purple motes

Both in classical Socratic learning and in Christian tradition, men are figuratively constructed as women participating in the awesome privilege of incarnating both thoughts and human beings. Yet men have their own natural gender blessing. Consistent with the promise from God recorded in Hebrew scripture, men with their testicles bear seminal creativity to make descendants as numerous as stars of heaven.

Women throughout history have been naturally privileged to give birth. In the classical Socratic method of learning, to nurture their own thinking men must develop the procreative capabilities of women. Socrates himself explained how as a teacher he was like women midwives:

All that is true of their art of midwifery is true also of mine, but mine differs from theirs in being practiced upon men, not women, and in tending their souls in labor, not their bodies. … Now those who associate with me are in this matter also like women in childbirth. They are in pain and are full of trouble night and day, much more than are women. My art can arouse this pain and cause it to cease.

{ Τῇ δέ γ᾿ ἐμῇ τέχνῃ τῆς μαιεύσεως τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ὑπάρχει ὅσα ἐκείναις, διαφέρει δὲ τῷ τε ἄνδρας ἀλλὰ μὴ γυναῖκας μαιεύεσθαι καὶ τῷ τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν τικτούσας ἐπισκοπεῖν ἀλλὰ μὴ τὰ σώματα. … πάσχουσι δὲ δὴ οἱ ἐμοὶ συγγιγνόμενοι καὶ τοῦτο ταὐτὸν ταῖς τικτούσαις· ὠδίνουσι γὰρ καὶ ἀπορίας ἐμπίμπλανται νύκτας τε καὶ ἡμέρας πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ ἐκεῖναι ταύτην δὲ τὴν ὠδῖνα ἐγείρειν τε καὶ ἀποπαύειν ἡ ἐμὴ τέχνη δύναται. } [1]

Christians have traditionally understood Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the first tabernacle of Christ’s body. Christians seek to follow Mary in incarnating God. The great Christian scholar Origen of Alexandria, writing early in the third century, explained:

The soul conceives from this seed of the Word and the Word forms a fetus in itself until it gives birth to a spirit respecting the majesty of God.

{ Concipit ergo anima ex hoc verbi semine et conceptum format in se verbum, donec pariat spiritum timoris Dei. } [2]

For Christians, Mary the mother of Jesus has long been a figure of hyper-veneration {hyperdulia}. From the earliest Christian understanding, the Christian church has been a figure of the heavenly Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, and the eternal mother of all Christians. To be Christian, men must learn from Mary and embrace feminine receptivity in relation to God.

The eminent ninth-century poet and theologian Hrabanus Maurus recognized men’s natural gender blessing. Hrabanus about 810 created a magnificent book, In Honor of the Holy Cross {In honorem sanctae crucis}. That book contains 28 intricately shaped poems (carmina figurata).[3] One of its carmina figurata shows Jesus with his arms extended widely, reaching beyond the frame of the image to embrace all of the world. While Jesus is not depicted on the cross, his bodily gesture prefigures his crucifixion. The figure of Jesus is composed within a square field of letters. Read as horizontal lines of text, those letters make a poem in praise of the word of God incarnated as Jesus Christ. Hrabanus literally constructed Jesus with letters. As the image makes clear, Jesus isn’t a neuter word. Christ is a fully masculine man.

Hrabanus’s prose explanation for this poem instructs the reader to trace with a finger the outline of Jesus’s body. From the middle finger of Jesus’s right hand, stroking Jesus’s arm, and then caressing to the top of Jesus’s head traces the text “Dextra Dei summi cuncta creavit Jesus {Jesus has created all things by the right hand of the most high}.” Similarly stroking from the top of Christ’s head to the middle finger of Christ’s left hand generates the text “Christus laxabit e sanguine debita mundo {Christ will pay with his blood for the sins of the world}.” Tracing from the ring finger of Jesus’s right hand, along the bottom of his arm, and then down the right side of Jesus’s body to his right ankle gives “In cruce sic positus desolvens vincla tyranni {On the cross thus placed, he delivers us from the chains of the tyrant}.” Turning to understand, a reader traces the outline of Christ’s right foot and then caresses up between Christ’s legs to his loincloth. One’s finger then drops to earthy understanding in tracing the outline of Jesus’s left foot. The whole movement generates the text “Aeternus dominus deduxit ad astra beatos {The eternal Lord has guided the blessed to the stars}.”[4] The overall shape of this tracing is masculine genitals, with the penis pointing up through Jesus’s loincloth to heaven. For those who appreciate it, masculine sexuality points from earthly gynocentric tyranny to blessed, external life with Christ in heaven.

