Saint Marina/Marinos/Mary the monk, miniature from the Menologion of Basil II

This illumination is from page 394 of the Menologion of Basil II, an 11th century Byzantine manuscript commissioned by Emperor Basil II. The book features 430 illuminations and commemorates Christian saints in Greek. A menologian is a collection of saints' lives, and this specific collection is the first volume of short texts meant to be read on saints' feast days.

The saint being commemorated in this illumination is Saint Marinos, a monk who was born and raised as a girl named Maria who joined a monastery with her father after donning male clothing and cutting her hair. Assumed to be a eunuch and now going by the name Marinos, s(he) was accepted by the brothers and was even believed to have a healing touch. Years later, the unmarried daughter of an innkeeper fell pregnant and named Marinos as the culprit of this sin. Despite this being a lie, he admitted to the crime and was expelled from the monastery, even raising the child as his own after it was abandoned by the innkeeper. It was only in death that Marinos' biological sex was discovered, when the monks began to wash him as a funerary practice.  Now remembered as St. Maria or Marina, the monks granted their brother a proper burial, pictured above. 

Illuminations were central to medieval manuscripts, and, while featured alongside text, had their own responsibility to communicate stories and ideas through a shared visual language. Here, we see the burial of Saint Marinos told through his dressing in female gender markers, like the hair covering, in juxtaposition with the typical burial rites for monks. These would have been recognizable to those with the shared cultural understanding, communicating this complicated story of gender presentation.

Because of the nature of manuscript culture and the age of this work, identities and/or personal histories of the tellers of this story and the group of illuminators portraying it remain unknown, so queerness cannot be identified within those in the role of "designer" here. However, the story and the visual elements in this illumination align with a defiance of the gender binary. Though some argue against the labeling of female monks who disguised themselves as men as transgender (attributing their actions to doing what was necessary to live in their desired religious community), Marinos' decision to continue the concealment of his biological sex even in the face of an impossible accusation of impregnation speaks to a greater connection to his male gender presentation. Even after his secret is discovered, he is washed by his fellow monks, anointed with myrrh, and laid in a holy place, a proper burial for monks, affirming his identity, in a way, despite his female dressing and posthumous name reversal. This contradiction of gender, both in life and in commemorative illumination, challenges what would have been expected within the respective systems of religion and design.