Negotiating Clerical Identities Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages

Clerics in the Middle Ageswere subjected to differing ideals of masculinity, both from within the Church and from lay society. The historians in this volume interrogate the meaning of masculine identity for the medieval clergy, by considering a wide range of sources, time periods and geographical contexts.

Jennifer D. Thibodeaux is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, USA. She specializes in the study of the medieval Norman clergy and has written numerous essays on the medieval clergy and masculinity.

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Rethinking the Medieval Clergy and Masculinity; J.D.Thibodeaux
What Can Historians do with Clerical Masculinity? D.Neal
PART I: MONASTIC MASCULINITY
The Common Bond of Aristocratic Masculinity: Monks, Secular Men, and St.Gerald of Aurillac; A.Romig
The Warrior Habitus: Militant Masculinity and Monasticism in the Henrician Reform Movement; S.Wells
Spiritual Warriors in Citadels of Faith: Martial Rhetoric and Monastic Masculinity in the Long Twelfth Century; K.Allen Smith
PART II: PRIESTLY MASCULINITY: RECONCILING CELIBACY AND SEXUALITY
Saxo Grammaticus's Heroic Chastity: A Model of Clerical Celibacy and Masculinity in Medieval Scandinavia; A.Perron
From Boys to Priests: Adolescence, Masculinity and the Parish Clergy in Medieval Normandy; J.D.Thibodeaux
Promiscuous Priests and Vicarage Children: Clerical Sexuality and Masculinity in Late Medieval England; J.Werner
PART III: CLERICAL MASCULINITY: CONTESTED IDENTITIES
Between Warrior and Priest: The Creation of a New Masculine Identity during the Crusades; A.Holt
Knights, Bishops and Deer Parks: Episcopal Identity, Emasculation and Clerical Space in Medieval England; A.Miller
Mirror of the Scholarly (Masculine) Soul: Scholastics, Béguines and Gendered Spirituality in Medieval Paris; T.Stabler Miller