May 2019 – Page 2 – purple motes

Roscelin mischaracterized Abelard’s subservience to Heloise

Come, Abelard! for what hast thou to dread?
The torch of Venus burns not for the dead.
Nature stands check’d; Religion disapproves;
Ev’n thou art cold — yet Eloisa loves.
Ah hopeless, lasting flames! like those that burn
To light the dead, and warm th’unfruitful urn. [1]

Abelard kissing Heloise

Under gynocentrism, men are subservient to women. Women expect men to come when women call. Men are taught to work to provide money to women and children and to be prepared to die for their country. The public propaganda apparatus proclaims to men, “work sets you free {arbeit macht frei}.” Not surprisingly, men are expected, in one way or another, to pay for having sex with women. That’s crucial context for understanding Roscelin of Compeigne’s vicious letter to Peter Abelard about his affair with Heloise of the Paraclete.

In Paris early in the twelfth century, Abelard had been a teacher of Heloise. Their relationship developed into a torrid sexual affair and then marriage. Angry with Abelard over difficulties that had developed in Abelard’s marriage with Heloise, Heloise’s uncle Canon Fulbert arranged to have a band of thugs break into Abelard’s bedroom and castrate him. That terrible form of violence against men is deeply entrenched in human society. Despite being castrated, Abelard continued to work as a teacher. Like most men, he provided money to his wife Heloise. She became abbess of the Benedictine Oratory of the Paraclete. In addition to receiving money from Abelard, Heloise assigned him various literary and theological work to do for the nuns of the Paraclete.[2]

Following a heated exchange of theological views with Abelard, Roscelin of Compeigne about 1120 derided Abelard for providing money to Heloise. Abelard taught Heloise the profound meaning and practice of human love. Roscelin disparaged Abelard for his teaching. Roscelin reduced Abelard’s relationship with Heloise to unfulfilled prostitution:

you do not stop teaching what should not be taught, even when if it were to be taught, you should not teach it. You collect money for the falsehoods that you teach, and you don’t even send the money to your whore as payment for expected sexual intercourse — you take it to her yourself. While you were able, you expected to be given sexual pleasure for a price. Now you give payment, more as compensation for past sins than as buying future sin. And the teaching that you once abused for sexual pleasure, you to this day abuse due to your inclination. But, thank God, even in your need, you are not able.

{ non docenda docere non desinis, cum et docenda docere non debueras, atque collecto falsitatis quam doces pretio, scorto tuo in stupri praemium nequaquam transmittis, sed ipse deportas et quid, dum poteras, in pretium exspectatae voluptatis dabas, modo das in praemium, plus utique remunerando stuprum praeteritum peccans, quam emendo futurum, et qua prius cum voluptate abutebaris, adhuc ex voluntate abuteris: sed Dei gratia ex necessitate non praevales. } [3]

Men who are not able — men suffering from impotence, or even worse, social or physical castration — deserve sympathy, compassion, and disability payments. Abelard, as a castrated man, surely did not provide money to his wife Heloise as compensation for his past sexual sin, which was also her past sexual sin. He provided his wife with money because that’s men’s long-established, oppressive gender role. For teaching Heloise, Abelard probably received room, board, and money. Abelard almost surely never paid Heloise for sex.[4] In contrast to Roscelin’s false, gender-stereotyped claim, Heloise’s family paid for her opportunity to develop a sexual relationship with Abelard. If it weren’t for castration culture, that pay to Abelard would have been money well-spent in helping Heloise to live a full and happy life.

Compared to the mythic gender wage gap, the gender protrusion in payment for sex is a far worse social injustice. Like the mythic gender wage gap, men paying women for sex is used against men even when it doesn’t exist in reality. Every man waiting for a woman (a young, attractive, meninist woman) to call him and ask him out to dinner at a restaurant (a good, expensive restaurant) understands the fundamental gender injustice. What remains is to change it.

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (excerpt). Pope wrote this poem in 1717.

[2] Work that Heloise assigned to Abelard included writing hymns for liturgy in the Oracle of the Paraclete and writing answers to theological questions that Heloise sent to him (Problemata Heloissae).

[3] Roscelin of Compiegne, Letter to Abelard {Epistola ad Abaelardum} (excerpt), Latin text from Patrologia Latina 178:369BC, via Heloïsa und Abaelard, my English translation.

Roscelin claimed, “what from Dan to Beersheba is famous we shall unfold {quod a Dan usque Bersabee notum est replicemus}.” In the Hebrew Bible, Dan is the northernmost city of the tribes of Israel. Dan is associated with the idolatry of Jeroboam’s golden calves. 2 Kings 10:29, 2 Chronicles 13:8. Beersheba is a place in the desert in the kingdom of Simeon, south of the the main part of the kingdom of Judah. Beersheba is associated with the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham and Isaac. Genesis 21:22-34, Genesis 26:23-33.

In the relatively liberal and enlightened medieval period, scholars engaged in vigorous, spirited, and open contention. Roscelin claimed that Abelard lived “in the monastery that is in fact that of St. Dionysius {in monasterio siquidem beati Dionysii).” He claimed that there was “gathered together a multitude of barbarians {congregata barbarorum multitudine}.” According to Roscelin writing to Abelard, that was a place “where you would devote yourself to your inclination and lust {ubi voluntati voluptatique tuae deservires}.” In literary history, men’s sexually has commonly been harshly disparaged.

[4] In an earlier letter to Abelard, Heloise declared that she preferred to be Abelard’s whore {meretrix} rather than Abelard’s wife. See Letter 2.10 in Luscombe & Radice (2013) pp. 132-3. Like Theophrastus and Matheolus, Heloise courageously and generously recognized disadvantages that men suffer in marriage. Heloise’s willingness to be Abelard’s whore doesn’t imply that Abelard actually paid Heloise for sex.

[image] Abelard kissing Heloise to provide her with a short break from her strenuous intellectual work. Illumination from between pages 12 and 13 in Fortescue-Brickdale (1919). The great medieval humanist Boccaccio in 1361 wrote an influential volume entitled Famous Women {De mulieribus claris}. Fortescue-Brickdale (1919) follows in that tradition.

References:

Fortescue-Brickdale, Eleanor. 1919. Golden Book of Famous Women. London: Hodder.

Luscombe, David, and Betty Radice, ed. and trans. 2013. The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise. Clarendon Press: Oxford.

women’s beauty and men’s under-appreciated work of desire

Bathsheba bathing, with David onlooking yearningly

Important recent classical scholarship has established that “the classical Greek notion of beauty is closely related to erôs, that is, passionate desire.”[1] The learned, twelfth-century monk Guibert of Nogent understood beauty classically. Guibert, however, went beyond the ancient Greek notion of beauty to highlight men’s under-appreciated work of desire.

