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Chapter 1

The Manly Celibate

The priest Odelerius advised the Norman aristocrat Earl Roger to endow a Benedictine monastery; he persuaded him by portraying Benedictine monks in the following manner:

Consider now what duties are performed in monasteries obedient to a rule by those trained in the service of God. Countless benefits are obtained there every day, and Christ’s garrisons struggle manfully (viriliter) against the devil. Assuredly the harder the struggle of the spiritual warrior the more glorious will be his victory, and the more precious trophies in the courts of Heaven…. when I consider the rites of men in different parts of the world, and carefully look into the lives of hermits and canons, I see that all are inferior in their way of life to monks who live canonical lives under a rule… I admonish you to found a monastery while you may in your county… as a citadel of God against Satan, where the cowled champions may engage in ceaseless combat against Behemoth for your soul…. Rise up at once; begin manfully (viriliter), perform God’s work nobly.¹

Odelerius was the father of the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis, a priest himself who also took monastic vows. This passage portrays the glorification of monastic life that took place during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the period of reform in England and Normandy. Narratives like this defined the manly celibate model of masculinity. This gendered model, which reemerged during the reform era, originated in the Western practice of monasticism; by using the language of virility and ascetic ideology, religious writers elevated monastic manliness to a hegemonic level. Religious manliness, as I will call it, was distinguished from secular conceptions of masculinity by its focus on the superior celibate body.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore how this discourse appeared in Anglo-Norman reform-era texts and how these ideas ultimately affected the transitioning standards for priests and other secular clerics. Texts produced during this time underscore that reform was the establishment of a correct religious masculinity, one built on the ethos of self-restraint and virtus and one focused on chastity as a centrally defining feature. The religious male body was masculinized through discipline, integrity, and impenetrability.² These presuppositions about religious manliness circulated in these texts, some to mixed audiences of lay, clerical, and monastic readers.³

The religious texts examined here discursively re-created the religious male body—a new man, one with self-control, who embraced orderliness and who was fit to rule. The manly celibate model was expressed through chronicles, vitae, histories, and theological treatises; legal discourse, discussed in the next chapter, placed this model behind the force of law.

The Celibate Male and the Language of Virility

Masculinity is defined in large part by language, and the language produced by Anglo-Norman religious writers shows that a certain masculine performance was expected of both laity and clergy, albeit very different performances. Religious writers particularly created a standard of masculinity through their use of virile language to describe the actions and behavior of celibate men in a variety of situations; most notably, the use of this language in papal correspondence greatly increased during the reform era. As this chapter will show, such language also increased in the reform-era texts of England and Normandy.⁴

In the late Roman Empire, such masculine language had been used by Christian writers to assert the manliness of their men at a time when pagan Romans defined manhood.⁵ Anglo-Norman writers of the reform era used the same terminology of manliness, often drawing on this late antique vocabulary of words and images to evoke an association of manliness with ascetic practices. The gendered language used by religious writers to portray masculinity did not distinguish between secular and religious men. The vocabulary was the same, interchangeable language that could describe manliness on the battleground or inside the cloister. Writers relied on a terminology of oppositions to describe manliness and the lack of manliness. Physical and mental manliness appeared in contrast to physical and mental femininity. The most common terms to express masculine qualities and actions were duritia (hardness), robur (hardness), virtus (masculine virtue), viriliter (manfully), virile (manly), and fortiter (manfully). The terms used to portray a lack of manliness were mostly terms used to describe women but also could be terms that referred to unmanly behavior. Words like mollitia (softness/effeminacy), semivir (half-man), catamite (sodomite), effeminatus (effeminate), delicatus (effeminate), muliebriarius (womanly), and eviratus (unmanned), all evoked images of the disorderly, the softened, the penetrable, and the weak (physically and mentally), undesirable characteristics for any man, religious or secular.⁶

Although armed with a rich terminology to describe virility, religious writers preferred to denote masculinity most commonly with the Latin derivatives of vir (man). Most recently, historians Kirsten Fenton and Maureen Miller have shown the gendered meanings of the term virtus, emphasizing its connotation with the military manliness of laymen as often as the spiritual manliness of religious men.⁷ Others have documented the “language of virility” in reform-era writing, particularly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when terms like the adverb viriliter were frequently used to describe clerical action.⁸ In the context of war, virtus clearly translated into masculine power and strength. For instance, in Orderic Vitalis’s Ecclesiastical History, one finds numerous cases of manly language appearing in descriptions of war, knights, and battle generally. Scholars have not hesitated to translate these terms into masculine language.⁹ But for religious figures, historians have traditionally translated the term virtu as “virtue” in the spiritual or religious sense. By insisting on translating terms such as viriliter as “courageously” or “strongly,” scholars have essentially removed the original gendered language of the document, and at the same time have transposed their own gendered assumptions from the present onto the past. The use of terms like viriliter (manfully) in these writings is what reflects the gendered quality of this discourse.

Religious writers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries used a variety of literary techniques in their works to show the superiority of religious masculinity to secular masculinity, and ultimately clerical masculinity, particularly through the contrast of the self-controlled body with the disorderly, uncontrolled one. Maureen Miller has shown that Gregorian-era writers depicted laymen as destroyers of churches and monasteries, as bloodthirsty warriors, as men out of control, while the clergy were depicted as morally superior, self-controlled men.¹⁰ Likewise, the same motifs were used by reform-minded religious writers of England and Normandy, but more often to highlight the orderly, self-controlled ascetic life of monks against the disorderly, sexually licentious behavior of secular clergy. Virile language emphasized this distinction.

The use of such virile language to describe religious men might seem confusing and contradictory to the use of gendered language by some monastic orders. During the period of reform, the literature of the Cistercian order occasionally utilized maternal imagery to express a spiritual relationship to God and Christ.¹¹ Although Cistercians most frequently deployed this imagery, it was not uniquely theirs alone, and even reformers like Anselm used it. Various scholars have used this imagery to bolster their position that the clergy viewed themselves as feminine and were, in turn, viewed as feminine by medieval society.¹² However, the feminine language used by these monastic writers was very specific to their particular, Cistercian context; this language was strongly connected to Cistercians abbots’ own anxieties regarding their leadership and their pastoral duties.¹³ Furthermore, these maternal metaphors in their proper historical context were used as literary devices in Cistercian devotional literature. Bernard of Clairvaux, a writer who most frequently made use of maternal imagery, called his monks “women” not to suggest that he or his society viewed them as women but to present a gendered inversion that highlighted the humility present in the feminine.¹⁴ Finally, monastic writers, themselves clearly male, had a metaphorical problem when it came to describing their (often sexual) union with a frequently masculinized God. This logically explains the frequency with which monks portrayed themselves as female, as a bride of Christ, in order to wed God/Christ. Alternatively, they could portray God as female, and then their union was possible.¹⁵

