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Abstract
This study examines the treatment of the female body in several Anglo-Saxon saints lives. Sexuality, and sex, are integral to the construction of the female saint, and virginity is not the only manifestation of that sexuality. The saint is often emphasized as the subject of others' commonly male, though not always desires, but she is also aware of her body and the power it can command over members of secular society. Consequently, Anglo-Saxon female hagiography suggests dual and complementary views of the female body. Most obviously, the lives of female saints suggest a practical ability to control and command that body, a faculty that simultaneously integrates the saint into patristic teachings and alters their effect upon the woman and her place in society. More subtly, the lives also suggest a reciprocal relationship between the almost entirely male hagiographic writers and their subjects and audiences. Surprisingly, the body of the female saint is almost never portrayed as intrinsically sinful or immoral; rather, it is the gaze, the action, and reaction, of the viewing public that holds the certain seed of evil.