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.