The abbot as “mother” and the feminized monk were literary devices firmly a part of a particular devotional literature of the twelfth century. But in both “public” and private writings, reform-era authors equated manly behavior and manly qualities with celibate men; they were not depicted as feminine or as an ambiguous “third” gender. For example, while there is evidence that Anselm of Bec/Canterbury employed feminized language and maternal imagery in one devotional prayer,¹⁶ he used virile language most often when he wrote to other clerics advising them. In his letter to William, a monk of St. Werburgh, Chester, he advises him to continue to seek spiritual perfection as all men must strive: “Let laymen in their state of life, clerics in theirs, monks in theirs manfully (viriliter) apply themselves to making continual progress.”¹⁷ He wrote to the bishops of Ireland that they should “act manfully (viriliter) and vigilantly according to God’s teaching, restraining with canonical severity anything found in your provinces contrary to the doctrine of the Church.”¹⁸

The use of masculine language to describe a variety of ascetic actions and behavior reinforces that monastic writers conceived of the ascetic body as a virile body. Most frequently, this language depicted conflicts, both internal ones of the body and external struggles with others (both laymen and ecclesiastics). To be a man of the church required a constant struggle, a constant gender performance of virtus; this struggle could be spiritual or earthly. A letter from Benedict (whose full identity remains unknown) to Anselm about the problem of concubinous priests in England exhorts Anselm to “fight manfully (viriliter) to the very end for the faith of Christ,” in his battle to eradicate clerical marriage.¹⁹ John of Rheims, a monk of St. Evroul, after being promoted to the office of priest, “strove for perfection” and “taught others likewise to strive manfully (viriliter), both by his life and doctrine.”²⁰ Under the guidance of Abbot Mainier, the monks of St. Evroul, persevered in their holy living, “fighting manfully (viriliter) against sin.”²¹ Herbert of Losinga admonished his monks for their lackadaisical attitude toward building their cathedral. He portrayed hard work as a manly endeavor, telling the monks Ingulf, William, and Stanus to “persist untiringly in your work, let not your hand or foot rest, shiver in winter’s cold, swelter under summer’s sun, toil by day, watch by night. Gird yourselves and bear in mind those Israelites who, in repairing the walls of Jerusalem, fought with one hand and built with another. Persevere manfully (viriliter), labor faithfully, let the work go on fervently.”²² When Bernard of Tiron was harassed by his fellow monks, one of whom used “abusive language” against him, the instigator was subsequently punished by a fatal illness. The rest of the men, frightened for their own lives, “thereafter manfully (viriliter) girded themselves for stricter observance of the rigor of monastic life.”²³ And, while living in the wilderness of Tiron, outside the norms of society, Bernard “continuously behaved in a manly and steadfast manner.”²⁴

The use of virile language commonly appears in descriptions of the battle against the flesh, more of which will be discussed below. Gerald of Wales, citing Jerome’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark, argued that “That man is an Andrew, who, by manfully (viriliter), conquering his flesh, makes war on his own death … on his body whose passions are often the cause of his death unless they are bridled.”²⁵ And, unbridled flesh, according to Gerald, was the cause of death for priests in particular.

Writers viewed the struggle for the proper behavior of the clergy and for the rights of the church as a manly act. The clergy of York lauded their archbishop-elect Thurstan for his behavior during his struggle to assume the episcopal see of York. In a letter to Thurstan, the clerics told him, “you have played the man (viriliter egisti).”²⁶ Gerald of Wales was able to protect his church from a neighboring bishop’s usurpation; and the local nobility and king lauded him for his behavior, the latter saying that the archdeacon “withstood him [the bishop] manfully and defended your Church right well.”²⁷ The archdeacon himself was not above reproaching others who had failed in their duties to correct clerical behavior in their dioceses. He told a council of Irish clergy that “if the prelates from the days of Patrick, through so many rolling years had manfully, as their office demands, given themselves to preaching and instruction and likewise to rebuke and chiding, then would they have rooted out some of the great enormities of the nation.”²⁸ Eadmer’s Historia Novorum in Anglia makes comparatively few uses of virile language, but, when he does, it is very suggestive.²⁹ For instance, when describing how the archbishop Lanfranc defended monks in his realm, he portrayed the archbishop as a manly adversary. Lanfranc first defended the monks of Winchester against the designs of Bishop Walkelin, who desired to expel the monastic clergy from the cathedral chapter and install secular clerics in their place. Then, according to Eadmer, the secular bishops of England conspired to remove the monks at Canterbury. Lanfranc would not permit this, and he “opposed it with all his might and stood out manfully (viriliter) against the pressure and enmity of them all.”³⁰

The defense of monastic leadership required the use of virile language. When Bernard of Tiron was preaching in Coutances, he was confronted by an archdeacon, his wife, and his children. The question, however, was not about clerical concubinage but about the right of monks to preach when they are supposed to be “dead to the world.” Clearly, many priests and secular clerics saw a vast difference between the clerical vocation and the monastic life. Bernard’s response was lengthy, drawing on biblical sources to defend his right to preach. In a thinly veiled criticism of Norman priests, Bernard drew on an analogy of hardness and softness. He admonished the archdeacon: “The preacher must have the strength of bone, because he must manfully (viriliter) resist sin and vice and bear hardship bravely in the defense of justice and holiness. The preacher must be harder than the soft flesh (mollitie carnis), because through harder abstinence he must remove carnal delight in pleasure from his existence and way of life and must not weakly allow his mind to be enslaved by softening vices.”³¹

Virile language appears frequently in descriptions of competition between monastic and secular clerics. Hugh the Chanter, a York chronicler, utilized such terminology in his discussions of the primacy dispute between Canterbury and York. Hugh, a secular cleric and York member, pointed out that the monks of Canterbury nefariously planned to have the newly installed archbishop of York make a profession to Canterbury. Hugh said, “the monks of Canterbury do not cease to aim at and shamelessly demand what is unjust; they think on it while awake and dream of it in their sleep.”³² Hugh’s portrayal of this event suggested that leadership was an issue of manliness. About the archbishop of Canterbury, he said, “let him be a man (viriliter), let him [the archbishop of Canterbury] call our archbishop elect [of York] to Canterbury to be consecrated, and refuse to consecrate him till he has made his profession.”³³ Hugh’s chronicle also shows how the York clerics supported their archbishop, Thomas II, who was being pressured to make a profession of submission to Canterbury. The chapter reminded Thomas of how his predecessor refused to be cowed by the Canterbury contingent: “Look at Archbishop Gerard! How honest, how manly (viriliter), how excellent this action of his! He refused to sit in the council at London because Archbishop Anselm had been given a higher seat than himself, until a seat of equal dignity was made ready for him.”³⁴

To define manliness, religious writers used a gendered language, one emphasizing virile action. By underscoring the masculine nature of the religious life, Christian writers of the reform era presented the virility of ascetic values and the manliness of struggle. Feminized language, such as the maternal imagery of a mothering abbot/Jesus was not used in a more “public” discourse.

