Kievan Rus was converted to Christianity by the Byzantines in the year 988. They inherited from Constantinople a third gender, eunuchs. If eunuchs were often celebrated for their voluntarily celibacy in early medieval Constantinople, in Kievan Rus they came to be conceived of as physiologically deficient males. They were outsiders of patrilineal masculinity by their inability to bear heirs, and thus deemed non-worldly. As a result, they tended to be characterised in polarised terms as either demonic or angelic. When they appeared in hagiographies describing the inhabitants of Kiev’s most renowned monastery, the Kievan Caves Monastery, eunuchs came to be configured stably as exemplary ascetic models. This gave birth to a new mode of masculinity which stood in opposition to native depictions of the virile dynastic man. The legitimacy of princely masculinity was thus cast into doubt in stories about the monks of the Kievan Caves Monastery.

中文翻译：

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基辅罗斯的太监和禁欲主义男子气概

基辅罗斯于 988 年被拜占庭人皈依基督教。他们从君士坦丁堡继承了第三种性别，即太监。如果说太监在中世纪早期的君士坦丁堡经常因自愿独身而受到庆祝，那么在基辅罗斯，他们被认为是生理上有缺陷的男性。由于无法生育继承人，他们是父系男性气质的局外人，因此被认为是非世俗的。结果，他们倾向于用两极分化的术语描述为恶魔或天使。当他们出现在描述基辅最著名的修道院基辅洞穴修道院居民的圣徒传记中时，太监开始被稳定地配置为模范苦行僧。这催生了一种新的男子气概模式，它与本土对阳刚王朝男子的描绘相反。