The words woven through Christ’s loincloth emphasize the blessing of men’s sexuality. Classical literature and sculpture representing men’s penises were predominately concerned with the size of men’s penises. Jesus, who joined heaven and earth, made all one from the small to the large:

A small cloth covers that which contains the stars
and with only the palm of his hand he encloses the entire world.

{ Veste quidem parva hic tegitur qui continet astra,
atque solum palmo claudit ubique suo. } [5]

As its folds make clear, the small cloth (the loincloth) covers Jesus’s masculine genitals. Jesus’s testicles contain the stars in the sense that they encompass the central blessing of Hebrew scripture: the divine promise of descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven.[6] The background poem for the loincloth underscores God’s creative power:

Here is truth clothed in a garment which Christ with his teaching
reveals in explication: this small garment the law
signifies, for with a few letters it covers
the all-powerful Creator, the Ruler who contains all things.
To him the world relates, the stars and the sea and the air.
Our nature closely is linked with our Creator,
for it covers that Creator. He holds the dry land in his palm,
protects it, and makes it visible to humanity by his power.
He is revealed everywhere in this world through his work.

{ induta en veritas veste quid dogmate christus
indicat exponam legem parva hic quoque vestis
significat namque hic tegitur in grammate raro
summipotens auctor qui continet omnia rector
ad quem mundus pertinet astra ac pontus et aether
nostraque natura arta atque sociate creanti ets
nam auctorem haec illum palmo qui claudit et arua
obtegit humano aut claudit uisu ecce potentem
ipse tamen ostensus ubique suo est oere orbi huic }

Human nature is closely linked with the creation of the world and the incarnation of human beings. All men have a natural, distinctive gender blessing. Men bear the blessing of seminal creativity to make descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven.[7]

A leading sex theorist has recently emphasized that men don’t have intrinsically less biological value than women do. Folk wisdom tends to regard men as relatively expendable because (male) sperm is plentiful while (female) eggs have a small, fixed supply. Gynocentric society treats fathers as persons readily reduced to visitors in their children’s lives, and treats men as readily expendable on sinking ships or in wars. Yet from an evolutionary perspective, reproduction has no value without survival to reproduce again. Men have been and continue to be crucial for children and civilizations to grow and flourish.[8]

Men don’t have value merely in all their doings for others. From a Christian perspective, men are as much beloved children of God as women are. Men in their human being are capable of incarnating divine being in the same way as any woman today could. Moreover, as Hrabanus recognized in his magnificent carmen figuratum of Jesus, men with their testicles, penises, and plentiful sperm represent the divine blessing of potentially making descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven.

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• sacredness of sex highlighted in Guibert’s medieval metamorphoses
• sacralizing men’s sexuality: Jacob & his wives to Jesus & his church
• the penis’s image problem in comparative gender perspective

Notes:

[1] Plato, Theaetetus 150, 151, Greek text and English translation (modified slightly for ease of reading) from Fowler (1921).

[2] Origen of Alexandria, Homily 12.7 (from his homilies on Leviticus), quoted in Coon (2004) p. 295 (with my changes to the translation for clarity). Cf. John 1:1-4, 14. This understanding of masculine pregnancy is similar to that in Philo of Alexandria and rabbinic midrashim. Id. Here’s Origen’s full homily in Latin, with an English translation. For all of Origen’s homilies on Leviticus in English translation, Barkley (1990).

Throughout history, masculinity or being “virtuous” has often been oppressively constructed as an attribute that men must work to achieve. That was the ideological structure in the Carolingian Empire. Stone (2012). Not surprisingly, men have often preferred to be characterized as pigs.

[3] Hrabanus Maurus (lived about 783 to 856 in present-day Germany) was a scholar, poet, monk, and theologian. As a young man Hrabanus studied under the eminent scholar Alcuin of York, Abbot of Tours. Hrabanus himself became Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Fulda in 822.

