"In her discussion of the art of the High Middle Ages, Madeline Caviness comments on the hidden "gynecological power" underneath the "heavily draped idealized figure" of the Virgin. I use the similar term gynotheology to refer to a high degree of concern, sometimes seemeingly obsessive within medieval (and later) Mariology, with the gynecological, the female sexual and reproductive apparatus and functions. It is an emphasis shared, paradoxically, by both late medieval Mariology and its Reformation opponents."
January 1, 1970