Using gender analysis to study power and culture between c. 300 and 900, this study examines the women, men and eunuchs who lived in the late Roman, Byzantine, Islamic and western European civilizations. It assesses the ways in which gender identity was established and manifested in written and material cultural forms, emphasizing the integral relationship between the masculine and feminine by exploring costume, attitudes to the body, social and political institutions and a wide range of literary genres.