Particularly learned in the Torah of Hebrew scripture, Hrabanus became the foremost biblical scholar in the Carolingian Empire. He associated with the leading religious and political authorities of his time. The Holy Roman Emperor Lothar I, in a letter he wrote in 854, ranked Hrabanus with the eminent church fathers Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Pope Gregory the Great. Coon (2011) p. 13. Hrabanus appears in Dante’s Paradiso, Canto 12, in the fourth sphere of heaven. Hrabanus appears there with Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Hugh of St. Victor, Orosius, Boethius, Gratian, and other eminent, learned Christian men.

Hrabanus wrote In honorem sanctae crucis, his first book, for his teacher Alcuin. Alcuin composed some carmina figurata in the tradition of the early-fourth-century poet Publius Optatianus Porfyrius. One of Alcuin’s carmina figurata is an acrostic in praise of the cross, “On the holy cross {De sancta cruce}.” For that poem, with Latin text, figurative presentation, and English translation, Godman (1985) pp. 139-43.

Hrabanus took carmina figurata to a much higher level of sophistication than Alcuin’s acrostic. Hrabanus’s In honorem sanctae crucis, completed about 810, was recognized as a masterpiece. Hrabanus sent copies to eminent patrons, friends, and monasteries: Emperor Louis the Pious, Pope Gregory IV, bishops Haistulf of Mainz and Otgarius of Mainz, and the monasteries of Saint-Martin and of Saint-Denis.

While not well-know today, In honorem sanctae crucis was long regarded as an important work. About 81 medieval manuscripts of In honorem sanctae crucis are known, with ten surviving from the ninth century. The last manuscript copy was made in 1600 for the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf. A printed version was published in 1503. In honorem sanctae crucis is also called On praise of the holy cross {De laudibus sanctae crucis}.

The best current critical edition of In honorem sanctae crucis is Perrin (1997), building upon Perrin (1990). For a detailed technical analysis of a tenth-century manuscript (Cambridge University, Trinity College, MS B.16.3), Panayotova & Ricciardi (2017). On the manuscript and print production history of In honorem sanctae crucis from the ninth century to the seventeenth century, Michael (2019).

Ancient and early medieval texts presented letters without spacing for words (scriptio continua). Ancient and early medieval text also had little or no punctuation and little or no distinctive capitalization. These practices of textual presentation made carmina figurata more accessible to ancient and medieval readers than to readers today.

Hrabanus made some adjustments to letters in creating the 28 carmina figurata of In honorem sanctae crucis:

To make his letters fit the established grid, Hrabanus freely bent the rules of orthography and grammar. In 26 instances he elided words as when caeleste animal was rendered caelestanimal. He dropped letter ‘u’ following ‘q’ 295 times. Readers would know that qater = quater and atqe = atque. In 104 cases Hrabanus dropped letters that are not pronounced. These and other strategies enabled him to free up space for 811 letters according to Perrin’s analysis. By the same token, Hrabanus added letters to fill out blank spaces (‘caedris’ for ‘cedris’) 36 times. Clearly his major problem was fitting his words into the available spaces on the grid. Hrabanus’s linguistic ingenuity offers an interesting contrast to the linguistic hypercorrectivity of many of his contemporaries.

Contreni (1998).

[4] The Latin texts and English translations for these tracing are from Schipper (2014) p. 194, with my minor modifications. The subsequent two quotes are similarly from id. pp. 194, 196. The interpretation of the fourth tracing is mine.

Hrabanus regarded the written word as having eternal value. In a poetic preface to tituli that he wrote about 820 for churches that Abbot Eigil of Fulda founded, Hrabanus wrote:

No work arises that age, full of years,
does not destroy, or wicked time overturn:
only written things escape this fate, repel death,
only written things in books renew what has been.
God’s finger carved written things aptly
on rock, when he gave his Law to his people.
The world that is, has been, or may come in future’s chance —
these written things teach all their connected speakings.

{ Nullum opus exsurgit quod non annosa vetustas
Expugnet, quod non vertat iniqua dies:
Grammata sola carent fato, mortemque repellunt,
Praeterita renovant grammata sola biblis.
Grammata nempe dei digitus sulcabat in apta
Rupe, suo legem cum dederat populo,
Sunt, fuerant, mundo venient quae forte futura,
Grammata haec monstrant famine cuncta suo. }

Hrabanus, “Since the benign Law of God in mastery rules the wide world {Lex pia cumque dei latum dominans regit orbem}” vv. 7-14 (of 14), Latin text from Goodman (1985) pp. 248-9, my English translation, benefiting from that of id. The rare Latin word famen, plural famina, evokes the Hisperica Famina. A similar poem, which the first line Nullum opus exsurgit quod non annosa vetustas, appears in the Anthologia Latina (Riese 418). It’s labeled an epigram of Seneca.