Becoming a “New Man”: The Hegemony of Ascetic Manliness

What did Christian writers mean when they called on celibate men to act “manfully”? Manly action was part of a process to adopt ascetic/monastic manliness; writers presented this often in the motif of the “new man,” derived from the New Testament letter to the Ephesians (“that he might create in himself one new man”).³⁵ In this manner, monastic writers particularly were able to highlight the superiority of the monastic life over the worldly; such assertions implied the superiority of monastic masculinity over clerical and aristocratic masculinity. In the context of eleventh and twelfth century Anglo-Norman religious writings, to become a “new man” was to abandon all worldly ambitions and the secular life and to adopt monastic manliness. For many, this meant the assumption of a new masculine identity, one based on self-control and chastity. In fact, writers presented entrance into the monastic life as the adoption of a new bodily comportment, one that profoundly marked the male body as impenetrable, disciplined, and orderly. This narrative is most apparent in texts written by monastic writers. While it is true that many of these texts were intended for monastic audiences, others, like Orderic Vitalis’s Ecclesiastical History, were written for a literate audience of lay and religious. These texts conveyed a particular ideology of manliness that was defined by the ascetic male body.

At a time when many warriors entered monastic life, the theme of becoming a “new man” appeared frequently in monastic texts. From the eleventh century on, large numbers of knights entered monastic communities; as Katherine Smith has shown, their connection to their experiences of war was directly tied to the presentation of martial imagery in monastic texts.³⁶ Anselm, while abbot of Bec, wrote a letter to a young man, William, to advise him regarding his desire to follow his brother to Jerusalem. Anselm instead admonished him to join the service of Christ at Bec and become a “soldier of such a king,” abandoning worldly desires and embracing the “heavenly Jerusalem.”³⁷ Roger of Warenne, a knight, was persuaded by the preaching of Gerold of Avranches to become a monk and enter St. Evroul with his fellow knights; Orderic called his profession to monasticism “like one escaping from the flames of Sodom.”³⁸

While scholars are very familiar with the motif of the warrior-turned-monk in medieval hagiography and other texts, I would suggest that this construct forms a larger narrative regarding the adoption of a superior form of manliness, a kind of persuasive rhetoric to reinforce this gender paradigm. Orderic Vitalis contributed to the “new man” model by presenting numerous illustrations of knights who renounced the world for monastic life, thereby asserting that monastic life was superior to the secular world. Orderic continued this motif by retelling the life of St. Guthlac, a seventh-century warrior, and, in doing so, set up a historical precedent for his readers; even in the distant past, manly warriors were conquered by the monastic life and took up a different, spiritual struggle. As a youth, Guthlac had given himself over to war and a warrior life, pillaging and destroying towns. One day he left his fellow warriors and entered a monastery, but finding this life to be lacking in the austerity he desired, Guthlac became a hermit, “where a man may wrestle with the enemy face-to-face.”³⁹ Other warriors saw the value in transferring military virtu to the spiritual battlefield. Richard de Heudicourt, a knight from the Vexin, was wounded in battle, and, and on the advice of his lord, he decided “from that time forward to fight under the monastic rule by the practice of virtue (virtutum).”⁴⁰

Orderic was not the only writer to illustrate the knightly conversion to monasticism. Gilbert Crispin’s vita of Herluin exemplifies the hegemony of monastic manliness and stresses how Herluin indeed became a “new man.” Herluin, a Norman knight of the highest caliber, answered the call to monastic life around age thirty-seven.⁴¹ Praised for his fighting ability and his use of arms, Herluin was a model of warrior masculinity, a man that any knight of his day would admire. Gilbert’s praise of Herluin as an ideal warrior enhanced his abandonment of the worldly life and his entrance into the contemplative one. In fact, Gilbert points out at the very beginning of Herluin’s vita that in Normandy “it was considered a monstrosity for a healthy soldier to put aside his arms and become a monk,”⁴² clearly alluding to the cultural perception of Norman manliness. Gilbert presented Herluin’s transition from a knight to a monk-in-training as his evolution into a “new man.” Like his training for war, Herluin devoted himself to learning the life of a monk: he ate little during the day despite his engagement in manual labor and he spent his evenings memorizing the psalter and learning the alphabet. Herluin, we are told, believed that “the highest pinnacle of human life was the monastic order.”⁴³ After Herluin finished the construction of his church, he took monastic vows and officially became a “brave soldier of Christ.” Later, he also was ordained priest.⁴⁴

Elite men who embraced worldly values were not the only group portrayed as inferior to monks. Monks were frequently elevated above secular clerics in both vocation and behavior. The self-controlled moderation of monastic men was frequently portrayed in contrast to the disorderly clerics who lacked the proper qualities to govern. One tract written by twelfth-century Canterbury monks presents the distinction between these two groups by juxtaposing the biblical Jacob, who represented the monks, with his brother Esau, who represented the clerics. Esau exhibited a loss of self-control, while Jacob, the more orderly one, emerged as a leader. The writers reiterated that monks make better pastors because they are in better control of their bodies; monks live “chastely and soberly” (caste et sobrie). Their lives of austerity, discipline, learning, and prayer contrast sharply with the lax bodies of the parish clergy, men subject to drunkenness and fornication. This tract also argues that monks should lead clerics because clerics live “beastly and irrationally” (bestialiter viventes et irrationabiliter).⁴⁵ Those who cannot control their bodies are not intended to lead.

In a similar manner, Orderic presents the superior nature of monastic bodies to their clerical counterparts, showing the transformation of clerics into monks. In his story about Fulk of Guernanville, he manages to demonstrate the admirable qualities of this man while offering the man’s father, the infamous Fulk of Guernanville, as a contrasting model. Fulk the Younger’s intelligence earned him the position of prior of St. Evroul, and his passion for the religious life was evident as he had convinced his own father to enter the monastery and donate most of his patrimony to the institution. As dean of Evreux, the senior Fulk had been a secular cleric and lived life in the manner that characterized his Norman contemporaries. His union with Orielde produced ten children. As Orderic points out, this was the custom since the time of Rollo, when “the practice of celibacy was so relaxed that not only priests but even bishops freely shared the beds of concubines and openly boasted of their numerous progeny of sons and daughters.”⁴⁶ Yet Fulk willingly left the world, “turned his mind to better things,” and “through the advice and admonitions of his son Fulk” entered monastic life.⁴⁷

Throughout his history, Orderic continually posits that the monastic life is stricter, more difficult, and, as a result, a higher state than that lived by secular clerics. As Orderic tells it, the canons of St. Evroul “gave way to the monks because they realized that the virtues (virtutes) of the monks were far greater than anything they could achieve.”⁴⁸ Osbert, a well-educated monk, had been a canon at the cathedral chapter of Lisieux under Bishop Herbert (r. 1022–1049), but “wishing for a stricter way of life, he left the world” and entered the monastery of La-Trinité-du-Mont at Rouen.⁴⁹ Roger de Montgomery gave the abbey of Troarn to monks so that they could achieve a reform of the community. The twelve secular canons in residence had given themselves over to gluttony, fornication, and other worldly concerns; they were subsequently expelled. The monks established a strict rule at the abbey.⁵⁰ William of Rots, a secular cleric from Bayeux, who simultaneously held the positions of cantor, dean, and archdeacon, renounced the “pomp of the world” and become a monk at Caen.⁵¹