Guibert presented beauty with a superficial contrast. Consider how Guibert described his greatest blessing:

I have already said, Pious and Holy One, that I am thankful to you for your gifts. I thank you, first and foremost, for having given me a mother who is beautiful yet chaste and modest and exceedingly God-fearing. Mentioning her beauty alone would be profane and foolish if I didn’t add (to show the vanity of the word “beauty”) that the severity of her appearance was sure proof of her chastity.

{ Dixeram, pie et sancte, quod de tuis tibi beneficiis gratularer. Primum potissimumque itaque gratias ago, quod pulchram, sed castam, modestam mihi matrem timoratissimamque contuleris. Pulchram profecto satis seculariter ac inepte protuleram, nisi certae castitatis severissima fronte hoc nomen inane firmassem. } [2]

Guibert’s mother is beautiful {pulcher}, yet she has a severe appearance. So does she look like Saint Pelagia, or like a viciously anti-meninist woman? Guibert immediately explained:

Fasting for the poor, who have no choice for when food is available, is really a form of torture and is therefore less praiseworthy. In the same way, if rich people abstain from food, their merit is derived from abundance. So it is with beauty, which is all the more praiseworthy if it resists flattery while knowing itself to be desirable.

{ Sicut sane in omnino pauperibus jejunia videntur extortitia, quibus non suppetunt ciborum suffragia, et ideo minus laudabilia, frugalitas autem divitum pro sua habet copia pretium; sic forma quanto appetibilior, si contra lenocinia duruerit, tanto omnimodae titulo laudis evectior. }

Guibert’s mother evidently is a woman that men desire, like men do Saint Pelagia. His mother’s severity isn’t repellent bitterness and hostility toward men. Her severity is merely her reason and judgment strong enough to resist the servile flattery of weak, self-abasing men.

Guibert went on to consider a classical understanding of beauty. He stated:

Sallust was able to consider beauty praiseworthy independent of moral considerations. Otherwise he never would have said about Aurelia Orestilla, “Good men never praised anything in her except her beauty.” Sallust seems to have meant that Aurelia’s beauty, considered in isolation, could still be praised by good people, while admitting how corrupt she was in everything else.

{ Sallustiuse Crispus nisi solam sine moribus pulchritudinem laudi duxisset, nunquam de Aurelia Orestilla dixisset: “Inqua, ait, praeter formam nihil unquam bonus laudavit.” Si formam ejus, quam excipit, a bono laudari asserit, quia tamen in caeteris omnibus turpem } [3]

Aurelia Orestilla came from a leading political family in the Roman Republic of the early first century BGC. She was the wife of the eminent Roman commander Catiline when he engaged in a conspiracy to burn Rome and overthrow the Republican government. Cicero associated Aurelia Orestilla with obscenity.[4] She was probably similar to her contemporary Sempronia, a type of woman profusely celebrated in mass media today:

Sempronia was a woman who had often committed many crimes of masculine daring. In family heritage and beauty, and in her husband and her children, she was abundantly favored by fortune. She was well-read in the literature of Greece and Rome, and able to play the lyre and to dance more skillfully than an honest woman would find necessary. She had many other accomplishments that aid voluptuousness. Nothing she valued so little as modesty and chastity. You could not easily say whether she was less sparing of her money or her honor. Her sexual desires were so ardent that she sought men more often than they sought her. Even before the time of the conspiracy she had often broken her word, repudiated her debts, and been privy to murder. Experiences of poverty and extravagance had combined to drive her forward. Nevertheless, she was a woman of no paltry endowments. She could write verses, bandy jests, and use language modest, tender, or wanton. In short, she possessed a high degree of wit and charm.

{ erat Sempronia quae multa saepe virilis audaciae facinora commiserat. Haec mulier genere atque forma, praeterea viro atque liberis satis fortunata fuit; litteris Graecis et Latinis docta, psallere et saltare elegantius, quam necesse est probae, multa alia, quae instrumenta luxuriae sunt. Sed ei cariora semper omnia quam decus atque pudicitia fuit; pecuniae an famae minus parceret, haud facile discerneres; lubido sic accensa, ut saepius peteret viros quam peteretur. Sed ea saepe antehac fidem prodiderat, creditum abiuraverat, caedis conscia fuerat, luxuria atque inopia praeceps abierat. Verum ingenium eius haud absurdum; posse versus facere, iocum movere, sermone uti vel modesto vel molli vel procaci; prorsus multae facetiae multusque lepos inerat. } [5]

The Latin word for beauty used to characterize both Aurelia Orestilla and Sempronia is forma. The Latin word that Guibert used to characterize his mother is pulcher. The word forma is beauty much more narrowly limited to physical appearance.[6]

Like Bishop Nonnus with respect to Pelagia, Guibert had a realistic understanding of womanly beauty. Writing in a more liberal and less doctrinaire age than ours, Guibert frankly explained:

Speaking for Sallust, I think he might just as well have said that Aurelia deserved to be praised for a natural, God-given gift, impaired though she was by all the other impurities that made up her being. Likewise a statue can be praised for the harmony of its parts, no matter what material composes it. It may be regarded as an idol by the Apostle Paul from the viewpoint of faith, and indeed nothing may be called or is more impious, but one can still admire the harmony of its limbs.

{ dicit, secure pro Sallustio loquor sic sensisse, ceu diceret, digne dote naturae a Deo approbari, licet eam constet adjectivis quibuslibet impuritatibus impiari. Laudatur itaque in idolo cujuslibet materiei partibus propriis forma conveniens, et licet idolum ab Apostolo, quantum spectat ad fidem, nihil appelletur nec quippiam profanius habeatur, tamen illa membrorum apta diductio non ab re laudatur. }

Men sexually desire beautiful women even if those women are morally bad. Women, on the other hand, sexually desire bad boys even if those boys aren’t beautiful. Reality resists social constructions of gender. Beauty is an aspect of natural, God-given reality.

The classical understanding of beauty closely linked beauty with desire, but commonly trivialized men’s work of desire. Consider, for example, the classical poet Eumolpus. One day while bathing in a Roman bathhouse with other naked men, he attempted to recite learned poetry. His fellow bathers ridiculed him, attacked him, and drove him out of the bath. Outside, a huge crowd surrounded another naked man. Eumolpus sarcastically reported:

In contrast to their treatment of me, a huge crowd surrounded that other man’s groin and clapped their hands in humblest admiration. He had genitals that hung down with such weight that you would have thought that the man himself was a mere appendage to his penis. What a hard-working young man he must be! I suspect that he has to begin today to finish tomorrow. So it wasn’t long before he got himself an assistant — some Roman noble or other, with a dubious reputation, they say — who gave his clothes to cover him up and brought him home with him, I believe, to enjoy his good fortune in private. … It just shows that it’s more profitable to work your genitals than your brains.