[5] Cf. Isaiah 40:12, 48:13; Psalm 102:25. Christians seek to model themselves on Christ. Hrabanus quoted Origen:

Understand that you are another world in small, and inside of you is the sun, the moon, and stars.

{ intellige te alium mundum esse in parvo, et esse intra te solem, esse lunam esse etiam stellas }

Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 5.2, quoted in Hrabanus, Commentary on Leviticus {Expositiones in Leviticum} 2.3. For Origen’s Homilies on Leviticus, Barkley (1990). Coon associates this text with “remaking of the ascetic male into a dazzling vessel of the divine.” Coon (2004) p. 297. That text, however, doesn’t just concern “the ascetic male.” It relates to all men. Hrabanus’s representation of Christ presents a profound interpretation of being Christian.

[6] Genesis 15:5, 22:17, 26:4; Exodus 32:13; 1 Chronicles 27:23. Hrabanus wrote:

What is the Word if not semen? When the Word is emitted in an orderly fashion, the hearing mind — like a conceiving uterus — is impregnated for the offspring of good works.

{ Quid est sermo, nisi semen, qui dum ordinate mittitur, audientis mens, quasi concipientis uterus, ad boni operis prolem fecundatur. }

From Hrabanus’s commentary on Leviticus, written about 820. Via Coon (2004) pp. 278-9. For this understanding, Hrabanus apparently drew upon the exegetical thinking of Gregory the Great. Id.

Rabbinic authorities had similar understanding of the seminal blessing. In the Avot and the Mishnah, written about 200 GC, the model rabbinic sage never loses a drop of Torah. Id. p. 296, with related discussion p. 294. Present-day U.S. child support laws provide strong incentives for men to account for every drop of their semen. See Phillips v. Irons, 354 Ill. App. 3d 1164, 2005 Ill. App. LEXIS 1807 (Ill. App. Ct. 1st Dist. 2005), 883 N.E.2d 1151, summarized here.

[7] My interpretation of Hrabanus’s carmen figuratum of Jesus builds upon those of Coon and Schipper. Coon declares:

In his image of Christ, the Carolingian artist both screens the divine phallus from human gaze and simultaneously reveals its glorious nature and function through the agency of the letters scattered across the loincloth. It is a fitting combination for the Son of God, who fuses divine and human attributes and who is himself the Word. … For Hrabanus those stars {of Genesis 15:5} were future Christian souls born through the potency of Christ’s preaching.

Coon (2011) pp. 219-20. Schipper states:

But what exactly does Hrabanus mean to say with these clearly sensual if not erotic references to caressing movements, broken movements, and references to stars at the centre of the loin cloth of Christ? The temptation, of course, is to conclude immediately that something intentionally erotic is meant; indeed, that astra is intended as an indication of what lies beneath the loin cloth, namely Christ’s manhood. The very position of the inscription invites such an interpretation, and it is one I’m sure Hrabanus must have been aware of, even if he never says so in so many words. But there is a broad explanation as well. … The general direction of meaning of these lines {the background poem for the loincloth} suggests God or the Law covering Truth, God as the all-powerful Creator who has fashioned and revealed all the created world. But Hrabanus never lets go of the literal meaning of a small cloth (parua … uestis) covering that which creates or procreates, Christ’s penis, which is not just a penis, but also the creator (or the creative power) who makes the created world visible for mankind.

Id. pp. 195-7. In my understanding, Hrabanus used astra in specific reference to the central blessing of Hebrew scripture, and the shape of the fourth tracing he meant to represent masculine genitals.