Other monastic writers also debated the question of religious orders and the state of perfection. An anonymous monastic writer from Bec began his treatise by first suggesting that the order of the priest was greater than that of the monk. But, in a carefully laid out argument, he ultimately showed that the monastic life was hegemonic to that of the priestly life. The writer distinguished between the two professions by offering that the office of the priesthood was greater in dignity to the monastic order; the monastic order, however, was greater in evangelical perfection than the priesthood.⁵² The writer further elaborated his argument. While it is true that the priest handles the body of Christ, the priest also engages in secular affairs, which is prohibited to the monk. The writer made the point that “no man can fulfill so completely all the evangelical precepts in the way a monk can.”⁵³ In a further elaboration, he ultimately laid his claim on the superior nature of the chaste body. He continued that “it must be known among these that perfection of life rather than dignity of offices gives a place of greater merit, which we can point to in one instance. Intact virginity has the superior place among other virtues, after faith and martyrdom.”⁵⁴ The writer concluded his argument by offering that “a humble, continent person is of higher merit than a proud virgin. Thus a monk, though he may be of inferior office and dignity to a priest, is nevertheless greater in merit.”⁵⁵

Entrance into the monastic life led to a stricter life, and one became more masculinized as a result. For those who left this life, their bodies once again became penetrable, lax, and less manly. Religious writers, like the one from Bec, normalized this natural state of (gender) perfection. According to the Bec monk, many “ills” occurred when the monk left his profession and denied he was a monk; “no man of the world…makes an exhibition of himself with such impudence and lack of restraint as the monk who has abandoned the habit of his holy order and utterly denied he is a monk.”⁵⁶ He added that “the monastic order once entered cannot be left in any way for any reason without damnation of the soul. Hence those who are promoted from this order to the prelacy certainly ought not and dare not abandon the monastic habit. And if at some time or other they dress outwardly in other clothing, nevertheless they always wear the monastic habit underneath.”⁵⁷ Presumably, this was a way of girding their body, rendering it impenetrable as they faced the secular world.

Writers expressed the grave consequences that occurred when clerics abandoned the monastic life for the world. Orderic Vitalis describes the case of a priest, Ansered, who had entered a monastic community when ill but, after his recovery, decided to leave and return to the secular world. He consorted with a prostitute and, being unsatisfied with that tryst, then had sex with another woman. This woman betrayed the priest with another cleric. Ansered caught them in bed together, and the cleric killed Ansered with an axe, later dumping his body, which was then dismembered by wild animals. Ansered’s body exhibited such a strong degree of putrefaction that no one would go near it.⁵⁸ Similarly, William of Malmesbury recounted the story of the bishop Aelfheah, who ordained three monks to the priesthood only to find that one of them, Aethelstan, “later threw off the monastic habit, rejected celibacy, and died in the arms of a whore.”⁵⁹ William, like Orderic, established the connection between the impenetrability of the male body marked by the state of chaste perfection that, through rejection of that state, became penetrable and disorderly.

How did this promotion of the “new man” affect those who were raised inside monastery walls? Child oblates lacked the ability to transform themselves, but religious writers found a way to explain their sanctity. Child oblates who grew up with ascetic values, surrounded by examples of monastic living, may have acquired a religious male identity more easily. Unable to reference secular manliness in a household or on a battlefield, these young boys may have been at an advantage in acquiring an appropriate masculine identity. Adult converts had to conquer the ingrained notions of gender identity from secular life in order to abandon the world and enter a monastic community, and writers highlighted the significance of that transformation. Yet child oblates represented to some the purity of monastic life, untainted by the outside world. The position of monastic writers on the subject of child oblates varied. One way child oblates were included in the “new man” motif was by emphasis on their monastic tendencies as children. Orderic Vitalis recounts numerous examples of child oblates who were models of monastic living. Some notable monastic reformers were identified in youth as having an extraordinary propensity for the contemplative life. Orderic Vitalis, himself a child oblate, emphasized the sanctity of those who were raised in the monastic life. For example, Reginald had been entrusted to the monastery of St. Evroul at five and was a good model of monasticism for the next fifty-two years.⁶⁰ William, son of Guy Bollein, a knight, entered St. Evroul at nine; he was a monk for fifty-four years, and a model one at that. Orderic writes that “carefully brought up in the bosom of holy mother church, and removed from all worldly strife and carnal lust, he distinguished himself in those kinds of knowledge that are more useful to sons of the church.”⁶¹ Thus, while becoming a “new man” is frequently linked to a conversion from worldly life to monastic living, some well-known monastics were included in the paradigm of religious manliness by their propensity at a young age for the monastic life.

The Dangers of Effeminacy

Just as the “new man” motif served to bolster monastic manliness as superior to clerical (and lay) manliness, there emerged another narrative technique designed to sharpen this distinction: the labeling of actions, behavior, and appearance deemed effeminate. The effeminate was one who gave into women sexually or one who became womanish through sex with men. This model posed many problems for Norman laymen and priests alike, as it seemingly devalued traditional marriage and procreation, cultural features of secular manliness. By normalizing religious celibacy, monastic writers problematized both procreative and nonprocreative sexuality. They characterized both lay and clerical bodies as disorderly through their sexual behavior, so that the elite at court, as well as married clerics, were rendered womanish or effeminate and, as a result, unable to govern effectively.

Religious writers depicted reformers in control of defining manliness during this period, not only the manly behavior of the clergy but also that of laymen. The following examples show the transformative moments when religious men corrected the gender performances of elite laymen and, in doing so, established themselves as the definers of masculinity for all men. For example, Anselm was quite bothered by effeminate behavior, both by the laity and the clergy. Eadmer describes how Anselm sought to masculinize the king’s court, particularly William Rufus’s courtiers, by reprimanding those who walked with an effeminate gait and wore their hair in the manner of women. Anselm preached against this custom successfully, and the men cut their hair and adopted a “manly bearing (virilem).”⁶²

Appearance could profoundly affect behavior. Anselm’s great concern over masculine appearance found its way into the canons of Westminster in 1102. While four of the canons from this council concerned celibacy of the clergy, three others regulated appearance and other behavior. Canon 13 declared clerics should wear an appropriate tonsure, while canon 11 attempted to regulate wearing of brightly colored clothing, which was likely a safeguard against luxurious fabrics.⁶³ Some scholars have noted the link between such fabrics, luxuria, and femininity. William of Malmesbury felt it necessary to offer the example of the saint Aldhelm, who warned his student against associating with prostitutes; in addition to the sexual danger they posed, prostitutes had a tendency to wear brightly colored clothing. The saint also believed that such luxurious clothing could “emasculate his mental vigour.”⁶⁴ Not only could the male clerical body be effeminized through wearing certain fabrics, but so could the mind.