{ ilium autem frequentia ingens circumvenit cum plausu et admiratione timidissima. Habebat enim inguinum pondus tam grande, ut ipsum hominem laciniam fascini crederes. O iuvenem laboriosum: puto ilium pridie incipere, postero die finire. Itaque statim invenit auxilium; nescio quis enim, eques Romanus ut aiebant infamis, sua veste errantem circumdedit ac domum abduxit, credo, ut tam magna fortuna solus uteretur. … Tanto magis expedit inguina quam ingenia fricare. } [7]

Eumolpus thus trivialized the erection labor of even a man with very heavy equipment.[8] More generally, in the defective classical understanding of beauty, men’s desire requires of men negligible labor.

Showing important development of reasoned, empirical thinking, Guibert highlighted that desire requires labor from men. Guibert sympathetically reported why an older man became a monk:

Another man was from a noble Beauvaisien family with rich estates in Noyon. He was elderly, and his body had been worn out long ago. Yet he had a wife vigorous in the business of the marriage bed. That’s greatly pernicious. So, deserting married life and the world, he professed vows as a monk.

{ Alter quidam, genere nobilis Bellovagensium, Noviomagensium quoque locuples, aetate evectus, et effoeto jam corpore, quod talibus pestiferum est, uxorem habens vegetiorem officio thalamorum, desertis conjugio ac saeculo, monachum inibi profitetur. } [9]

With great love for women, men engage in tiring work in bed. Other medieval literature similarly tells of men exhausted by their erection labor. Desire requires strength-sapping labor from men.

In the more liberal and less doctrinaire medieval period, women both under-appreciated and over-appreciated men’s erection labor. Men generally endure less risk to their health when women under-appreciate men’s sexuality. Today, however, many women insist on being on top. Yet women also eagerly buy seedless watermelons and urgently pursue an ideal of zero emissions. Men’s health is thus endangered and men’s erection labor is devalued. Women’s beauty is good for society only when men are adequately compensated for their erection labor.

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Konstan (2015) p. 62.

[2] Guibert of Nogent, Monodiae {Songs of Self} 1.2, Latin text from Bourgin (1907), English trans. from Archambault (1996) (adapted). All subsequent quotes from Guibert, unless otherwise noted, are similarly sourced from Monodiae 1.2.

Guibert ended his discussion of his mother’s beauty in a way that underscores the close relationship between beauty and desire:

Thank you, God, for instilling virtue into my mother’s beauty. The seriousness of her whole bearing was enough to show her contempt for all vanity. Her lowered eyes, paucity of speech, and unexcitable facial expression by no means indicated acquiescence to flirtatious looks.

{ Gratia igitur tibi, Deus, qui praestillaveras decori ejus virtutem: illius enim habitudinis gravitas tolius vanitatis poterat insinuare contemptum; oculorum namque pondus, raritas eloquendi ac faciei motuum difficultas, minime levitatibus intuentium obsecundat. }

Id. Guibert here shifts to referring to his mother’s beauty with the Latin word decor. That word most commonly represents physical beauty. Konstan (2015) p. 142. Guibert’s mother is physically beautiful, but she in other ways distances herself from sexual desire.

As many mothers throughout history have with respect to their sons, Guibert’s mother dominated him. He regarded her as almost God-like and was greatly concerning to follow her instructions. She regarded Guibert’s sexual desire as dangerous to him. That’s certainly true for men under gynocentrism today.

[3] Guibert quotes from Sallust, The War With Catiline {Bellum Catilinae} 15.2. Here’s the Loeb edition of The War With Catiline, with Latin text and English translation by John C. Rolfe (1921/1931). Catiline’s full name in Latin is Lucius Sergius Catilina.

[4] On Aurelia Orestilla family background, Evans (1987). Catiline’s wife Aurelia plausibly was Catiline’s daughter via his adulterous relationship with her mother. Consider words of Cicero, with ancient commentary:

“Whenever you were caught in adultery, whenever you caught adulterers yourself, when arising from the same act of gross indecency you found yourself a woman to be both wife and daughter.” It is said that Catilina committed adultery with the woman who was later his mother-in-law, and took to wife the female offspring of that fornication, although she was his daughter. This charge Lucceius also levels against Catilina in the orations which he wrote attacking him. I have not yet discovered the names of these women.

{ “Cum deprehendebare in adulteriis, cum deprehendebas adulteros ipse, cum ex eodem stupro tibi et uxorem et filiam invenisti.” Dicitur Catilina adulterium commisisse cum ea quae ei postea socrus fuit, et ex eo natam stupro duxisse uxorem, cum filia eius esset. Hoc Lucceius quoque Catilinae obicit in orationibus quas in eum scripsit. Nomina harum mulierum nondum inveni. }

Cicero’s speech In his white gown {In toga candida}, according to the commentary of Asconius 91C. Latin text and English translation from Lewis (2006) pp. 183-4. A correction written in Poggio’s manuscript of Asconius added, “the name of his wife was Aurelia Orestilla, of his mother-in-law, I don’t know {nomen uxori fuit Aurelia Orestilla, de socru ignoro}.” Id. (in editor’s note).

Cicero, in his Letters to Friends {Epistulae ad Familiares} 9.15 associated Aurelia and Lollia with obscenity. Cicero stated, “if we use the word Aurelia or Lollia we must prefix an apology {sin de Aurelia aliquid aut Lollia, honos praefandus est}.” Latin text and English translation from Loeb edition of William Glyn (1927).

[5] Sallust, The War With Catiline {Bellum Catilinae} 25, Latin text and English translation (adapted) from the Loeb edition of Rolfe (1921/1931). This Sempronia was the wife of Decimus Junius Brutus. On her involvement in the conspiracy, Bellum Catilinae 40.5. For a modern apology for the perhaps adulterous Sempronia, wife of Scipio Aemilianus, Beness & Hillard (2016). Here’s some analysis of modern reporting of men being cuckolded.

Despite Aurelia Orestilla almost surely being deeply involved in what has been called the Catiline conspiracy, she apparently suffered relatively little from that failed uprising. Catiline in 62 BGC was killed fighting for the conspiracy attempt. But in 50 BGC Aurelia Orestilla was making an elite marriage for her daughter. Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares 8.7.7, discussed in Evans (1986) p. 70.

Ben Jonson’s tragedy Catiline His Conspiracy (1611) plausibly elaborates on Aurelia Orestilla’s character. Brian Jay Corrigan’s Compendium of Renaissance Drama recognizes Jonson’s gender-critical insight in Catiline His Conspiracy:

After their respective meetings, both men and women conspirators convene in the early hours of the morning to take their leave and make a final statement of confidence. Eventually, when the conspirators are sentenced to death, it is understood that the women, including Aurelia, are not punished.

See Aurelia in Corrigan’s character list. A gender protrusion in men’s mortality and sex discrimination in punishment are common aspects of gynocentrism.

[6] The word forma most specifically refers to physical shape or figure, but it can take on the meaning “beauty” in context. The Latin words for beauty formosus and formositas, which are derived from forma, highlight that physical meaning of beauty. Konstan (2015) pp. 144, 148.

