The Battle for Chastity: Miraculous Castration and the Quelling of Desire in the Middle Ages
Abstract
In 1985, Michel Foucault published an essay entitled, “The Battle for Chastity” using the works of John Cassian to focus on the problem of nocturnal emissions experienced by holy men, primarily solitaries. But Cassian did not focus solely on the end goal of ending seminal emissions. He also laid out a path through the minefield of bodily sexual desire, recognizing that fasting and flagellation were no sure cure. In addition to seminal emissions, attention was given to the genital organs themselves and the movements of the flesh. Perceived as a specifically masculine discourse, stories appeared about various men who experienced the divine gift of mystical castration which put an end to their lust and to movements of the flesh. This article examines dozen incidents of mystical castration, performed by various divine agents, found in medieval sources from the fourth to fifteenth century. While the discourse is ostensibly androcentric, revealing men’s reactions to men’s struggles to contain their own bodies and desires. In fact, however, the phenomenon is equally about women and rooted in the evolution of medieval misogyny.
References
Primary sources:
1 Nicaea (325) c. 1. In Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, edited by Norman P. Tanner, vol. 1, Nicaea I to Lateran V, 6. London: Sheed and Ward, 1990.
Acta Sanctorum 23, 14 June, 449.
Adam of Eynsham. The Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln (Magna Vita Sancti Hugonis), vol. 1. Edited and translated by Decima L. Douie and Hugh Farmer. London: Thomas Nelson, 1961.
Aegineta, Paulus. The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta, vol. 2. Translated by Francis Adams. London: Sydenham Society, 1846.
Augustine. Confessiones, Book 2. In Augustine. Confessions. Vol. 1. Introduction and Text, edited by James J. O’Donnell. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1992.
Caesarius of Heisterbach. Dialogus miraculorum 4.97, edited by Joseph Strange. Cologne: J.M. Heberle, 1851.
Caesarius of Heisterbach. The Dialogue on Miracles, vol. 1. Translated by H. von E. Scott and C. C. Swinton Bland. London: George Routledge, 1929.
Cassian, John. De institutis coenobiorum. Editby the Michael Petschenig. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 17. Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1888.
Cassian, John. Conférence I-VII, edited by E. Pichery, Sources chrétiennes, 42. Paris: Cerf, 1955.
Cassian, John. Conlationes. Edited by Michael Petschenig. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 13. Vienna: C. Geroldi flium, 1886.
Cassian, John. The Conferences. Translated by Boniface Ramsey. Ancient Christian Writers, 57. New York: Newman Press, 1997.
Cassian, John. The Institutes. Translated by Boniface Ramsey. Ancient Christian Writers, 58. New York: Newman Press, 1997.
Clement of Alexandria. Christ the Educator. Translated by Simon P. Wood. Fathers of the Church 23, 3.4.25, 221. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1954.
Étienne de Bourbon. Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues tiré du recueil inédit d’Étienne de Bourbon dominicain du XIIIe siècle, edited by Albert Lecoy de la Marche. Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1877.
Eusebius. The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine. Translated by Geoffrey Arthur Williamson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965; rpt. 1981.
Gerald of Wales. The Jewel of the Church (Gemma ecclesiastica). Translated by John J. Hagen. Leiden: Brill, 1979.
Gregory the Great. Dialogues. In PL, 1.4.
Gregory the Great. Dialogues. Translated by Odo John Zimmerman. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1959.
Guibert de Nogent. A Monk’s Confession: the Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent. Translated by Paul J. Archambault. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
Guibert de Nogent. Histoire de sa vie (1053-1124), edited by Georges Bourgin. Paris: Picard et fils, 1907.
Henry of Avranches. The Metrical Life of Saint Hugh of Lincoln. Edited and translated by Charles Garcon. Lincoln: Honywood Press, 1986.
Jerome. Letter 22, Ad Eustochium, CSEL.
Jocobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, vol. 2. Translated by William Granger Ryan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Palladius. Historia Lausiaca, 8.35. In PL 73, 1135-6.