Other sources also point to the role that reforming bishops played in setting the standard for manly behavior and appearance, especially when secular men, kings, knights, and nobles, failed to maintain their manliness. Serlo, bishop of Sées, admonished King Henry I in 1105 at Carentan for his and his courtiers’ unkempt appearances. In particular, they were rebuked for wearing their hair in a “woman’s fashion”; instead, the bishop told them to “use your strength like men (virili robore perfrui debetis).” After admonishing the king and his men for having long beards reminiscent of “he-goats,” Serlo continued: “by growing their hair long they make themselves seem like imitators of women, and by womanly softness (mollicie) they lose their manly strength (virili fortitudine) and are led to sin.”⁶⁵ The reformer deployed the language of hardness and softness to correspond with manliness and femininity. Bishop Serlo also pointed out the effeminacy present in the habit of wearing poulaines, shoes with curved tips: “The perverse sons of Belial grow the tresses of women on their heads, and deck their toes (pedum suorum) with the tails of scorpians, revealing themselves to be effeminates by their softness (molliciem femineos) and serpent-like by their scorpian stings.”⁶⁶ Once Serlo’s speech was concluded, the king and his men were so inspired by his words that they stepped forward and willingly had their hair shorn by the bishop. The king was transformed by this gender reinforcement, as he then went on, as Orderic Vitalis narrates, and “wreaked vengeance manfully (viriliter) on the enemies of the Church of God.”⁶⁷

The reformer Wulfstan of Worcester also took measures to establish what he considered to be a proper masculine appearance. According to William of Malmesbury, Wulfstan carried a pocket knife with him so that, when the occasion struck him, he could cut off the locks of men with long hair. To anyone who protested, Wulfstan would accuse of effeminacy: “men who blushed to be what they had been born, and let their hair flow like women, would be no more use than women in the defence of their country against the foreigner.” This failure to practice correct masculinity was used as a reason the Normans were successful in their conquest of England.⁶⁸

Medieval society exhibited a strong degree of discomfort with inverted gender performances; manly women and womanly men disrupted normative gender relations.⁶⁹ In this regard, writers viewed effeminacy and sodomy as equitable offenses against manliness, although not all conflated the two behaviors. Frequently, reformers equated effeminacy with a man’s overwhelming indulgence in women, but effeminacy could also be linked to sodomy, as in the history of Orderic Vitalis, who portrayed both as highly undesirable traits. His description of William Rufus’s court also displayed the same revulsion at men acting womanish and women sexually dominating men. Orderic said that “at that time effeminates (effeminati) set the fashion in many parts of the world: foul catamites (catamitae) doomed to eternal fire, unrestrainedly pursued their revels and shamelessly gave themselves up to the filth of sodomy.” His link to womanish behavior and appearance is made clear in the following passages, when he described how the courtiers “grew long and luxurious locks like women” and he lamented that “our wanton youth is sunk in effeminacy, and courtiers, fawning, seek the favours of women with every kind of lewdness.” This was not always the custom, Orderic remarked; in a previous era, “our ancestors used to wear decent clothes, well-adapted to the shape of their bodies; they were skilled horsemen and swift runners, ready for all seemly undertakings.”⁷⁰

The lack of proper masculine performance had wider-reaching consequences than simply the decadence of court. It spelled disaster for proper governance and leadership. Orderic recorded the prophecy of a hermit who predicted that Rufus’s brother, Robert Courthose, would fail as an effective ruler and “catamites and effeminates will govern, and under their rule vice and wretchedness will abound.”⁷¹ Catamites and womanish men failed at proper governance because of their abnormal gender performances. The laxity of their bodies and their unrestrained sexual proclivities rendered them unsuitable for governance; from their disorderly bodies, disorder ensued.

Other writers also located the origins of disorder and disaster in incorrect gender performances. Henry of Huntingdon thought that the wreck of the White Ship in 1120 was due to the sodomy of the Anglo-Norman court. In his History, he writes that the king’s heirs all perished because “all of them, or nearly all, were said to be tainted with sodomy and they were snared and caught. Behold the glittering vengeance of God!…And so death suddenly devoured those who had deserved it.”⁷² Henry’s commentary suggests that sodomy at court was still a persistent problem, even years after Eadmer first commented on it.

William of Malmesbury also noted, like Eadmer and Orderic Vitalis, the decadent fashions of William Rufus’s court, although William not only provided greater detail of the problem with men’s fashions, he also underscored how courtiers had rejected their innate masculinity. He noted that the courtiers wore “flowing hair and extravagant dress” along with the infamous poulaines. William noted that “the model for young men was to rival women in delicacy of person, to mince their gait, to walk with loose gesture, and half naked. Enervated (enerves) and effeminate (emolliti), they unwillingly remained what nature had made them; the assailers of others’ chastity, prodigal of their own. Troops of pathics, and droves of harlots, followed the court (sequebantur curiam effeminatorum manus et ganearum greges).”⁷³ In his Historia Novella, William also mentions the “wearers of long hair who, forgetting what they were born, enjoy transforming themselves to look like women.” William suggests that Anselm had tried to correct these problems, blocked by the will of his suffragan bishops.⁷⁴ William of Malmesbury’s disdain is apparent. This monastic writer held a particular ideal of masculinity that some of the elite, especially the courtiers, failed to uphold.

William’s praise of correct masculine performance extended even to the secular clergy, of whom he was not fond. Yet even in a secular cleric, like Thomas, archbishop of York, chastity and manliness could easily coincide. William lauded Thomas of York for his strength of character, his recruitment of educated clergy and his commitment to chastity. Furthermore Thomas was skilled in music, and particularly concerned that his clerics “maintain a masculine type of music in church, and not give anything an effeminate turn”⁷⁵ (ut masculam in aecclesia musicam haberent, nec quicquam effeminate defringentes tenero).

Clerics could be rendered effeminate through the practice of sodomy, but more frequently religious critics attributed the effeminacy of such men to their sexual domination by women. The same Canterbury monks who had attributed a lack of reason and disorderliness to secular clerics also highlighted the effeminacy of these men. To show why monks were more suitable for ordination than secular clerics, the writers of this tract made the point over and over again that secular clerics were sexually dominated by women. The tract takes aim at the parish clergy, many of whom were described as “vagabond” priests, men more similar to locusts than to clerics (locustis similes). Should these men rule over monks, the writers questioned? They, with their long, unruly beards (barbis rostratos), curled hair (crinibus calamistratos), effeminate clothing (vestibus effeminatos), and distorted, curved feet (distortisque pedibus ungulatos)?⁷⁶ Ministers should be full of divine grace, chastely and soberly ministering at their churches and abstaining from sexual intercourse, from eating meat and from wearing soft and luxurious clothing,⁷⁷ all practices consistent with manly asceticism. They boldly asserted that priests should be making spiritual sons by teaching with devotion and by preaching; the priest has more than enough to do than to make sons through fornication.⁷⁸ Not only do parish clerics give their church revenue to their concubines and children, but they also create public spectacles by taking their women, decked out lavishly in fine clothing and jewels, to weddings and to church.⁷⁹

The description of priests’ concubines shows a link between fine clothing and dangerous female sexuality, both which corrupts the manly vigor of the priest. Similarly, the writer of an Old English homily laid out the gender inversion that occurs when priests served their wives, and not their churches: “for the lay men honoureth his spouse with clothes more than himself, and the priest not so his church, which is his spouse, but adorns his servant, which is his whore, with clothes more than himself. The church cloths are utterly rent and old, and his woman’s must be whole and new.”⁸⁰ These writers clearly saw these priests as men conquered by women, and that, in turn, rendered them effeminate. An effeminate appearance, a womanly demeanor, and domination by a woman all had consequences for the masculine identity of priests, rendering them inferior to the masculinity of monks.

