clerical celibacy

Tag: clerical celibacy

The Manly Priest: Celibacy, Masculinity, and Reform in the Medieval Period

By Katherine Harvey February 9, 2016 Author Interviews 0 comments

Interview by Katherine Harvey In The Manly Priest: Clerical Celibacy, Masculinity, and Reform in England and Normandy, 1066-1300, Jennifer Thibodeaux tells the story of the imposition of clerical celibacy in the Anglo-Norman realms. For much of the medieval period, priests in both England and Normandy were not only permitted to marry, but […]

Her Virginal Members: Chastity and Sexual Desire in the Middle-Ages

By Kathryn Maude September 1, 2015 Medieval 1 comment

‘Virginity is often lost and chastity outraged without any commerce with another’.

The Perfect Corpse: Death, Virginity and the Bishop in Medieval Europe

By Katherine Harvey June 2, 2015 Medieval 0 comments

Lietbert was renowned for his piety, and in particular his sexual continence.

Death by Celibacy: Sex, Semen and Male Health in the Middle Ages

By Katherine Harvey October 21, 2014 Medieval 5 comments

Katherine Harvey In the late twelfth century Gerald of Wales, archdeacon of Brecon and a prolific author, wrote a tract on the proper conduct of the clergy. Gerald was writing only a few decades after the First Lateran Council (1123) had introduced compulsory celibacy for all priests, at a time […]

The Bishop’s New Stockings, or The Dangers of Love Magic

By Katherine Harvey August 12, 2014 Medieval 0 comments

Katherine Harvey At some point in the first half of the eleventh century, Archbishop Poppo of Trier (1016-1047) decided to commission a new pair of pontifical stockings. He sent some material to a young canoness who belonged to a nearby religious house; shortly afterwards, he received his new footwear, and decided to try […]

The Problematic Priestly Body: Celibacy, Sexuality and the Trials of the Medieval Clergy

By Katherine Harvey March 18, 2014 Medieval 0 comments

Katherine Harvey Although Notches is a blog about the history of sexuality, as a historian of the late medieval Church I spend most of my time thinking about a group of men who were not supposed to engage in any form of sexual activity: the medieval clergy. The ideal of […]