Palladius. The Lausiac History. Translated by Robert T. Meyer, Ancient Christian Writers, 34, 88-90. Westminster: Newman Press, 1965.
Sozomen. Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen. In A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 2, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.
The Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum. Edited and Translated by Christopher S. Mackay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
The Letters of Saint Jerome, vol. 1. Translated by Charles Christopher Mierow, Ancient Christian Writers 33. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1963.
Thomas of Eccleston. De adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam. Tractatus Fr. Thomae vulgo dicti de Eccleston de adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, edited by Andrew G. Little. Paris: Fischbacher, 1909.
William de Tocco. Ystoria sancti Thome de Aquino de Guillaume de Tocco (1323), Cap. 11, edited by Claire le Brun-Gouanvic, Studies and Texts, 127. Toronto: PIMS, 1996.
Zonaras, Johannes. Epitome Historiarum, vol. 4, edited by Ludovicus Dindorfius. Lipsiae: Teubner, 1868.
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Adams, J.N. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. London: Duckworth, 1982.
Anglo, Sydney. “Evident Authority and Authoritative Evidence: The Malleus Maleficarum.” In The Damned Art. Essays in the Literature of Witchcraft, edited by S. Anglo, 1-31. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977.
Arnold, John. “Labour of Continence: Masculinity and Clerical Virginity.” In Medieval Virginities, edited by Ruth Evans, et. al., 102-118. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.
Balzaretti, Ross. “Sexuality in Late Lombard Italy, c.700-c.800.” In Medieval Sexuality: A Casebook, edited by April Harper and Caroline Proctor, 7-31. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Braegelmann, Sr. Athanasius. The Life and Wirtings of Saint Ildefonsus of Toledo. Washington: University of America Press, 1942.
Brown, Peter. The Body and Society. Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Camerlynck, Elaine. “Féminité et sorcellerie chez théoriciens de la démonologie à la fin du Moyen Age: Etude du Malleus Meficarum.” Renaissance and Reformation 19 (1983): 13-25.
Delahave, Henry. “Saints de Chypre.” Analecta Bollandiana 26 (1907): 161-301.
Delany, Paul. “Constantinus Africanus’ De coitu: a translation.” Chaucer Review 4.1 (1970): 55-65.
Foucault, Michel. “Battle for Chastity.” In Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, edited by Philippe Ariès and André Béjin, translated by Anthony Forster, 14-25. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985.
Giles, Ryan D. “The Miracle of Gerald the Pilgrin: Hagiographic Visions of Castration in the Liber sacti Jacobi and Milagros de nuestra señora.” Neophilologus 94.3 (2010): 439-450.
Jay, Jennifer W. “Another Side of Chinese Eunuch History: Castration, Marriage, Adoption, and Burial.” Canadian Journal of History 28 (1993): 460-78.
Kardong, Terrence. “John Cassian’s Teaching on Perfect Chastity.” American Benedictine Review 30 (1979): 249-63.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. “Thomas Aquinas’ Chastity Belt: Clerical Masculinity in Medieval Europe.” In Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe. New Perspectives, edited by Lisa M. Bitel and Felice Lifschitz, 52-67. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2012.
Kuefler, Matthew S. “Castration and Eunuchism in the Middle Ages.” In Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, edited by Vern L. Bullough and James E. Brundage, 279-306. New York: Garland, 1996.
Latham, Ronald Edward, ed. Dictionary of medieval Latin from British sources, fascicule VI, M. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975-2013.
McKenna, S.J. “Ildefonsus of Toledo.” New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 7, 358.
Mora, George and Benjamin Kohl, eds. Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance. Johann Weyer’s De praestigiis daemonum. Translated by John Shea. Binghamton: CMERS/SUNY, 1991.
Moulinier-Brogi, Laurence. “La castration dans l’Occident médiéval.” In Corps outragés, corps ravagés de l’Antiquité au Moyen Âge, edited by L. Bodiou, V. Mehl, and M. Soria. Turnhout: Brepols, 2011.