Aside from the genre of chronicles, religious writers expressed similar sentiments in their letters and polemical texts. The archdeacon Gerald of Wales, writing in the late twelfth century, displayed the same level of contempt for effeminate behavior. His disgust for the canon Reginald Foliot is well documented and seemingly based on both Reginald’s androgynous appearance and perverse sexual proclivities. According to Gerald, Reginald was “a creature of fawning manners and lisping speech, so wholly beardless that from outward view none could tell whether he were man or woman,” a description similar to Eadmer’s Norman courtiers.⁸¹ In another passage, Gerald continued to assault Reginald’s manliness, only this time by implying that the canon lacked self-control. His letter to archbishop Hubert Walter of Canterbury illustrates that Reginald was an inappropriate candidate for the bishopric of St. David’s because “a short time ago he was an unchaste boy, and now that he has come to manhood, is a slave to every lust, witness the children of either sex that have recently been born to him and are still squalling in their cradles.”⁸² To discredit him as a candidate worthy of an episcopal seat, the very position so desired by the archdeacon himself, Gerald suggested implicitly that Reginald both was unmanly and lacked self-control.

Many ecclesiastical writers used the lack of sexual self-control to discredit their opponents; this had the effect of smearing the reputation, justly or not, of their opponent but also of reaffirming their particular notions of religious manliness. Arnulf, the archdeacon of Sées, and later bishop of Lisieux, wrote such a tract against Gerald, the bishop of Angoulême (1102–1136), a prelate who supported the schismatic pope Anacletus and who served him as his papal legate to France. The pamphlet, Invectiva in Girardum Engolismensem Episcopum, was a particularly venomous piece, attacking Gerald and his favored papal candidate with suggestions of clerical incontinence, bestiality, incest, and complicity in a rape. Arnulf began his polemic by questioning Gerald’s commitment to the Church, suggesting that he appeared to be a “soldier of Christ” while in fact he was not.⁸³ Arnulf then launched into the more substantial realm of his attack by describing an incident that may not have occurred. He accused Gerald of being complicit in the rape of an abbess by an archdeacon in his diocese; the abbess later gave birth to a child, conceived in the attack. As bishop, Gerald had not punished the archdeacon.⁸⁴ After pointing out Gerald’s inability to govern his diocese in disciplining errant clergy, Arnulf proceeded to use the case as an example of Gerald’s uncontrolled passions. In questioning Gerald’s authority, Arnulf stated that, because Gerald was “intemperate and lustful in important matters,” he would be the same in items of minor importance.⁸⁵ Referring to the rape of the abbess as a kind of spiritual “incest,” Arnulf questioned whether Gerald would not also commit “simple fornication or rape” because he was not bothered by the “filth of someone else’s crime.”⁸⁶

Arnulf’s attack on Anacletus was especially vicious. He accused Anacletus of committing “bestial incest” with his sister and having sons born from “this abominable monstrosity.” Next, perhaps in an attempt further to underscore Anacletus’s perversity, Arnulf asserted that Anacletus travelled with a young woman as a sexual companion. Perhaps for concealment, Anacletus tonsured her head, dressed her as a man, so that “both sexes seemed to be set forth in the same body.” Yet Arnulf’s description suggests that this was more than an attempt at secrecy; the antipope had perverse sexual inclinations.⁸⁷ Sexual control and manly demeanor were crucial elements of religious leadership. Religious writers used accusations such as these to emphasize the effeminate nature of these clerics, their lack of sexual self-control, and inability to govern.

Sexualizing Chastity

How did one avoid effeminacy? How might a cleric render himself more manly? Promoters of religious manliness had one answer: sexualized chastity. During the reform era, religious writers masculinized celibacy and the celibate male body in their presentation of chastity and holy virginity. If monastic writers from this period believed that the extension of the celibacy mandate to all clerics in major orders lessened their own special spiritual condition of holy virginity, the sources speak to the contrary. Nor did Anglo-Norman writers, in their promotion of chastity, suggest that there was an “ontological asexuality” that centrally defined monastic life.⁸⁸ In fact, sexualized chastity, the sexual struggle for abstinence, served a useful purpose in the gender paradigm of the reform movement. Writers remasculinized the male body through performance of the struggle against the flesh. In short, they compensated the loss of coitus with another performance of manliness, one that demonstrated that the male body was still functional but did not jeopardize the health of the soul. To renounce sex, to fight sexual desire, one needed to experience the sexualized body.

Beginning around 1050, many of the themes found in ancient and patristic sources on the issue of bodily purity and celibacy reappeared in monastic discourse. Those who favored celibacy for the priesthood made use of these older rhetorical devices to convince the priesthood that life-long chastity was the key to religious manliness. This rhetoric presented chastity as a notable military-style struggle, performed only by physically intact men, and suggested that the sexual relations of the priest polluted the altar and sacrament. Such behavior also polluted the priestly body, rendering it disorderly and dysfunctional.

Christian writers of the late Roman period had struggled with effective ways to resolve sexual urges, which they believed had the potential to corrupt the body. This denial of the flesh was key to spiritual salvation but could not include physical castration, which was the cowardly solution to the battle against the flesh. Instead, they urged a spiritual castration for those who wanted to meet Christ’s appeal to become “eunuchs for heaven.” The discomfort over physical castration was related to the gender ambiguity that ensued. Castrated men were not physically male, yet they were not women either. This collective sentiment was first expressed at the Council of Nicea (325), where religious authorities asserted their disapproval of those who maimed themselves; the council decreed that clerical eunuchs must be removed from their benefices. Ambrose of Milan and Jerome both expressed similar beliefs that there was manliness found in spiritual castration, but not in actual physical castration. They reasoned that those who castrated themselves spiritually were able to abstain from sexual relations by choice, whereas those physically castrated were unable to choose. The man who chose spiritual castration was able to abstain by sheer will. He fought constantly against sexual temptation, which made him stronger and more manly than those who never experienced sexual desires. The “manly eunuch,” thus, became the monk who embodied the ideal of spiritual castration.⁸⁹

The Anglo-Norman reform-era position on physical castration remained consistent with ancient doctrines, although it was likely more influenced by the Norman practice of castrating political enemies. The significance of castration as a political punishment exemplifies this perception of manliness and physical potency. Klaus van Eickels has noted that, when William the Conqueror set castration as a penalty for treason, he established the precedent for later Anglo-Norman rulers to destroy the manhood of their enemies.⁹⁰ This measure reflected the underlying cultural emphasis on masculinity: castration removed a man’s procreative function and deprived him of his ability to participate in the kinship network that was so profoundly important to Normans.⁹¹ The Norman use of castration on political enemies reflected the culture’s emphasis on manhood, governance, and political power; when castration was used elsewhere in medieval Europe, it was generally only employed as punishment for sexual offenses.⁹² Castration spelled dishonor for Normans, for it deprived them of their key social identity: being a man.

