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Discussions of sexual issues in pre-modern Europe are
inherently problematic. As Michel Foucault points out, sexual
aspects of historical identity, especially same-gender issues,
are largely social constructs similar to grammar in that they
are particularly socio-dependent and outside the constructs
and experiences of twentieth-century researchers. 1 Western
culture, steeped in a definition of sexuality that is procreative,
heterosexual, phallocentric, and ejaculatory, seems unwilling
or unable to move beyond delimiting what it does not
understand to fit its narrow definition of human experience.
2
Any attempt to discuss same-sex issues, especially in
medieval and/or pre-modern Europe, therefore, runs into
the problem of epistemology over ontology; specifically, how
do we refer to historical persons twentieth-century readers
would consider “gay”? In fact, are they “gay” or “homosexual,”
or, as some would suggest, in this day of deconsructionism
and post-deconstructionism, does the sexuality of the author
actually matter? In attempting an exegesis of albeit a small
sample of the writings of St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-
1109), does a discussion of his possible sexual orientation
confuse more than illuminate, if that orientation was never
acknowledged by him? Gay identity is difficult to conceptualize in a society
where, at best, homosexuals formed a small and seldom seen
sub-culture. The word itself, “gay,” is a modern invention, and
the term used during this period, “sodomite,” is often used
as a catch-all phrase meant more to indicate those who
fell outside of the society’s norms (or the current political
circle) than those who practiced same-sex acts. 3 Modern
conceptions of sexuality are formed around the axis of the
penetrative sexual act whereas, in the period and places
(monasteries) under discussion, the act itself was secondary
to the yearning for the beloved and was considered outside
the “equation” of same-sex love. If anything, the act of climax
was inherently anti-climatic; in the parallel drawn between
yearning for the divine and yearning for one’s beloved, the
act of sexual congress, in monastic culture especially, had no
place.
It is difficult for twentieth-century readers to
disassociate coitus from sexuality. Our present society is
awash in sexuality and sexual depictions. Our popular media
makes constant references to it, leading John Boswell to note
that our modern culture seems obsessed with romantic and/
or genitally-focused love; any outside observer would assume
rightly that this was the primary interest or focus of our
culture. 4 However, modern ideas and constructs of sexuality
are formed on the premise that they are speaking primarily of
heterosexual love, and any hint that the love-object may be of
the same gender is often used as a comedic foil; the tension
caused results in a half-hearted laugh, loud enough (in the
case of male homosexual jokes) to assure any males present
that they are indeed straight. Interestingly, until recently,
popular culture seldom made jokes regarding female samesex
partners, a phenomenon perhaps reflecting the morbid
curiosity males in our society have about witnessing femaleto-
female sexual acts.
Modern problems with same-sex issues aside, we
must be cautious when discussing monastic love poetry
in medieval England. For questions of interpretation and
exegesis, we cannot assume, no matter how sexual the
language may seem to modern readers, that the intended
recipient of the poem would also read a sexual meaning into
the text.
During the later part of the twelfth century, Europe
was awash in the tide of Neoplatonism coming from Italy. At
the same time, there was a concerted and parallel effort in
England to consolidate the Christian ideal with the constructs
of Plato, especially in monastic circles. Substitutions of
popular Greek myths were made, with Venus becoming
Mary, Cupid now the Infant Jesus, Zeus as both God and
Pater familias, and Ganymede as the Resurrected Christ. By
melding the best of Platonic ideals with Christian ones, a
new synthesis and revitalization of Christian thought was
possible, a trend that some have called the “Renaissance
of the Twelfth-Century.” 5 A noted example of
this trend can be found in the poetry of St. Anselm. Anselm,
prior of Bec and later Archbishop of Canterbury, was one of
the most influential proponents of the ideal of monastic love
in the England of his day. This was truly a synthesis of the
sexual with Platonic, as Anselm wrote when discussing his
love-interests with fellow monks: “From these friendships and
the discussions which cemented them, came the theological
treatises.” 6
Though Anselm was devoted to the concept of
monastic celibacy (especially in light of the suggested
punishments enumerated by the Liber Gomorrhianus of c.
1048-54), he celebrated his love for his fellow monks in poem
after poem, often addressing them to his “beloved lover”
(dilecto dilectori): 7
Souls well-beloved of my soul, my eyes ardently
desire to behold you; my arms expand to embrace
you; my lips sigh for your kisses; all the life that
remains to me is consumed with waiting for you. I
hope in praying, and I pray in hoping— come and
taste how gracious the Lord is— you cannot fully
know it while you find sweetness in the world.
‘Far from the eyes, far from the heart,’ say the vulgar.
Believe nothing of it; if it was so, the further you were
distant from me the cooler my love for you would
be; whilst on the contrary, the less I can enjoy your
presence, the more the desire of that pleasure burns
in the soul of your friend. 8
Whereas we would view this as erotic, and the
recipient as an intimate of Anselm’s, it must be noted that
many of these poems and letters were addressed to various
monks of his order and not to any one person in particular.
Though the language is suggestive, through the lens of
Neoplatonism, it is a symbol more of the yearning for divine
love than for the erotic.
