Mutilation as Cultural Commerce and Criticism:  the Transmission, Practice, and Meaning of Castration and Blinding in Medieval Wales
                       
Lizabeth Johnson
Department of History
University of Washington, Seattle

Abstract:
Medieval Wales was a land that experienced a great deal of political violence, something that was frequently commented upon by contemporary writers.  By the middle of the twelfth-century, however, Welsh politics were becoming progressively less violent.  Modern scholars have often credited this growing “civility” to the cultural influence of Anglo-Norman England, which these same scholars have argued was, at the time, becoming a chivalrous society.  Ironically, these same scholars have often overlooked earlier cultural influences on the Welsh, in particular that the Welsh never practiced castration on their political rivals until after they came into frequent contact with European cultural norms through the Normans.  Whereas it had not been uncommon for a Welsh nobleman to kill or blind an opponent before the twelfth century, castration had been an unknown practice in Wales.  In contrast, castration and blinding had been used in Byzantine and Western European politics from the seventh-century onward as methods of punishing traitors and eliminating political rivals.

This paper examines the practice of castration and blinding in Byzantine, European, and Welsh society, as well as the meaning of such mutilation in each society.  Furthermore, particular attention is paid to the cultural transmission of castration to Wales, where this type of mutilation was only in evidence after the arrival of the Normans in Britain, and the contribution that the practice of castration made to the growing dichotomy between the barbarous Welsh and the civilized Normans.