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Dear Folks, Since the term is drawing to an end, I have a bit more time to react to the reactions to the Queer conference announcement. A propos the rather strong feelings this posting seems to have aroused, I have been thinking about my own attitude and that of other students of medieval religion to such issues as miracle, sainthood, relics, pilgrimage, apocalypticism and the other phenomena we are discussing. Although I have heard less of this in recent years, I remember being asked quite often how I could devote my life to the study of persons (saints) who might now be regarded as in need of immediate psychiatric help, delusions (apocalypticism) which were clearly the product of an exploitative social and ecnonomic environment, or miracles , which I had often been told were non-events only believed by the ignorant rabble lacking more rational, scientific tools to explain 'reality'. Clearly, even those of us who are willing to give our medieval ancestors somewhat more credit than that, are often dealing with subjects with which we have difficulty identifying. Few of us, for example, who study miracles claim to have experienced one; few who study messsianic movements are members of such movements today, few who study saints claim to have met any. On the one hand, at least medieval 'hagiographers' were quite up front about their Christian beliefs; and even more recently, G.G.Coulton or H.C.Lea were pretty honest about their own rejection of the 'curiosities' of the middle ages. On the other hand, we more recent historians of medieval religion rarely publicly admit our scepticism and behave as though we were anthropologists observing a kind of historical peep-show, while those among us who may be called 'believers' also do not immediately admit their faith. I guess I'm calling for some discussion of the motives and prejudices involved in our engagement with medieval religion. I personally have no objection whatsoever about the conference announcement, since I really don't doubt that 'gayness' (and fear thereof) is also a component (yet to be investigated) of sainthood, monasticism, pilgrimage, penance, and a host of other topics we've been discussing here. Michael Goodich %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%