The conclusion brings together the themes that have emerged throughout the book, provides comparative perspectives, teases out some of the wider implications for the study of gender and suggests directions for future research. It also comes back to the multitude of animals that have appeared sporadically throughout the different chapters, discussing the role they played in gender construction and the potential of human/animal connections to decentre the man in the process of creating male subjectivities.

Chapter 3 uses the letters of Gregorios Antiochos to explore the scholar’s body. Antiochos, who experienced chronic illness from a young age, combined his own bodily feeling with gender discourses to create a subversive image of the scholar which challenged ideals of military masculinity. He juxtaposed the strong body of the soldier, forged through physical exercise, to the frail body of the learned man hunched over his books, and declared his preference for the latter. He also expressed his own relationship with books and the furniture that facilitated his scholarly work, in disability terms: his cane, staff, armrest and guides. When at points the connection with scholarship was severed, Antiochos felt truly disabled. A body in crisis emerged that was assailed by unwanted becomings, prime among them the possibility of becoming-horse and losing his rationality. Despite this emphasis on reason, speech and self-determination, Antiochos’ letters present us with unexpected configurations of human and non-human bodies which blur the lines between organic and inorganic and help decentre man. In doing so, they posit the Eastern Roman scholar with his books and study furniture as a kind of antipode to the Western knight and his horse.