Murray, Jacqueline. “Mystical Castration: Some Reflections of Peter Abelard, Hugh of Lincoln and Sexual Control.” In Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities. Men in the Medieval West, edited eadem, 73-91. New York: Garland Publishing, 1999.
Murray, Jacqueline. “Sexual Mutilation and Castration Anxiety: A Medieval Perspective.” In The Boswell Thesis. Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, edited by Matthew Kuefler, 254-72. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Nock, Arthur Darby. “Eunuchs in Ancient Religion.” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 23 (1925): 25-33; rpt. Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, vol. 1, edited by Zeph Stewart, 7-15. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Panken, Aaron D. “D’var Torah: Joseph and Potiphar: The Named, the Neuteured, and the Neutralized.” RJ Org, 28 November 2010 http://blogs.rj.org/blog/2010/11/28/dvar_torah_joseph_and_potiphar/.
Pilsworth, Clare. “Sanctity, Crime and Punishment in the Vita Walfredi.” Historiographica 7 (2000): 181-99.
Ringrose, Kathryn M. “Living in the Shadows: Eunuchs and Gender in Byzantium.” In Third Sex, Third Gender. Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, edited by Gilbert Herdt, 85-109. New York: Zone Books 1994.
Russell, Kenneth C. “John Cassian on a Delicate Subject.” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 72 (1992): 1-12.
Sallares, Robert. The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Schmid, Karl. Vita Walfredi und Kloster Monteverdi. Toskanisches Mönchtum zwischen langobardischer und fränkischer Herrscaft. Türbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1991.
Scholz, Piotr O. Eunuchs and Castrati: A Cultural History. Translated by John Broadwin and Shelley L. Frische. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2001.
Smith, William and Henry Wace, eds. A Dictionary of Christian Biography, vol. 4. London: John Murray, 1887.
Steel, Karl T. “Nothing to Lose: Medieval Castration, Clerical Celibacy, and a Strange Story from Peter of Cornwall’s Book of Revelation.” Brewminate. A Bold Blend of News and Ideas, 27 February 2017, http://brewminate.com/nothing-to-lose-medieval-castration-clerical-celibacy-and-a-strange-story-from-peter-of-cornwalls-book-of-revelation/.
Stevenson, Walter. “The Rise of Eunuchs in Greco-Roman Antiquity.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1995): 495-511.
Thompson, Stith. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, vol. 5, rev. ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955.
Tougher, Shaun F. “Byzantine Eunuchs: An Overview, with Special Reference to their Creation and Origin.” In Women, Men, and Eunuchs. Gender in Byzantium, edited by Liz James, 168-84. London: Routledge, 1997.
1 Nicaea (325) c. 1. In Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, edited by Norman P. Tanner, vol. 1, Nicaea I to Lateran V, 6. London: Sheed and Ward, 1990.
Acta Sanctorum 23, 14 June, 449.
Adam of Eynsham. The Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln (Magna Vita Sancti Hugonis), vol. 1. Edited and translated by Decima L. Douie and Hugh Farmer. London: Thomas Nelson, 1961.
Aegineta, Paulus. The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta, vol. 2. Translated by Francis Adams. London: Sydenham Society, 1846.
Augustine. Confessiones, Book 2. In Augustine. Confessions. Vol. 1. Introduction and Text, edited by James J. O’Donnell. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1992.
Caesarius of Heisterbach. Dialogus miraculorum 4.97, edited by Joseph Strange. Cologne: J.M. Heberle, 1851.
Caesarius of Heisterbach. The Dialogue on Miracles, vol. 1. Translated by H. von E. Scott and C. C. Swinton Bland. London: George Routledge, 1929.
Cassian, John. De institutis coenobiorum. Editby the Michael Petschenig. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 17. Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1888.
Cassian, John. Conférence I-VII, edited by E. Pichery, Sources chrétiennes, 42. Paris: Cerf, 1955.
Cassian, John. Conlationes. Edited by Michael Petschenig. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 13. Vienna: C. Geroldi flium, 1886.
Cassian, John. The Conferences. Translated by Boniface Ramsey. Ancient Christian Writers, 57. New York: Newman Press, 1997.
