The male virgin martyr: A boy’s tale

• Elizabeth Rhodes ^[1]
  1. [1] Boston College

     Boston College

     City of Boston, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Bulletin of Spanish Studies, ISSN-e 1478-3428, ISSN 1475-3820, Vol. 102, Nº 4, 2025, págs. 755-780
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • According to medieval manuscripts, the famous amīr ‘Abd al-Rahman III of Córdoba ordered the execution of thirteen-year-old Pelayo in 925 or 926 for refusing to deny Christ, accept Mohammed as a prophet and have sex with him. Sixteenth-century historians and hagiographers recovered the story of the Pelayo passion, highlighting its component of male-male sex. Analysis of early modern accounts in light of its original version reveals the problematics of sex in hagiography and unmasks two fundamental fictions embedded in the story of Pelayo, the only male martyr to be tempted with male-male sex in the early modern Spanish Catholic canon.