[7] Petronius, Satyricon 92, Latin text from Heseltine & Rouse (1913), English translation from Walsh (1996) (adapted). The well-endowed man is Ascyltus, a rival to Encolpius for amorous relations with Giton. On classical literature admiring large penises, see commentary to Satyricon 92 in Schmeling (2011).

[8] Despite Eumolpus’s disdain’s for Ascyltus’s erection labor, Eumolpus himself experienced sexual exhaustion in his relationship with the Pergamene youth. Eumolpus threatened to alert the father of the Pargamene youth if that youth didn’t stop pressing him for more sex. Satyricon 82-7. On the literary context of this story, Harrison (1998). The gender-political implications of the story have been regrettably overlooked.

[9] Guibert, Monodiae 2.5, Latin text from Bourgin (1907), English trans. from Archambault (1996) (adapted).

[image] Bathsheba sexually harassing David. As a result of that sexual harassment, one man suffered a reproductive injury and a man and a boy were killed. Specifically, Bathsheba’s husband Uriah was cuckolded and killed, and Bathsheba and David’s newly born son died. 2 Samuel 11-12. In recent decades scholars have tended to blame the victim and condemn men in such situations for “the male gaze.” That reflects the growing influence of carceral anti-meninism. Illumination on f. 71 of French Book of Hours, made c. 1485. Preserved as British Library MS Harley 2863.

References:

Archambault, Paul J., trans. 1996. A Monk’s Confession: the memoirs of Guibert of Nogent. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Beness, J. Lea, and Tom Hillard. 2016. “Wronging Sempronia.” Antichthon. 50: 80-106.

Bourgin, George, ed. 1907. Guibert of Nogent. Histoire de sa vie: 1053-1124. Paris: Picard.

Evans, Richard J. 1987. “Catiline’s wife.” Acta Classica. 30: 69-71.

Harrison, Stephen J. 1998. “The Milesian Tales and the Roman Novel.” Groningen Colloquia on the Novel. 9: 61–73.

Heseltine, Michael and W. H. D. Rouse, trans., revised by E. H. Warmington. 1913. Petronius Arbiter, Seneca. Satyricon. Apocolocyntosis. Loeb Classical Library 15. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Konstan, David. 2015. Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, R.G, ed. and trans. 2006. Asconius: Commentaries on Speeches of Cicero. New York: Oxford University Press.

Schmeling, Gareth L. 2011. A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Walsh, Patrick G, trans. 1996. Petronius Arbiter. The Satyricon. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Guibert of Nogent in Heloise’s light: dark nights of internalized misandry

Guibert presents to Christ his commentary

In France early in the twelfth century, Heloise of the Paraclete became a famous author and religious leader. Guibert of Nogent lived and died there and then as an obscure abbot. Those who dare to defy orthodoxy readily recognize that gynocentrism has privileged women throughout history. Yet Guibert’s lack of recognition relative to Heloise doesn’t simply reflect structural gender oppression. Guibert himself internalized misandry. In his despair, he failed to appreciate his own being.

Even when the eminent twelfth-century abbot Peter the Venerable was a youth, the fame of Heloise’s “distinguished and praiseworthy studies {honesta et laudabilia studia}” were known to him. Many years later Peter the Venerable wrote to Heloise:

I heard then that a woman, though still not freed from worldly ties, was deeply devoted to literary studies, which is most unusual, and to the pursuit of wisdom, albeit wisdom of the world. I heard that she could not be prevented by worldly pleasures, frivolities, and delights from the useful purpose of learning the arts. In a time when detestable laziness keeps almost everyone from these studies, and when the progress of wisdom can come to a standstill — I do not say among women, by whom it is entirely rejected, but it can hardly find virile minds among men — you, through your praiseworthy zeal, have completely excelled all women, and surpassed almost all men.

{ Audiebam tunc temporis, mulierem licet necdum saeculi nexibus expeditam, litteratoriae scientiae quod perrarum est, et studio licet saecularis sapientiae, summam operam dare, nec mundi voluptatibus, nugis, vel deliciis, ab hoc utili discendarum artium proposito retrahi posse. Cumque ab his exercitiis detestanda desidia totus pene torpeat mundus, et ubi subsistere possit pes sapientiae, non dicam apud sexum femineum a quo ex toto explosus est, sed vix apud ipsos viriles animos invenire valeat, tu illo efferendo studio tuo, et mulieres omnes evicisti, et pene viros universos superasti. } [1]

Men love to praise women. Some men even experience a certain pleasure from imagining women beating men. In contrast, men compete aggressively with other men. Guibert recounted his own experience of religious study in a monastery:

While some in my monastery once saw me as far beneath them in age and education as well as influence and understanding, they realized now that the gift of Him alone, who is the key of all knowledge, had instilled into my senses an appetite for learning, and that I had begun to equal them, or, if I may say so, completely surpass them. Their scornful wickedness flared up against me with great fury, and I grew exhausted from the constant debates and controversies. I wished I had never seen literature, much less learned any of it. They made every effort to disrupt my studies. Many times, seizing on an opportunity from the literature itself, they would stir up quarrels through constant questioning. It seemed that the only purpose behind their exertions was to make me shrink away from my eagerness in this study and to shackle my talents.

{ Nam nostratium aliqui, cum me olim longe infra se aetate ac literis, potentia et cognitione vidissent, et, solius ejus dono ipso discendi appetitum meis sensibus instinguente, qui totius est clavis scientiae, me sibi exaequari, aut omnino, si dici fas est, excellere persensissent, tanto furore adversum me eorum indignabunda excanduit nequitia, ut me, frequentibus controversiis et simultatibus fatigatum, multoiens et vidisse et scisse literas poeniteret. Studium plane meum ab eis tantopere turbabatur, ac tot, de ipsis literis sumpta occasione, per continuas quaestiones jurgia motabantur, ut ad hoc solum, quatinus ab ea cura mea resiliret intentio meumque praepediretur ingenium, eniti viderentur. } [2]

Guibert lacked encouragement and support for his learning. His fellow monks’ attacks on him, however, spurred Guibert to more intensive learning:

But just as oil poured on a fire intensifies the flames it seems to extinguish, so in the same way the more my enthusiasm was gripped in this difficult work, the more it heated up as in an oven, and the better it functioned. Questions in which I was judged to be dull served only to sharpen my mind. The difficulties contained in their objections forced me to ponder assiduously about hypotheses. I perused books of all kinds to comprehend the multiple meanings of words and to find adequate answers. This behavior of mine made them hate me even more. But you know, O Lord, that I did little if anything to return their hate.

