This article offers a reading of premodern, spiritual tomboyism as evident in the cult of Sainte Foy in France during the ninth to eleventh centuries. It draws attention to the signs of differently gendered and aged masculinities in the female child saint. Martyred at the cusp of puberty, Sainte Foy remains forever suspended in her gender development. Bernard of Angers, in the Liber miraculorum, portrays Foy as a trickster tomboy whose miracles are known as her "jokes." But beyond the historical Foy and the textual Foy, there is a third Foy who is embodied in a reliquary statue with an adult male head. In times of social upheaval, Sainte Foy, whose earthly presence is manifest in her relics and reliquary statue, functions as a local patronus who protects her monastery, properties, and devotees. Her male-headed reliquary further affirms her identity as a holy warrior of Christ who fights to uphold the Peace of God. As trickster-tomboy and warrior-patronus, Sainte Foy hovers at and crosses over the boundaries of both gender- and age-based identities and practices.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.