, late 14th or early 15th century)
Although there is more to explore about the intersection of gender and sexuality in the Middle Ages, this exhibition is a powerful entry into modern queer and trans Medieval research. It opens the door for LGBTQ+ people to find ancestors and art in an unexpected place, the Catholic Church, and offers critical historical background for people engaged in the growing movement to locate queerness within the visual language of Medieval Catholicism and divinity more broadly.
Spectrum of Desire speaks to the existence of queer and trans people in the Medieval period and within the Catholic Church, as well as sexual dalliance and humor, and nontraditional unions. But it’s not simply a historical exhibition; the work on view makes clear that LGBTQ+ identity is not a contemporary creation, as the far right and others like to assert, no matter how it’s been framed over time. By “queering the past,” to use the curators’ terminology, to challenge the “limits of contemporary categories,” the exhibition invites people to queer the present and encounter historical solidarity with gender and sexual exploration in the Medieval Catholic lexicon.
Modern Crusader Bros and politicians co-opting Medieval iconography and Catholic faith to justify hatred and violence and exalt traditional gender roles will find no home in Spectrum of Desire. Instead, they will find their beliefs called into question by the true fluidity of the time.
Left: “Philip the Deacon Baptizes Simeon Bachos (the ‘Ethiopian Eunuch’)” from a book of hours (1533), right: “Saint Wilgefortis on the Cross” from a book of hours (Netherlandish, c. 1500)
Unknown artist, “Man of Sorrows” (c. 1430)
Attributed to Master Heinrich of Constance, “The Visitation” (German, c. 1310–20)
Unknown artist, “Christ and Saint John the Beloved” (German, 1300–1320)
Installation view of Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages at The Met Cloisters
Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages continues at The Met Cloisters (99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan) through March 29, 2026. The exhibition was curated by Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut.