{ Sed, sicut oleum camino additum, unde putatur extinguere, inde flamma vivaciore proserpit, eo instar clibani quo amplius mea super eo labore solertia premebatur, tanto suis reddita valentior aestibus in melius agebatur. Quaestiones, quibus aestimabar obtundi, intelligentiae plurimam mihi acrimoniam ministrabant, et objectionum difficultates crebra conjecturarum mearum ruminatione et diversorum versatione voluminum, multiplicitatem sensuum et respondendi mihi efficaciam pariebant. Hoc itaque modo, etsi gravissime eis invidiosus eram, tu tamen nosti, Domine, quam parum aut nihil tali bus invidebam } [3]

Overcoming the hostile environment that he experienced, Guibert surpassed nearly all women and men in learning. Moreover, he was from a noble family, and he had a handsome appearance. Yet Guibert became much less famous than Heloise.

Peter the Venerable praised Heloise for her worldly literary studies and for her pursuit of worldly wisdom. Perhaps hoping to gain more appreciation from his peers, Guibert turned to study of worldly poetry:

I left aside all the seriousness of scared Scripture for this vain and ludicrous activity. Sustained by my folly, I had reached a point where I was competing with Ovid and the pastoral poets by striving to achieve an amorous charm in well-crafted epistles and in the way of arranging images. Forgetting the proper rigor of the monastic calling and casting away its modesty, my mind became so enraptured by the seductions of this contagious indulgence that I valued one thing only: that what I was writing in a courtly manner might be attribute to some poet.

{ ut universa a divinae paginae seria pro tam ridicula vanitate seponerem, ad hoc ipsum, duce mea levitate, jam veneram, ut Ovidiana et Bucolicorum dicta praesumerem, et lepores amatorios in specierum distributionibus epistolisque nexilibus affectarem. Oblita igitur mens debiti rigoris, et professionis monasticae pudore rejecto, talibus virulentae hujus licentiae lenociniis lactabatur, hoc solum trutinans, si poetae cuipiam comportari poterat quod curialiter dicebatur } [4]

Writing courtly love poetry is an activity for ignorant, desperate men living in fantasies. Guibert both read courtly love poetry and produced it himself. His body relished this imaginative action:

I was being seized from both directions. The sweet-sounding words that I took in from the poets, and then spewed forth myself ensnared me in their wanton frivolity. Since I kept coming back to them and things like them, immodest stirrings of my flesh all too frequently held me captive.

{ Cujus nimirum utrobique raptabar, dum non solum verborum dulcium, quae a poetis acceperam, sed et quae ego profuderam lasciviis irretirer, verum etiam per horum et his similium revolutiones immodica aliquotiens carnis meae titillatione tenerer } [5]

Heloise delighted in remembering her actual sexual intercourse with Abelard. Guibert engaged only with amorous words and himself.

One night, Guibert’s tutor had a holy vision of an old man with white hair. The old man indicated that Guibert, with understanding of God’s judgment of him, would turn away from secular love poetry. Guibert nonetheless felt for some time what he described as “inner madness {interior rabies}.” He longed for love and praise:

And yet you know, Lord, and I confess it, that at that time neither fear of you, nor shame at myself, nor respect for this holy vision made me behave with any more self-restraint. Indeed, I did not refrain at all in my inner life from the scandalous indecencies of my trifling compositions. In secret I composed the same poems, not daring to show them to any, or scarcely any, of my companions, and yet I often recited them to whom I could, under the name of a false author. I took joy in the praise they received from those who shared religious vows with me. I thought it would be inappropriate to admit that the poems were mine. Since their author could not profit from the fruits of their praise, all that was left to rejoice in were the fruits — or rather the disgrace — of sin.

{ Et tu nosti tamen, Domine, et ego confiteor, quia tunc temporis nec tuo timore, nec meo pudore, nec sacrae hujus visionis honore castigatiora peregerim: et nempe irreverentia , quia interius me habebam, et scriptorum nugantium nequaquam scurrilitatibus temperabam. Latenter quippe cum eadem carmina cuderem, et nemini aut vix omnino meis consimilibus illa prodere auderem, saepius tamen mentito auctore, ipsa quibus poteram recitabam, et laetabar ea a voti mei consortibus collaudari: quae mea fore rebar prorsus inconveniens profiteri, et quod ad fructum ullius auctori suo non proderat laudis, solo restabat fructu, immo turpitudine gaudere peccati. }

As a Christian man, Guibert should have understood that in God he lived, and moved, and had his being. He should have understood that he was a child of God. Guibert and all men, who are God’s creation, are very good.[6] God loves men. Men living under gynocentrism and internalizing misandry often don’t love men. The relatively hostile environment in which he strove to acquiring learning wasn’t the worst social injustice that Guibert experienced. Worst of all, Guibert was deprived of love for himself.[7]

While Guibert condemned himself merely for studying and writing secular love poetry, the eminent twelfth-century abbot Peter the Venerable didn’t condemn Heloise for having sex with Abelard before their marriage. Peter wrote to Heloise to console her after Abelard’s death:

Now, venerable and dearest sister in the Lord, this man to whom you were bound first first by the ties of the flesh and later by the stronger and better bond of divine love, with whom and under whom you have long served the Lord — this man, I say, in your place and as another you, the Lord cherishes in his own embrace. At the coming of the Lord, when He descends from heaven with the singing of archangels and the sound of the trumpet, the Lord, who holds him, will restore him to you by His grace.

{ Hunc ergo venerabilis et carissima in domino soror, cui post carnalem copulam tanto validiore, quanto meliore divinae caritatis vinculo adhesisti, cum quo et sub quo diu domino deservisti, hunc inquam loco tui, vel ut te alteram in gremio suo confovet, et in adventu domini, in voce archangeli, et in tuba dei descendentis de caelo, tibi per ipsius gratiam restituendum reservat. } [8]

A scholar perceptively noted:

The great abbot of Cluny {Peter the Venerable} does not shun a language rich in erotic connotations. At this solemn moment he uses sexual expressions consciously and daringly: in the compass of a single sentence, the words carnalis copula, vinculum, adherere, gremium, confovere all serve to establish a perspective which is both human and divine, and which brings with it profound optimism: the lovers Abelard and Heloise will be reunited in heaven as lovers. The heavenly bond of caritas is stronger and finer (validior, melior) than the physical bond (carnalis copula) — yet Peter feels no need to disparage that bond. Not a word about their being washed clean of the foulness of earthly lust [9]

Heloise didn’t even have to shed tears to have Peter the Venerable overlook her sexual sin. Disparagement of human sexuality throughout history has overwhelmingly been disparagement of men’s sexuality. Peter Abelard himself addressed such gender injustice in his Planctus Dine filie Iacob. Yet from Abelard’s time to our own time, persecution of men’s sexuality has expanded to an absurdly irrational extent.

Both women and men must address reasonably the reality of gynocentrism. An influential work on marriage in medieval France ended with these sentences:

It is necessary nonetheless, amid all these men who alone, shouting, proclaimed what they had done or what they aspired to do, not to forget the women. We personally have talked a lot about them. What do we know about them? [10]

Women and men continually strive to uphold women’s interests. Lucretius long ago pointed out that many husbands don’t even know the truth about their own wives. That’s not from lack of attention to them. In contrast, despite the relatively prolific output of men writers throughout history, men’s writers are virtually unknown. The few that have arisen have been treated mainly with ignorant, hateful name-calling. We know less about men, as distinctively gendered persons, than we know about women. To build a more humane and gender-egalitarian future, students should study Guibert of Nogent’s memoirs and other vital works of medieval Latin literature.

