"Conflicting Identities" takes as its focus the construction of masculinity in Western Europe from the early Middle Ages until the 15th century, crossing from pre-Christian Scandinavia across western Christendom. The essays consult a broad and representative cross-section of sources including the work of theological, scholastic and monastic writers, sagas, hagiography and memoirs, material culture, chronicles, exampla and vernacular literature, sumptuary legislation, and the records of ecclesiastical courts. The studies address questions of what constituted male identity and male sexuality. How was masculinity constructed in different social groups? How did the secular and ecclesiastical ideals of masculinity reinforce each other or diverge? These essays address the topic of medieval men and, through a variety of theoretical, methodological and disciplinary approaches, aim to significantly extend one's understanding of how, in the Middle Ages, masculinity and identity were conflicted and multifarious.