Proof of Manhood

This chapter looks at the sexuality of parish clergy and their masculine identity, exploring why priests were involved in relationships that were, for all intents and purposes, marriages. Indiscriminate sex alone was not enough to prove manliness; marriage and progeny were central attributes of the dominant forms of masculinity in medieval society. However, acquiring adult male status and attaining the role of paterfamilias was more than just a way for clerics to take part in a common social practice. Although clerical unions would never be on par with lay marriages because they lacked legal recognition and the ceremonial trappings of a relationship sanctioned in the eyes of the Church, these marriage-like relationships nevertheless afforded clerics important social and familial roles as husbands and fathers. Moreover, the role of husband and father allowed clerics to participate in the culture of lay masculinity.

Introduction

This introductory chapter provides an overview of clerical masculinity and priestly identity. Throughout the medieval period, secular and regular clergy struggled with, contested, and negotiated their own ideas of manliness and the demands of the Church. In medieval society, social and cultural trends that focused on marriage, fatherhood, and displays of patriarchal authority shaped how many men understood and reacted to gendered ideals that ultimately affected how they formed their own masculine identity. Clergy received the gendered messages of their environment, and some conformed, modified, or challenged gendered prescriptions in creating their masculinity. Depending on their social status, education, and clerical rank, clergymen expressed their masculine identity in a variety of ways that included—but were not limited to—celibacy, active sexuality, models of spirituality, pious devotion, intellectual prowess, abstinence from manual labor, military skill, and violence.

Hierarchy, Competition, and Conflict

This chapter focuses on priests, priors, and monks who fought against their religious colleagues to carve out status and privilege and to gain prestige within the hierarchy of the parish as well as greater access to economic resources. To subordinate their co-workers and demean their rivals, clerics insulted, sabotaged, and orchestrated petty acts of revenge and violence. Moreover, the economic crisis of the 1330s in Catalunya intensified the competition among the parish clergy struggling to survive in a time of famine, deprivation, and inflation. Clerics frequently quarreled over the customary gifts obtained when they officiated at baptisms and marriages, celebrated special masses, and buried the dead. They also became more aggressive in defending the privileges connected to their status and the rights attached to their benefices.

Marriage Defines the Parish Priest

This chapter demonstrates the pervasiveness of clerical unions and the proclivity of parish priests to form de facto marriages with women. These were enduring unions in which clerics were fully committed to their women and children. Moreover, maintaining a family did not hinder the careers of priests since many clerics were promoted from the minor to major orders, and even to the position of rector, in spite of their unions and households of children. The omnipresence of long-term unions and sexual affairs among the clergy illustrates that forming a sexual relationship with a woman became an element of clerical manliness in medieval Catalunya. Meanwhile, visitation records show that episcopal officials worked not to eradicate clerical unions among the clergy but to prevent the clergy from flagrantly displaying their families in public.

Becoming a Priest

This chapter demonstrates that clerics learned early on in their clerical training that violence, conflict, dominance, and sexual unions were not only accepted social norms for clergy but needed to be publicly exercised in front of other men. The most convincing evidence of how clerical masculinity became instilled in clerics from an early age comes from the lives of priests and their sons. The sons of priests witnessed a model of clerical masculinity in which their fathers engaged in concubinous unions, carried weapons, fought, and socialized with their male peers; they too followed this pattern of behavior. Ultimately, the clerical education and training of priests' sons and the influence of senior clergy as role models all coalesced to produce a unique clerical identity, very different from that of ecclesiastical elites—one in which the violent acts of parish clergy can be connected to their professional identity as clerics and to their personal identity as men.

“Quarrelsome” Men

This chapter shows that employing violence to resolve disputes, uphold authority, and exert male privilege in a patriarchal culture was key for clergy to demonstrate their masculinity in the parish community. Much of this clerical violence centered on the public nature of personal honor, which dictated that men had to avenge and restore their reputations. The conflict-ridden interactions between parishioners and their priests was a product of how fully integrated clerics were into village life, particularly when these hostile interactions were based on personal animosities and hatreds. Moreover, a great number of priests were reported to be belligerent, quarrelsome men who acted violently against parish villagers. They used violence to intimidate parishioners, a strategy that worked to bolster their control over villagers and parish affairs. Parish clergy used their status and clerical authority to establish a hierarchy in the parish that allowed them to subordinate their parishioners.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter argues that medieval priests did not renounce their ministry and their ecclesiastical careers to marry and have families. Rather, in fourteenth-century Catalunya, parish clergy were able to meld a family and household with their profession despite the prohibition against marriage. The fact that so many clergymen were promoted through the holy orders to become parish priests and still managed to form de facto marriages, support their children, and train their sons to be clergymen indicates that, even though the standards of the medieval Church had changed since the Gregorian period, the customs of parish clergy had not. Contrary to contemporary assumptions, celibacy and the absence of marital union did not define the medieval Catalan priest. Ultimately, their public sexuality, use of violent acts in defense of honor, and participation in competition for standing in the community are evidence that clerics adopted characteristics of lay manhood in medieval society.

Laymen in Priestly Robes

This chapter addresses the extent to which parish clergy were embedded in their local community and considers how familial, social, and economic factors firmly bound clerics to a life that very much mirrored that of their parishioners. In fact, people of the parish were often connected to their priests through ties of kinship and affinity. Clerics lived out their lives as more than just priests; they were also the sons, brother, uncles, and nephews of the people in the parish. In effect, priests behaved like laymen because they were laymen in the priestly profession. Indeed, parish clergy represented an amalgamation of both the clerical and secular worlds. The clerical profession provided them with a priestly identity, and their experience as men of the village, in turn, influenced how they interacted with parishioners as priests.