This not to suggest that English monks never had
sexual relations. They were only human, and with a young
initiate only a pallet away, temptation was sure to occur.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the rule for Anselm’s order,
the Order of Saint Benedict, the Rule most influential on those
that followed, would have the following advice:
Let each one sleep in a separate bed, let them receive
bedding suitable to their manner of life, according to
the Abbess’s [or Abbot’s] directions. If possible let all
sleep in one place; but if the number does not allow
this, let them keep their rest by tens or twenties with
the seniors who have charge of them. A candle shall
be kept burning in the room until morning. Let them
sleep clothed and girded with belts or cords.…The
younger shall not have beds next to one another, but
among those of the older ones. 9
On the other hand, some of his poetry sounds
downright erotic, no matter what Neoplatonic interpretation
one applies:
Brother Anselm to Dom Gilbert, brother, friend,
beloved lover [dilecto dilectori] …sweet to me,
sweetest friend, are the gifts of sweetness, but
they cannot begin to console my desolate heart for
want of your love. Even if you sent every scent of
perfume, every glitter of metal, every precious gem,
every texture of clothes still it would not make up
to my soul for this separation unless it returned the
separated half. The anguish of my heart just thinking
about this bears witness, as do the tears dimming
my eyes and wetting my face and the fingers writing
this. You recognized, as I do know, my love for you,
but I did not. Our separation from one another has
shown me how much I love you; a man does not in
fact have knowledge of good and evil unless he has
experienced both. Not having experienced your
absences, I did not realize how sweet it was to be
with you and how bitter it was to be without you. But
you have gained from our separation the company
of someone else, whom you love no less — or even
more — than [you love] me; while I have lost you,
and there is no one to take your place. You are thus
enjoying your consolation, while nothing is left to
me but heartbreak. 10
The present-day rejoinder “he lives like a monk” is far
from the mark. In the days before the Reformation, there
was a continuing and constant discussion on the question
of monastic and priestly celibacy. Some of our present-day
concerns regarding priestly celibacy were hotly debated in
council after council, leading some monks to write vitriolic
and angry poems as a way of expressing their desires to
marry:
If a guiltless man points out the crimes of others,
those censured can bear the rebuke with patience;
[but] you who attack our sins, have a look at your own.
Leave us alone and chastise yourself… you draw up
harsh laws, enact bitter statutes, and make things
generally impossible for us. You deny that it is right
to touch a woman’s bed. 11
As we can see, not all of the clergy, nor the church itself,
was in one voice regarding sexual issues. The juxtaposition
of monastic, Neoplatonically based same-sex love with the
heterosexually focused desires of a clergy anxious to marry
finally caused a fierce backlash, at least in England.
At the same time Anselm was writing to his “beloved
lover[s],” legislation was introduced in England making
homosexual relations a crime (surprisingly, while the
practice was frowned upon, until this point, no effort had
been made to codify this dislike). The Council of London
in 1102 attempted to pass an act making ”sodomy” a sin
which must be confessed, but they were blocked by the
then Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Anselm, who instructed
his Archdeacon William not to publish the decree, stating,
“this sin has hitherto been so public that hardly anyone is
embarrassed by it.” 12
The concepts pre-modern Europeans had regarding
their own sexuality, and its expression, whether genitally
or non-genitally expressed, are far different from our own.
Whereas our own society tends towards overt acts of sexuality
and juxtaposition of sexualized images to promote almost
anything, pre-modern Britons had a significantly different
concept of love. While ours is caught up in the act of coitus,
theirs was more multi-faceted, with the realization that
love and its expression took many forms, not just genital
copulation. In medieval monastic thought, obtainment of
divine love, and the platonic “shadow” of it as seen in the
“world of the flesh,” were the higher goals, with physical acts a
reminder of the weakness of the flesh evidenced in constant
references to the Fall in anti-sodomitic sermons of the day. A
fuller examination of the poetry of St. Anselm and others may
shed more light on the pre-modern concept of love and its
many layers and visages, but that is for another project. As
we have seen, life and love were just as complex for monks
in pre-modern Britain as they are today for us today. Time,
apparently, does not heal all wounds.
Notes
1 Paul Halsall, The Experience of Homosexuality in the
Middle Ages. (Available http://www.qrd.org/grd/culture/
gay.medieval.history. Nov 1998), 2.
2 See Naomi Schor, “Dreaming Dissymmetry: Barthes,
Foucault, and Sexual Difference,” in Men in Feminism, eds.
Alice Jardine and Paul Smith (New York, NY: Methuen,
1987), 107, where Michele Foucault offers a discussion on
what he terms the “ejaculatory schema” that frame western
sexual môres.
3 See Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian
Theology. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997)
Chapter 2.
4 John Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe.
(New York: Villard. 1994), xix.
5 John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality:
Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning
of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. 1980), 209-210.
6 Op cit., 219.
7 Op cit., 218.
8 Carpenter, 4.
9 Author Unknown, The Order of Saint Benedict: The Rule.
(Available http://www.osb.org/osb/rb/text/rbefjo3.html.
Nov 1998) 4.
10 Boswell, CSTH, 219.
11 Op cit., 399.
12 Op cit., 215.
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