Cassian, John. The Institutes. Translated by Boniface Ramsey. Ancient Christian Writers, 58. New York: Newman Press, 1997.
Clement of Alexandria. Christ the Educator. Translated by Simon P. Wood. Fathers of the Church 23, 3.4.25, 221. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1954.
Étienne de Bourbon. Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues tiré du recueil inédit d’Étienne de Bourbon dominicain du XIIIe siècle, edited by Albert Lecoy de la Marche. Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1877.
Eusebius. The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine. Translated by Geoffrey Arthur Williamson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965; rpt. 1981.
Gerald of Wales. The Jewel of the Church (Gemma ecclesiastica). Translated by John J. Hagen. Leiden: Brill, 1979.
Gregory the Great. Dialogues. In PL, 1.4.
Gregory the Great. Dialogues. Translated by Odo John Zimmerman. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1959.
Guibert de Nogent. A Monk’s Confession: the Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent. Translated by Paul J. Archambault. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
Guibert de Nogent. Histoire de sa vie (1053-1124), edited by Georges Bourgin. Paris: Picard et fils, 1907.
Henry of Avranches. The Metrical Life of Saint Hugh of Lincoln. Edited and translated by Charles Garcon. Lincoln: Honywood Press, 1986.
Jerome. Letter 22, Ad Eustochium, CSEL.
Jocobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, vol. 2. Translated by William Granger Ryan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Palladius. Historia Lausiaca, 8.35. In PL 73, 1135-6.
Palladius. The Lausiac History. Translated by Robert T. Meyer, Ancient Christian Writers, 34, 88-90. Westminster: Newman Press, 1965.
Sozomen. Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen. In A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 2, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.
The Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum. Edited and Translated by Christopher S. Mackay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
The Letters of Saint Jerome, vol. 1. Translated by Charles Christopher Mierow, Ancient Christian Writers 33. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1963.
Thomas of Eccleston. De adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam. Tractatus Fr. Thomae vulgo dicti de Eccleston de adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, edited by Andrew G. Little. Paris: Fischbacher, 1909.
William de Tocco. Ystoria sancti Thome de Aquino de Guillaume de Tocco (1323), Cap. 11, edited by Claire le Brun-Gouanvic, Studies and Texts, 127. Toronto: PIMS, 1996.
Zonaras, Johannes. Epitome Historiarum, vol. 4, edited by Ludovicus Dindorfius. Lipsiae: Teubner, 1868.
Secondary sources
Adams, J.N. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. London: Duckworth, 1982.
Anglo, Sydney. “Evident Authority and Authoritative Evidence: The Malleus Maleficarum.” In The Damned Art. Essays in the Literature of Witchcraft, edited by S. Anglo, 1-31. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977.
Arnold, John. “Labour of Continence: Masculinity and Clerical Virginity.” In Medieval Virginities, edited by Ruth Evans, et. al., 102-118. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.
Balzaretti, Ross. “Sexuality in Late Lombard Italy, c.700-c.800.” In Medieval Sexuality: A Casebook, edited by April Harper and Caroline Proctor, 7-31. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Braegelmann, Sr. Athanasius. The Life and Wirtings of Saint Ildefonsus of Toledo. Washington: University of America Press, 1942.
Brown, Peter. The Body and Society. Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Camerlynck, Elaine. “Féminité et sorcellerie chez théoriciens de la démonologie à la fin du Moyen Age: Etude du Malleus Meficarum.” Renaissance and Reformation 19 (1983): 13-25.
Delahave, Henry. “Saints de Chypre.” Analecta Bollandiana 26 (1907): 161-301.
Delany, Paul. “Constantinus Africanus’ De coitu: a translation.” Chaucer Review 4.1 (1970): 55-65.
Foucault, Michel. “Battle for Chastity.” In Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, edited by Philippe Ariès and André Béjin, translated by Anthony Forster, 14-25. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985.
Giles, Ryan D. “The Miracle of Gerald the Pilgrin: Hagiographic Visions of Castration in the Liber sacti Jacobi and Milagros de nuestra señora.” Neophilologus 94.3 (2010): 439-450.