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Peter the Venerable, letter to Heloise of the Paraclete, Latin text from Constable (1967) 1.303-8, via Heloïsa und Abaelard; English trans. (adapted slightly) from McLaughlin & Wheeler (2009) pp. 293-8. Abelard died in 1142. Peter the Venerable probably wrote this letter in 1143. Id. p. 293.

Peter the Venerable served as abbot of the large, rich, and important Benedictine abbey at Cluny. The Cluny Abbey had a basilica larger than that in Rome and one of the largest libraries in Europe. Guibert became the abbot of a small, poor abbey at Nogent.

[2] Guibert of Nogent, Monodiae {Songs of Self} 2.16, Latin text from Bourgin (1907), English trans. from McAlhany & Rubenstein (2011) (adapted slightly). In subsequent quotes from the Monodiae, the Latin text is always from Bourgin (1907).

[3] Guibert, Monodiae 2.16, English trans. from Archambault (1986) (adapted slightly). Cf. Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27-8. Guibert became a monk in the monastery at Saint-Germer de Fly. That monastery was a place “where a multitude of literary scholars flourished {ibi literatorum floreat multitudo}.” Monodiae 2.5.

Men are generally viewed less favorably than women. That effect extends to children. A recent econometric study found that in French middle schools, teachers grade girls higher than boys. Terrier (2016). Despite popular media myth-making, that finding is consistent with a variety of other empirical findings. The tremendous gender disparity among elementary school teachers attracts shamefully little concern among those purporting to be concerned about gender equality.

When Guibert entered the monastery at Saint-Germer, he eagerly sought learning:

Henceforth a strong desire for learning filled my spirit, and only this matter alone I sought to inhale, and I considered a day wasted if I did not accomplish any learning. O how often I was thought to be asleep, keeping my fragile body warm under its sheet, when really my spirit was concentrating on reciting texts or else, fearing the complaints of others, I was reading under my blanket. And you, dear Jesus, knew my intention as I did these things. I sought to garner as much praise as possible and to acquire the greatest possible honor in this world.

{ Praeterea tanto discendi affectu repente sum animatus, ut huic soli rei unice inhiarem, et incassum me vivere aestimarem, si diem sine tali quolibet actu transigerem. O quotiens dormire putabar, et corpus sub pannulo fovere tenellulum, et spiritus meus aut dictaturiens arctabatur, aut quippiam objecta lodice, dum judicia vereor aliena, legebam. Et tu, Jesu pie, non nesciebas qua intentione id facerem, conquirendae utique gratia laudis, et ut praesentis saeculi honorificentia major occurreret. }

Monodiae 2.15, English trans. from Archambault (1986) (adapted). Guibert deeply regretted having those worldly motivations.

[4] Guibert, Monodiae 2.17, English trans. from Archambault (1986) (adapted slightly). The pastoral poets surely would have included Virgil’s Eclogues. The well-crafted epistles were probably imitations of Ovid’s Heroides. The arranging of images may have been composing a descriptio puellae {description of a young woman}.

Guibert wrote his Monodiae about 1115. The men-abasing ideology of courtly love was then gaining force. Courtly love was exemplified later in the twelfth century in Chrétien de Troyes’s manlet Lancelot. Boncompagno da Signa’s early-thirtheenth-century debunking of courtly love has had regrettably little influence.

[5] Guibert, Monodiae 2.17, English trans. from McAlhany & Rubenstein (2011) (adapted slightly). The subsequent quote above has the same source.

[6] Acts 17:28, Genesis 1:26-31.

[7] Archambault stated:

Even in an age when it was common to present a dramatically heightened picture of one’s sinfulness, Guibert seems harsh on himself compared to famous contemporaries like Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot Sugar, Anselm of Canterbury, or Abelard. These religious personalities might have discerned in his hyperbolic professions of abjectness a subtle, familiar form of monastic hubris. What is unmistakeable about Guibert’s confession is that, whatever else his early life might have taught him, it never taught him to love himself.

Archambault (1986) p. xxiv. Guibert didn’t achieve the fame of those famous men contemporaries, or the fame of his famous woman contemporary Heloise. Men raised under gynocentrism have long been taught that achievement is central to their worth as men — their virtue. Guibert suffered from gynocentric society refusing to recognize that men have intrinsic virture. Men are intrinsically good and worthy of love.

[8] Peter the Venerable, letter to Heloise of the Paraclete, Latin text from Constable (1967) 1.303-8, via Heloïsa und Abaelard; English trans. (adapted slightly) from McLaughlin & Wheeler (2009) pp. 293-8.

Heloise herself showed considerable concern about sin and sexual sin in the forty-two exegetical questions she posed for Abelard in a work known as Heloise’s Questions {Problemata Heloissae}. See, e.g. question 8, concerning the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11); question 11, concerning the extent of the Lord’s joy over a sinner repenting (Luke 15:7); question 16, concerning how love is the fulfillment of God’s law (Romans 13:9); question 19, concerning judging others (Matthew 7:1-2); question 42, “whether anyone can sin in doing what the Lord has permitted or even commanded.” Cf. Genesis 1:28. For an English translation of Problemata Heloissae, McLaughlin & Wheeler (2009) 213-67.

[9] Dronke (1992) p. 267. Epitaphs apparently written in the twelfth century celebrated Heloise and Abelard’s sexual unity of persons:

This is sufficient as an epitaph: here lies Peter Abelard,
his beloved Heloise held at his side.
…
One now in the tomb, as before one in the marriage bed,
one in declaring professions of monastic life.
One is their eternal life at home in the stars above. Amen.

{ Est satis in titulo: petrus his iacet Habaelardus,
Dilectumque tenens huic Heloisa latus.
…
Unus nunc tumulus, sicut et ante thorus,
Unum propositum viteque professio sacre,
Una perennis eis sit super astra domus. Amen. }

Est satis in titulo: petrus his iacet Habaelardus, Latin text from Dronke (1992) p. 285, my English translation. The epitaph survives in whole only in MS Zürich, Zentralbibliothek C 58/275, s. XII, f. 5va. Another epitaph similarly celebrates Heloise and Abelard’s sexual unity of persons:

One was their flesh, one is the tomb that contains them,
the spirits of both were no less the spirit of one.
Now together they are given a common marital bed of good earth.
Here is Abelard; here also Heloise is there:
in the depths both to be known by your Christ. Amen.

{ Una fuere caro, tumulus quos continet unus,
Nec minus amborum spiritus unus erat.
Nunc quoque communem dat bene terra thorum.
Habelardus his est; hec illius est Heloysa:
Imo utrosque tuos, Christe, fuisse scias. Amen. }

Epitaph of Peter Abelard that he himself composed {Epitaphium Petri Baiolardi a semet conpositum}, incipit Servi animam servans, ancillis redde cadaver, Latin text from Dronke (1992) p. 285, my English translation.