Norman rulers applied this form of dishonor to religious men, vowed celibates who, theoretically, did not engage in sexual intercourse. Geoffrey of Anjou asserted his political power over the church of Sées by castrating the bishop-elect Gerard and his clerics; he did so to punish the clerics for failing to consult him on the episcopal election.⁹³ Geoffrey’s act recognized Gerard’s potency, as a religious leader and as a man. Although Gerard was presumably celibate, this factor meant little to the duke. His violent action showed that he, like other laymen, viewed clerics as men and viewed physical emasculation as a viable form of retribution. The entire castration narrative underscores that Geoffrey of Anjou, and his social equals (warrior elites), saw male genitalia as the seat of power. The removal of these genitalia signified, to Geoffrey at least, the loss of male potency.

Since the temptation of the flesh presented a constant battle for the celibate, it was a necessary aspect of proving religious manliness, whether the spiritual warrior was a priest, monk, or bishop. Preventing this battle through castration removed the potential for manhood. William of Malmesbury presented an anecdote in his Gesta Pontificum Anglorum that underscored that even religious men could not tolerate castration. Hugh d’Orvial was appointed bishop of London but, after ordination, fell ill with blisters all over his body; to quell this illness, he had his testicles removed. Due to this “shameful remedy,” William writes, Hugh had to endure “the slur (obprobrium) of being a eunuch.”⁹⁴ By castration, Hugh put an end to one crucial masculine performance: conquering sexual desires over and over again. Rather than castration, physicians frequently advocated sexual intercourse as a remedy for certain kinds of illness. This in part illustrates that Anglo-Norman society, like others, viewed sex as a necessity for a balance of the humors, a view that could be problematic for religious celibates.⁹⁵ Maurice, bishop of London, was advised by physicians to relieve his illness by “the emission of humours.” Maurice, known for “self-indulgent love of women,” was criticized by William of Malmesbury, for “he was indeed unlucky to have to safeguard the flesh by endangering his soul.”⁹⁶

William’s condemnation of castration and sexual intercourse illustrates that the only course available to religious celibates, eager to guard their chastity, was to fight the desires of the flesh, even to the point of death. Thomas II, archbishop of York (d.1114), died from his refusal to accept a sexual remedy for his illness. Although he first consented to the treatment, which involved sex with a beautiful woman, his physicians later discovered he had remained chaste. Thomas defended his actions by saying “woe upon a remedy which requires lust (luxuriae) for its cure.”⁹⁷ Then he died. In a similar case, the archdeacon of Louvain was elected to the episcopal see of that city, although he desired to remain in his present position. He initially refused the position because he questioned his own commitment to lifelong chastity. He proclaimed that, if he could not be chaste, “he would be far more tolerable and less likely to be damned in his archdeacon’s post” than he would as bishop. Nonetheless, after his episcopal consecration, the archdeacon began to experience genital swelling, “with immeasurable flatulence” (it was believed that excessive gas could cause erections!).⁹⁸ Believing the cause of his illness to be sexual abstinence, those around him advised him to have intercourse. The cleric, wary of his failure to be continent as an archdeacon, refused to stain the dignity of his episcopal office with sexual activity. He later died, after “he resisted temptation manfully (viriliter) and, although conquered in the body, emerged victorious in the spirit for Christ.”⁹⁹

Remedies other than sexual intercourse could quell carnal desire. Gerald of Wales preached that priests should not only avoid dining in the presence of women but that they should mortify the stomach and genitals through abstinence, due to the close proximity of these organs. Sometimes more extreme measures were warranted. In retelling the story of the hermit Godric, Gerald explained that the saint was overcome by lust and abstained for a full week to quell his “illicit urgings.” But, unable to stifle his passions and subjected to involuntary ejaculation, he finally threw himself into a thorny briar patch like St. Benedict. When this too failed to produce the intended result, he immersed himself in icy, cold water; at last, he “extinguished the passion which frequently raged in him.”¹⁰⁰ This story brings to the forefront what Jacqueline Murray called the “problem of male embodiment.”¹⁰¹

The conflict present within the religious male body provoked some monastic writers to offer an alternative possibility: mystical castration. Gerald of Wales presents a story from the patristic era, when a monk by the name of Eliah created a monastery for women. After two years of ministering to the nuns, he suddenly began to experience carnal temptation. Terribly disturbed by his own thoughts, he fled to the wilderness to fast for two days and pray for an end to this temptation. One night in his sleep, Eliah was visited by three angels, who seized him, held him down, and “mystically” cut off his testicles with a knife. Afterward, Eliah reported feeling that a great burden had been lifted from him. He was able to lead this community of women as a fully intact male, without ever experiencing carnal temptation again.¹⁰²

Religious writers underscored that choosing chastity was not the same as choosing impotence, physical or social. The chaste, celibate body was still sexually functional, so long as it had not been physically castrated. Various episodes narrated in these texts clearly demonstrate that the male celibate still experienced sexual desires, manifested by his erections and ejaculations; his body was still responsive. The celibate male’s struggle was to fight his own nature, his sexual desires, and, in that moment, become remasculinized. Gerald of Wales was an advocate of celibacy, and his numerous discussions of sexual behavior created a discourse on sexuality that served to incite desire. His recollection of stories could be seen as discursive reenactments of the war against the flesh, his flesh certainly and those of his readers.¹⁰³ He stands as an example of how religious writers transformed clerical sexuality from the site of practice to the site of the imagination, all the while maintaining their chaste bodies.

Gerald was aware that young monks may have experienced sexual temptation more frequently, due to their youthful vigor. In his Gemma, he presents a letter written from Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, to an abbot, who reported a curious problem with one of his young monks. It appeared that the monk in question was having problems with involuntary seminal emission. Bishop Hildebert was more skeptical as to the monk’s culpability:

You say that when your confrere is prostrate for the sake of praying, an evil spirit approaches him, places its hands on his genital organs, and does not stop rubbing his body with its own until he is so agitated that he is polluted by an emission of semen. You say also that this apparition does not bother him in his thoughts or in his sleep. This experience takes place while he is praying and is done by [what seems to be] truly a man’s hand.¹⁰⁴

The bishop was informed that the young monk had followed all the rules, that he was a “virgin, that he has never eaten cooked meat, and that he has avoided the vices of the flesh.” Nonetheless, he expressed skepticism that this event was involuntary and the result of an evil spirit. He advised the abbot to have the monk “examine his conscience carefully, and if he finds that he has fought the temptation manfully (viriliter), let him continue to pray.” If, the monk finds he is, in fact, consenting to such masturbation, “let him pray more devoutly … let him pursue the path of sacred fasting, let him weep in his bed every night, let him undertake frequent and grave penances, let him chastise his body as Paul did and bring it into subjection.”¹⁰⁵ In order to explain why this righteous monk would face such temptation, Gerald explains that “this temptation was given, therefore, either to augment the youth’s merits (provided he resisted manfully (viriliter), without giving any consent) or to increase his punishment (if he had given, perhaps, some slight consent).”¹⁰⁶

The fight against the flesh appeared often in religious texts as a military battle, underscoring the traditional presentations of vowed celibates as soldiers of Christ (milites Christi). The notion of monks as milites Christi is so well established in monastic literature that it is unnecessary to supply an extensive discussion of the model. Katherine Smith’s excellent study has already shown that military imagery was profoundly central to male monastic life during the age of reform.¹⁰⁷ The monk as soldier was not an asexual being; he was, instead, a warrior who defended his vow of chastity. The group of monks behind an 1132 polemic portrayed the monastic life in such a manner. While the use of such metaphors in this tract can be connected to ancient monastic literature, its presence here was clearly intended to create a masculinized monastic life, centered around the battle against carnal desire. For example, the writers devote a considerable amount of this tract to arguing that monks form an elite military corps. Using well-known biblical passages, these monks argue that a soldier should not get involved in civilian affairs, especially the vices of the flesh; after all, good soldiers [monks] fight the “good fight.”¹⁰⁸ By this argument, they set up an anti-norm of the religious male body, the clerical body that engaged in fornication and concubinage. They further argue that the faithful in the Church, undoubtedly referencing priests, “ought to imitate the virtues and work of holy men manfully (viriliter).”¹⁰⁹ The monk-soldier, dominated by ascetic self-control, defends the citadel of God with his brethren and stands in stark contrast to the disorderly priestly body.