Jay, Jennifer W. “Another Side of Chinese Eunuch History: Castration, Marriage, Adoption, and Burial.” Canadian Journal of History 28 (1993): 460-78.
Kardong, Terrence. “John Cassian’s Teaching on Perfect Chastity.” American Benedictine Review 30 (1979): 249-63.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. “Thomas Aquinas’ Chastity Belt: Clerical Masculinity in Medieval Europe.” In Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe. New Perspectives, edited by Lisa M. Bitel and Felice Lifschitz, 52-67. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2012.
Kuefler, Matthew S. “Castration and Eunuchism in the Middle Ages.” In Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, edited by Vern L. Bullough and James E. Brundage, 279-306. New York: Garland, 1996.
Latham, Ronald Edward, ed. Dictionary of medieval Latin from British sources, fascicule VI, M. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975-2013.
McKenna, S.J. “Ildefonsus of Toledo.” New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 7, 358.
Mora, George and Benjamin Kohl, eds. Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance. Johann Weyer’s De praestigiis daemonum. Translated by John Shea. Binghamton: CMERS/SUNY, 1991.
Moulinier-Brogi, Laurence. “La castration dans l’Occident médiéval.” In Corps outragés, corps ravagés de l’Antiquité au Moyen Âge, edited by L. Bodiou, V. Mehl, and M. Soria. Turnhout: Brepols, 2011.
Murray, Jacqueline. “Mystical Castration: Some Reflections of Peter Abelard, Hugh of Lincoln and Sexual Control.” In Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities. Men in the Medieval West, edited eadem, 73-91. New York: Garland Publishing, 1999.
Murray, Jacqueline. “Sexual Mutilation and Castration Anxiety: A Medieval Perspective.” In The Boswell Thesis. Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, edited by Matthew Kuefler, 254-72. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Nock, Arthur Darby. “Eunuchs in Ancient Religion.” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 23 (1925): 25-33; rpt. Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, vol. 1, edited by Zeph Stewart, 7-15. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Panken, Aaron D. “D’var Torah: Joseph and Potiphar: The Named, the Neuteured, and the Neutralized.” RJ Org, 28 November 2010 http://blogs.rj.org/blog/2010/11/28/dvar_torah_joseph_and_potiphar/.
Pilsworth, Clare. “Sanctity, Crime and Punishment in the Vita Walfredi.” Historiographica 7 (2000): 181-99.
Ringrose, Kathryn M. “Living in the Shadows: Eunuchs and Gender in Byzantium.” In Third Sex, Third Gender. Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, edited by Gilbert Herdt, 85-109. New York: Zone Books 1994.
Russell, Kenneth C. “John Cassian on a Delicate Subject.” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 72 (1992): 1-12.
Sallares, Robert. The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Schmid, Karl. Vita Walfredi und Kloster Monteverdi. Toskanisches Mönchtum zwischen langobardischer und fränkischer Herrscaft. Türbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1991.
Scholz, Piotr O. Eunuchs and Castrati: A Cultural History. Translated by John Broadwin and Shelley L. Frische. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 2001.
Smith, William and Henry Wace, eds. A Dictionary of Christian Biography, vol. 4. London: John Murray, 1887.
Steel, Karl T. “Nothing to Lose: Medieval Castration, Clerical Celibacy, and a Strange Story from Peter of Cornwall’s Book of Revelation.” Brewminate. A Bold Blend of News and Ideas, 27 February 2017, http://brewminate.com/nothing-to-lose-medieval-castration-clerical-celibacy-and-a-strange-story-from-peter-of-cornwalls-book-of-revelation/.
Stevenson, Walter. “The Rise of Eunuchs in Greco-Roman Antiquity.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1995): 495-511.
Thompson, Stith. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, vol. 5, rev. ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955.
Tougher, Shaun F. “Byzantine Eunuchs: An Overview, with Special Reference to their Creation and Origin.” In Women, Men, and Eunuchs. Gender in Byzantium, edited by Liz James, 168-84. London: Routledge, 1997.