Some epitaphs of Heloise and Abelard concern them only as individuals. One is a couplet which, compared to the first epitaph above, differs only in its second verse:

This is sufficient as an epitaph: here lies Peter Abelard,
to whom alone was evident whatever was knowable.

{ Est satis in titulo, Petrus hic jacet Abaelardus,
Cui soli patuit scibile quidquid erat. }

Latin text from the epitaph page of Heloïsa und Abaelard, my English translation. For additional individualistic medieval epitaphs of Abelard and Heloise in English translation, McLaughlin & Wheeler (2009) pp. 305-7.

[10] Duby (1981) p. 304, my English translation of the French:

Il faudrait toutefois ne pas oublier parmi tous ces hommes qui seuls, vociférant, clamaient ce qu’ils avaient fait ou ce qu’ils rêvaient de faire, les femmes. On en parle beaucoup. Que sait-on d’elles?

Barbara Bray’s translation softens the anti-men rhetoric:

But amid the clamor of all these men asserting what they had done or wanted to do, we must not forget the women. Much has already been said about them. But how much do we really know?

Duby (1983) p. 284. This claim evidently was so attractive that it was included in the marketing blurb for the book and on the back cover of the book in a laudatory quote from Ken Turan of the popular magazine Time.

Not surprisingly, Duby interpreted “the rules of courtly love” as being usefully “designed to impose a degree of discipline” on unruly young men. Id. That sexist view is associated with the idea that women are necessary to “civilize” men and that men servilely abasing themselves to women “ennobles” men.

[image] Christ receiving from Guibert his commentary on the biblical books Hosea, Jeremiah, and Amos. The figure labeled Abbot Guibert (lower left) in a black monk’s robe raises his book to the central figure of Christ. On the lower right the prophet Hosea holds a scroll. St. Jerome, the figure on the upper left, may be figuratively feeding the Holy Spirit with scripture. Illumination from folio 1, MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 2502. This manuscript, which comes from Guibert’s abbey at Nogent, is a unicum for Gilbert’s commentary. Guibert’s Monodiae has survived in full in only a seventeenth-century transcription, MS Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, Baluze 42.

References:

Archambault, Paul J., trans. 1996. A Monk’s Confession: the memoirs of Guibert of Nogent. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Bourgin, George, ed. 1907. Guibert of Nogent. Histoire de sa vie: 1053-1124. Paris: Picard.

Constable, Giles, ed. 1967. The Letters of Peter the Venerable. Harvard Historical Studies, v. 78. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Dronke, Peter. 1992. Intellectuals and poets in Medieval Europe. Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura. Ch. 9 (pp. 247-294) reprints Dronke, Peter. 1976. Abelard and Heloise in Medieval testimonies: the twenty-six W.P. Ker Memorial Lecture delivered in the University of Glasgow 29th October, 1976. Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press.

Duby, Georges. 1981. Le chevalier, la femme et le prêtre: le mariage dans la France féodale. Paris: France Loisirs.

Duby, Georges. 1983. The knight, the lady and the priest: the making of modern marriage in medieval France. New York: Pantheon Books.

McAlhany, Joseph, and Jay Rubenstein, trans. 2011. Guibert of Nogent. Monodies and the Relics of Saints: the autobiography and a manifesto of a French monk from the time of the crusades. New York, NY: Penguin Books. (review by Scott G. Bruce, review by Bruce L. Venarde)

McLaughlin, Mary Martin, and Bonnie Wheeler, trans. 2009. The Letters of Heloise and Abelard. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Terrier, Camille. 2016. “Boys Lag Behind: How Teachers’ Gender Biases Affect Student Achievement.” MIT Department of Economics, School Effectiveness & Inequality Initiative (SEII) Discussion Paper #2016.07. (related studies)

torturing the penis: enlightened philology’s failure to represent

Amid horrific violence against men throughout history, if justice cannot be achieved, one might at least aspire to understanding accurately the meaning of words. Guibert of Nogent was a learned monk in northern France early in the twelfth century. In his memoirs Monodiae {Songs of Self}, Guibert described vicious violence against men by Thomas de Marle, Lord of Coucy:

When he held any captives for ransom, he would hang them, sometimes with his own hand, by their testicles, and when these were torn away from their bodies, as happened frequently, their vital organs would burst out at almost the same time. Others he would hang by the thumbs or by the penis itself, then place a stone over their shoulders to weigh them down

{ Cum enim captos ad redemptionem quoslibiet cogeret, hos testiculis appendebat propria aliquotiens manu, quibus saepe corporea mole abruptis, eruptio pariter vitalium non tardabat; alteri suspenso per pollices aut per ipsa pudenda, saxo etiam superposito humeros comprimebat } [1]

Guibert wrote the medieval Latin text provided in braces above. The Latin word he used for testicles — testiculis, the dative plural for testiculus — makes clear that men were being brutally hung by their testicles. The Latin word translated as penis is pudenda, the ablative singular for pudendus. Pudendus is literally a circumlocution. It means “that of which one is to be ashamed.” Relatively to women’s vaginas, men’s penises have been much more disparagingly represented in literature. Yet that gender bias isn’t sufficient to narrow the meaning of pudendus above.

Careful analysis of Guibert’s description of torture indicates that he used pundendus to mean penis. Brutal violence is highly disproportionately directed against men. The description of hanging captives by their testicles makes clear that the violence is being directed at men. It also provides a context of sexual violence. The alternate form of hanging puts in parallel thumbs and the pudenda itself. The penis has a shape similar to a thumb. It thus forms a sensible parallel to thumb, as underscored by the term “itself {ipse}” that characterizes pudenda. Hence “penis” is the best translation of pudenda in Guibert’s description of torturing men. Multiple men were probably hung by each one’s (singular) penis and each one’s one or two thumbs.[2]

McAlhany and Rubenstein’s translation of Guibert’s Monodiae obscures the torturing of the penis. That translation, McAlhany & Rubeinstein (2011), was printed under the popular Penguin imprint. For “per pollices aut per ipsa pudenda,” it lamentably has “by the thumbs or genitals.” Genitals is a non-gendered term that can refer either to male or female genitalia. But women weren’t hung by their thumbs or their vaginas. Men were hung by their testicles, their thumbs, or their very penises. Genitals is a poor translation for the penis itself.

Archambault’s earlier translation is little better for the passage of concern. That translation, Archambault (1996), was published by a university press. It has a popular orientation, yet more detailed footnotes than McAlhany & Rubeinstein (2011). For “per pollices aut per ipsa pudenda,” Archambault (1996) regrettably has “by the organ itself or by the thumbs.” That translation conveys the emphasis of ipse directly and by putting its containing phrase first. Yet “organ” is far too broad of a translation of pudenda here. An organ isn’t necessarily sexual, and an organ isn’t a distinctive part of males. The “organ itself” is stilted language. It’s a poor translation for the penis itself.

