Abstract

The Gesta Herwardi is a remarkable twelfth-century narrative, which recounts the adventures of Hereward, who does all that we would now expect of a medieval rebel. Hereward is constructed as a hero, and the way in which his heroism and his eventual achievement of adult masculinity are written allows us to think about what a good layman should be, and to whom he should defer. Eschewing the ‘ethnicity lens’ through which the narrative is often viewed, the Gesta is considered here instead in terms of masculine clerical and lay interaction, in order to explore the complex interplay between gender, religion, and the writing and functions of medieval history.