The Medieval Clergy and Sexual Predation: Chastity as Blind(ness)
Chastity has traditionally been the mark of holiness that set the clergy apart from the laity. In the Middle Ages, the laudatory discourse on clerical chastity frequently likened the clergy to angels. Modern scholars have taken these panegyrics seriously, considering the extent to which the clergy should be considered either as a sexless third gender or a cadre of hyper-masculine warrior angels. This paper, in contrast, points to the pernicious implications of chastity, blinding some clerics to their unconscious desires and providing others with a hunting blind for sexual predation. Intrinsic to these developments is the discourse on chastity with its disparagement of women, providing tacit encouragement for same-sex eroticism. Some of this erotic impetus is sublimated, whereby homoerotic phantasies inspire mystical visions. But, as judicial records indicate, when such phantasies are acted out, chastity offers the predatory cleric a blind for hunting vulnerable youths. Predictably, the clerical judges in such cases, bound together in celibate solidarity and sensitive to scandal, are invariably inclined to turn a blind eye.
Dyan Elliott is Peter B. Ritma Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University. She is a medieval historian, whose research interests revolve around the church, gender, sexuality, spirituality, and questions of power. Her most recent book is The Corrupter of Boys: Sodomy, Scandal, and the Medieval Clergy (2020).
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This page was last updated on 14 March 2025