Military imagery was most powerful when it was tightly connected to the battle against the flesh. Ecclesiastical writers overarticulated this struggle against the flesh in all genres of writings. Gerald of Wales positioned the agon (struggle) as a continuous battle against the flesh in his Gemma Ecclesiastica. He reminds his readers that “it is the outcome, not the battle, which is crowned. Victory is crowned after the day’s battle.” In criticism of those clerics who wait until old age to commit to the religious life, out of fear they will be unable to remain continent, Gerald lectures that “no crown is given unless the struggle of a fierce battle has taken place. It is highly praiseworthy if they restrained themselves in the heat and passion of youth. Thus might they exercise the rule of reason over their reluctant flesh and chastise their body … otherwise they will wallow in unbridled wantonness.”¹¹⁰ Gerald believed that life on earth was an eternal battle with the “enemy” and so posed this question:

who is more victorious—he who overcomes the enemy after a severe struggle and long battle, or he who immediately and powerfully triumphs over him in the first stages of the struggle? … The enemy is conquered by force and overcome by strength if he is overthrown immediately, without delay. He who dallies and at length begins to do battle seems hardly likely to win.¹¹¹

Continuing on from his discussion of patristic authors, Gerald reiterates some of the ideas found in these ancient texts. He advises those who struggle against their sexual urges to do what early fathers like Jerome and Augustine did: “If, therefore, you are tempted and troubled as these men were, resist manfully (viriliter) and do battle as they did, in order that you may receive the crown which they received and for a temporary struggle receive everlasting rewards.” Quoting St. Paul, Gerald urges, “No one will receive the crown unless he strives manfully.” He follows with a quote from St. Jerome: “You are an effeminate (delicates) soldier if you hope to be crowned without a battle.”¹¹² Gerald further underscores that those “servants,” undoubtedly referencing priests, “are effeminate and deserving of reproach who, having given themselves over to every excess, refuse to follow their Lord through difficulties and hardships.” He concludes his argument by stating that, if one cannot die for Christ, “let us at least carry it in the other two ways (by being compassionate and by disciplining the body and manfully (viriliter) resisting temptations).”¹¹³

The battle against the flesh was so important for priests because many writers believed the purity of the altar and sacrament was at stake. Monastic writers made great use of the motif of the fornicating priest who polluted the altar through his licentious behavior. Here the connection between the priestly body and the Christ body was conveyed. Despite the frequency of this concept, that priests taint the altar and sacrament by their sexual behavior, ecclesiastical authorities were not unified on this position. Anselm of Canterbury did believe that a corruption of the sacrament could occur if an impure priest ministered at the altar. In a letter to William, abbot of Fécamp, Anselm advised the abbot to uphold the rule of clerical celibacy because those priests who minister at the altars “do not serve, but pollute them by their very presence.”¹¹⁴ Pope Paschal’s letter (1102) to Anselm illustrates the problem with removing such priests from their churches. Paschal advised Anselm that when there was imminent death, it was better to receive the sacrament from the hand of a fornicating priest than to do without the sacrament entirely because no suitable priest could be found.¹¹⁵

Several months later, Anselm himself was in a position to advise Gerard, archbishop of York, on the same matter. Gerard’s chief complaint was that the priests and deacons who had wives and concubines were still serving at the altar. In addition, some rebellious clerics claimed they had violated no laws, since the Council of Westminster had only barred them from cohabitating with women, not from meeting with them in the homes of their neighbors. Regarding the consecration of the Host, Gerard said these men “long carried out these things within the filth of lust so that they repeatedly go back and forth, publicly, from the beds of their concubines to the altar, and then from the altar to the beds of wickedness.” Furthermore, Gerard stated he had trouble getting clerics to ascend the higher orders because “they resist me with stiff necks in case they should have to profess chastity at their ordination.”¹¹⁶ These sentiments were echoed by Geoffrey Grossus, hagiographer of Bernard of Tiron, who described the concubinous priests of Normandy as binding themselves to a life of fornication and, as a result, “never to approach the body and blood of Christ except as unworthy criminals.”¹¹⁷

Some writers believed bodily impurity could be alleviated by periodic abstinence. Gerald of Wales believed a period of sexual abstinence before consecration of the Host could mitigate the sexual corruption of the sacrament. While Gerald admonished unchaste priests, he also appealed to them to remain chaste for at least three days before consecrating the Host. He asked, “let the priest who lives and rolls about as if in his own pig-pen of impurity show at least this reverence to the sacred altar and to the Eucharist.” Gerald shunned to think, however, that three days was not enough to cleanse the impurity of unchaste priests, who “pollute themselves by fornication and concubinage.” For this reason, he argued that “they ought to shun not only concubinage, but also cohabitation with women.”¹¹⁸ In another section of the Gemma, he bluntly questions, “How will a priest who does not abhor to arise every morning from the bed of a damnable harlot or of a culpable concubine to consecrate and receive the greatest and most worthy of all sacraments shun any other vice?”¹¹⁹ Using a story told about Hugh of Lincoln, Gerald makes the point that priests are particularly susceptible to fornication: “We must resist, therefore, with all our manliness (viribus). If we courageously and faithfully apply our spiritual arms and our minds against spiritual evils, we will be victorious against the attacks of the clever enemy.”¹²⁰ Priests must overcome their weaknesses, and “resist the desires of the flesh manfully (viriliter) … the greater the struggle, the greater the crown.”¹²¹ Gerald encapsulated the battle against the flesh as a masculine performance, leaving no doubt that religious celibacy was manly.

Religious writers of the reform period in England and Normandy conceived of manliness as an epic battle for sexual self-control. The discipline of the male body was always the centrally defining feature of monastic manliness, but it would be further extended to the secular clergy by way of celibacy legislation. The language of virility described those in religious orders as manly, in thought, action, and appearance. Throughout many texts, monastic writers posited their superior manliness against the lax, softened bodies of courtiers and priests. Chastity was the key to achieving religious manliness, but it depended on a sexualized body, one that could continually fight the desires of the flesh. Sexualized chastity allowed the chaste body to remain virile and, by extension, manly. A cleric rendered himself effeminate or “softened” by allowing women to dominate him and being subject to uncontrollable lust. As Chapter 2 will illustrate, it was this model of masculinity that intersected with the implementation of antimarriage laws for the secular clergy.