Abstract
This article offers a reading of the Life of Mary of Egypt that addresses issues of time, age, gender and desire within this Old English saints’ life. Our concerns are not, however, limited to these themes within a specific early medieval text but they extend to the discipline of medieval literary studies more widely. Our work on this text, separately and collectively, prompts us to examine broader critical issues concerning temporality, gender, sexuality and medieval studies. We have a dual focus: we offer a rethinking of the Life of Mary of Egypt and we demonstrate how that rethinking has benefitted from our collaborative efforts to understand core questions about the field we study as scholars of Anglo-Saxon and later Medieval Studies. When were the Middle Ages? Whose Middle Ages are they? Are they the Middle Ages of Anglo-Saxonists as well? At what point do the Middle Ages of Anglo-Saxonists and Medievalists meet?