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