Moving backward in time, Benton’s translation for the passage of concern is only slightly better than Archambault’s. Benton (1970) was published in the Harper Torchbooks imprint of Harper & Row. It has an introduction that hazards a distinctive scholarly interpretation of Guibert’s Monodiae and has even more extensive footnotes than Archambault (1996). For “per pollices aut per ipsa pudenda,” Benton (1970) unacceptably has “by their thumbs or by the male organ itself.” Males have a variety of organs, includes more than one that are distinctive to males. The phrase “the male organ itself” characterizes masculine being far too narrowly. Moreover, it doesn’t specifically refer to the penis, a wonderful male organ. The “male organ itself” is a poor translation for the penis itself.

Swinton Bland’s earlier translation is worse in all respects. Swinton Bland (1925) was published in London and in New York in the “Broadway Translations” series. The elite moralist-medievalist George G. Coulton provided an introduction to this most unscholarly translation.[3] For “per pollices aut per ipsa pudenda,” Swinton Bland (1925) misleadingly has “by their thumbs or even their private parts.” Guibert didn’t merely indicate the extent of brutally in torturing men. He emphatically specified the extent itself. The phrase “private parts” is an archaic term for organs that can unite men and women to generate new human being. From a social and evolutionary perspective, nothing is more publicly important than sex. The phrase “even their private parts” is a poor translation for the penis itself.

Guizot’s early-nineteenth-century French translation uses a circumlocution similar to that of the medieval Latin text. Guizot (1825) is scholarly work supporting a larger project of documenting French history. For “per pollices aut per ipsa pudenda,” Guizot (1825) uses “par les pouces ou même par les parties que la pudeur défend de nommer {by the thumbs or even by the parts that propriety forbids naming}.” The shift in the concept for circumlocution from shameful {pudenda} to propriety reflects the Enlightenment’s style of moralizing. The substantive issue remains. Men have played an important role in French history. The penis is a central, vitally important part of a man’s body. Not specifying the penis is a historical injustice.

Scholars should accurately and fully acknowledge this scholarly gender trouble and the torturing of the penis. Winthrop Wetherbee is an eminent scholar and translator of medieval Latin literature. The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library is the most important series of medieval works being published today. Yet the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library’s edition of Bernardus Silvestris’s twelfth-century masterpiece Cosmographia, with English translation by Winthrop Wetherbee, has mentula translated as “phallus” in a literary context referring to the specific, physical terms blood, brain, loins, and sperm. In that context, mentula should be translated as penis.[4]

This phallus mistake at the pinnacle of modern medieval scholarship isn’t an isolated failing. Wetherbee’s English translation of the Johannes de Hauvilla’s twelfth-century masterpiece Architrenius failed to specify castration in translating vidui castracio lecti.[5] The currently leading Latin text of Nigellus Wireker’s profoundly important twelfth-century Speculum stultorum omits a couplet, present in at least two manuscripts, that brilliantly associates an abbot’s infula with a mule’s testicles.[6] After Chaucer, Chrétien de Troyes is probably the most widely studied medieval author for undergraduates in English-speaking educational institutions. Yet leading English translations of Cligès misrepresent a critically important gender reversal.[7] Medieval studies must become more welcoming and inclusive of men in their full bodily reality.

Like punctuation, philology matters. Bad philology has cast on long shadow on vital ancient and medieval literature. Philology that refuses to represent openly torturing the penis cannot be relevant to today’s major concerns of social justice.

man castrated and disemboweled

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Guibert of Nogent, Monodiae {Songs of Self} 3.11, Latin text from Bourgin (1907), English trans. from McAlhany & Rubenstein (2011) (adapted slightly as described subsequently above). In Guizot (1825), this text is in 3.12.

[2] A man’s penis alone probably could not support the weight of his body for any time. Guibert’s subsequent text indicates that the men would remain hanging for some time as Thomas walked around them and beat them with sticks. The men who were hung by their testicles probably were tortured with hooks that went through their testicles and well into their groins.

[3] Swinton Bland (1925) is “both inaccurate and stylistically awkward, to the point of impenetrability.” McAlhany & Rubeinstein (2011), p. 11. Pantin declared:

To put a translation like this into the hands of people who, presumably not having access to the original, are at the mercy of the translator and editor, is not merely useless but dangerous: the reader will be tempted to think that he has here an inexhaustible mine of generalisations about the psychology, morality, etc., of Guibert’s time. But there is no such royal road to a knowledge of medieval history.

Pantin (1927) p. 346.

On George G. Coulton’s elite moralizing, see notes [4] and [5] in my post on si non caste, tamen caute. Coulton apparently was a scholar in the moral tradition of William W. Sanger, a late-nineteenth-century civic leader and pioneering social scientist.

[4] For the relevant medieval Latin text, Wetherbee’s translation, and critical analysis, see note [3] and associated text in my post on the Cosmographia.

[5] For the relevant medieval Latin text, Wetherbee’s translation, and critical analysis, see note [11] and associated text in my post on the Architrenius.

[6] For the missing medieval Latin couplet, with English translation and analysis, see note [4] in my post on horse vs. mule in the Speculum stultorum.

[7] For the relevant Old French text and a review of published English translations, see note [4] in my post on gender justice in Cligès.

[images] (1) A man (the traitor Ganelon) being drawn and quartered; depicted dorsally. Illumination from folio 216r of an instance of Jacob van Maerlant’s Spieghel Historiael. Made in West Flanders, c. 1325-1335. Preserved as The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek {National Library of the Netherlands}, MS KA 20. (2) Hugh the Younger Despenser castrated and disemboweled in the course of his execution. Illumination made by Loyset Liédet in the 1470s. On folio 11r of the Froissart Manuscript, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS Fr. 2643, via Wikimedia Commons. On Hugh’s remains, Lewis (2008).

References:

Archambault, Paul J., trans. 1996. A Monk’s Confession: the memoirs of Guibert of Nogent. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Benton, John F., trans. 1970. Self and society in Medieval France: the memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Bourgin, George, ed. 1907. Guibert of Nogent. Histoire de sa vie: 1053-1124. Paris: Picard.

Guizot, François, trans. 1825. Suite de la Vie de Guibert de Nogent, par lui-même. Collection des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, 10. Paris: Brière.

Lewis, Mary E. 2008. “A traitor’s death? The identity of a drawn, hanged and quartered man from Hulton Abbey, Staffordshire.” Antiquity. 82 (315): 113.

Pantin, W. A. 1927. “Book Review: The Autobiography of Guibert, abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy.” History. 11 (44): 344-346.

Swinton Bland, C. C., trans. 1925. The Autobiography of Guibert, Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy; with an introduction by G.G. Coulton. London: G. Routledge & Sons; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.

Wednesday’s flowers