Clothes Make the Bishop: Masculinity, Materiality, and Authority in the *Life of St. Matrona*

In late antiquity, several hagiographies of assigned-female saints who presented themselves as men were popular among Christian audiences. Within these hagiographies, the subjects changed their gender presentation and lived as men, often in monasteries intended for those assigned male. This presentation will primarily focus on Matrona of Perge (5th century); Matrona entered a monastery in Constantinople as a eunuch named Babylas. Although the abbot, Bassianos, at one point discovered her assigned sex and arranged for her to leave the monastery, Matrona eventually returned and received Bassianos’ blessing to open her own monastery for those assigned female. In the earliest version of Matrona’s hagiography, Matrona wore traditionally male habits in her monastery and was made an *episkopos* (overseer/bishop) by Bassianos, including the power to lay on hands. The use of male habits and this level of authority held by someone assigned female has yet to be fully examined and will be analyzed in this presentation. Scholars (Lubinsky, 2013; Davis, 2002; Bennaser, 1984) have argued that Matrona’s continued masculine presentation was symbolic of or a way to have attained her authority. Scholars seem to feel that a change to masculine presentation needs a pragmatic reason and understand the attainment of authority within this mindset. In contrast, this presentation will examine how authority and power were constructed as masculine in late antiquity in order to argue that Matrona’s masculine presentation, particularly through the material of male monastic habits, and position of authority may have both been aspects of her gender embodiment.

As demonstrated by several scholars of gender in antiquity (Upson-Saia, 2011; Elm, 1994; and more), it was not unusual for discourse about ascetic Christian women to focus on their masculine qualities. This rhetoric is clear when Gregory of Nyssa, for example, wonders if he should even refer to his sister, Macrina, as a woman. As Kristi Upson-Saia points out, their change in clothes was demonstrative of this: “Because such feminine vices [vanity, greed, indulgence, and hyper-sexuality] had been thoroughly mapped onto women’s conventional dress and adornment (e.g., in their cosmetics, ornaments, and lavish clothing), ascetics were urged to abandon feminine styling in order to exhibit their progress in piety” (2011). Female ascetics were expected to give up common sartorial markers of Roman femininity in favor of simple and (often) coded masculine clothing. That being said, in late antiquity habits started to become standardized and *The Life of St. Matrona* clearly demonstrates that they differed based on gender. Although it was not unusual for the discourse on ascetic women to use masculine language, it is unusual that Matrona was allowed to wear habits reserved traditionally for men. This presentation will argue that this clothing was demonstrative of Bassianos’ recognition of her authority based on her masculinity.

The vast majority of current historiography explains away acts of gender variance from the historical record. Scholars often view these gender-variant saints’ presentation as a means to negotiate patriarchy, such as to attain authority reserved for men (Lubinsky, 2013; Davis, 2002; Bennaser, 1984). This seems to indicate a compulsion to explain away gender variance in order to view these figures as cisgender women and continue an understanding of holy figures within modern socialized gender norms. However, this compulsion imposes anachronistic notions of gender onto late antiquity by ignoring their context in favor of the gender binary of western modernity. In the late antique Mediterranean, gender was constructed along a spectrum of embodied behavior. This presentation will demonstrate that authority can be understood as one means of gender embodiment.

Furthermore, there has been little historiographic discussion of Matrona as a bishop. The author of her *Vita*, seemed to distance Matrona from being viewed as truly imbued with this authority by calling her an *episkopos* “so to speak.” However, the use of this specific male attire and the power to lay on hands does suggest that she may have actually held such a position. Therefore, this presentation will take seriously the possibility of Matrona holding the position of bishop in the 5th century. In direct conflict, then, with much of the rest of the historiographic analysis of Matron, this presentation argues that authority can be understood as yet another form of masculine embodiment represented through male habits, rather than view masculine presentation as a way to gain authority.            

I will demonstrate how we can understand both Matrona’s presentation and position as masculine embodiment possibly indicative of a masculine identity. Although Matrona’s identity may be out of reach, through the use of transgender historical methodologies, this paper will examine her behaviors to preserve gender variance from historical erasure. This will be done by focusing on transmasculinity, masculine gender expression without necessarily a transgender identity. Since the overwhelming majority of historians view her gender variance as a means-to-an-end rather than a possible indication of gender identity, this project is an intervention in epistemic violence that has implications for gender non-conforming people today.