Skip to main content

IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 305: Masculinity and Celibacy in the Middle Ages, II: Clerical Contexts

Monday 3 July 2017, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Divison of History, University of Huddersfield
Organiser:Patricia Cullum, Department of History, University of Huddersfield
Moderator/Chair:Patricia Cullum, Department of History, University of Huddersfield
Paper 305-aMarriage, Celibacy, and Masculinity in Lives of Minor Clerics: The Case of Late Medieval Normandy
(Language: English)
Jennifer D. Thibodeaux, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Gender Studies, Religious Life
Paper 305-bDeath by Celibacy: Bishops, Bodies, and Medicine in Medieval England
(Language: English)
Katherine Harvey, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Ecclesiastical History, Gender Studies, Religious Life
Paper 305-cImages of Bestial Lust: Trying to Put Clerics Off Sex in Late Medieval England
(Language: English)
Patricia Cullum, Department of History, University of Huddersfield
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Gender Studies, Religious Life
Abstract

Vern Bullough once defined medieval masculinity as demonstrated by those who 'impregnate women, protect dependants and serve as provider to one’s family' but what about the other men, clerics, and laymen who espoused clerical values, who were not supposed to, or did not want to, procreate. In recent years there has been increasing interest in resistance to the Gregorian Reformation, and in those clerics who were 'other' to the dominant narrative of a successful imposition of celibacy. These two sessions will explore the formation of and resistance to celibate ideals and practice, and its relation to masculinity, across a wide chronological and geographical range.