[8] Ryan (2020). Most medievalists haven’t read Ryan and similar thinkers. Like many medievalists discussing gender and “the body,” Coon refers to men’s bodies abstractly and makes broad claims supporting current academic dogma such as gender theory:

the body of a monk served as a bridge between classical Rome and an encroaching Dark Age. … the monastic body expressed the imperial ambitions of the religious leadership of the Carolingian Empire. …. clerical elites forged a model of gender that sought to feminize lay male bodies through textual, ritual, and spatial means, reflecting the rivalry between lay and priestly groups. … For gender theorists, monastic masculinity also discloses the queerness of the Carolingian cloister. … The monastic refectory is a sparring ground, where corporal pleasures, such as eating or moving the eyes over the bodies of other diners, are crushed by power of the Word performed by a lector trained in the art of classical oratory. The dining hall of a monastery is a perilous space, where monks are “invited into the body only to resist.”{reference note omitted} … Hrabanus’s In Honor of the Holy Cross visualizes the fundamental spiritual dilemma of the Dark Age body: the body is central to the meaning of the faith but its centrality occasions anxiety among the faithful.

Coon (2011) pp. 2, 10, 249, 252. In contrast to Coon’s dark and stormy account, Stone states, “the Carolingian religious elite do not seem to have found celibacy difficult.” Stone (2012) p. 326. Medieval scholarship would be more interesting and serve social justice better if it addressed the specific biological reality of men’s bodies in relation to structures of oppression, e.g. violence against men’s genitals, normative mutilation of men’s genitals, cultural support for castrating men, and laws that suppress men’s plentiful seminal capabilities.

[image] Carmen figuratum of Jesus Christ in Hrabanus Maurus’s In honorem sanctae crucis. Folio 8v (excerpt) from instance made in mid-eleventh-century Paris. That instance follows the content of the ninth-century instance made in Fulda for the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious. Manuscript preserved as Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits (BnF) Latin 11685. The subsequent two images are excerpts from that image, with my blue-guideline overlay added to the first of those two.

Other instances of this carmen figuratum from Hrabanus’s In honorem sanctae crucis are freely available online. See:

1. Folio 3v in a ninth-century instance made in Fulda and probably offered to the Abbey of Saint-Denis between 845 and 847. Preserved as BnF Latin 2422.
2. Folio 8v in an instance made between 825-850 in Fulda. Preserved as Biblioteca Apostolia Vaticana. Reginensis lat. 124.
3. Folio 4v in a tenth-century instance. Preserved as BnF Latin 2421. Kelin Michael suggests that this manuscript “may be an Anglo-Saxon copy made in the 10th century during a period of Benedictine monastic reform.” Jesse Hurlbut shows details of this manuscript.
4. Folio 3v in a tenth-century instance. Preserved as Cambridge University, Trinity College, MS B.16.3. On this instance, Panayotova & Ricciardi (2017).
5. Folio 6v in an instance produced in 1490 in Lorch, Germany. Preserved as Württembergische Landesbibliothek (Stuttgart, Germany), Cod.theol.et phil.fol.122.
6. Folio 9v in an instance made for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in 1600. Preserved as BnF Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms-472 réserve.

References:

Barkley, Gary Wayne, tr. 1990. Origen. Homilies on Leviticus: 1-16. Fathers of the Church, Vol. 83. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

Contreni, John J. 1998. “Review of Perrin (1997), Rabani Mauri In honorem sanctae crucis.” The Medieval Review. Online.

Coon, Lynda L. 2004. “‘What is the Word if not semen?’ Priestly bodies in Carolingian exegesis.” Ch. 15 (pp. 278-300) in Brubaker, Leslie, and Julia M. H. Smith. Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300-900. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Coon, Lynda L. 2011. Dark Age Bodies: gender and monastic practice in the early medieval West. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. (review by Rebecca Hardie)

Fowler, Harold N., ed. and trans. 1921. Plato. Vol. 7. Theaetetus. Loeb Classical Library, Vol. 128. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

Godman, Peter. 1985. Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance. London: Duckworth.

Michael, Kelin. 2019. “The Transition of Material: Hrabanus Maurus’s In honorem sanctae crucis as Manuscript and Printed Book.” Paper presented at The Materiality of Devotion Exhibition Symposium, Emory University, Mar. 1, 2019. (video of presentation)

Panayotova, Stella and Paola Ricciardi. 2017. “Painting the Trinity Hrabanus: Materials, Techniques and Methods of Production.” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society. 16: 227-249. (web-viewable version)

Perrin, Michel. 1990. “Le De laudibus Sanctae Crucis de Raban Maur et sa Tradition Manuscrite au IXe siècle.” Revue d’Histoire des Textes. 19 (1989): 191-251.

Perrin, Michel, ed. 1997. Rabani Mauri In honorem Sanctae Crucis. Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, Vols. 100, 100 A. Turnholti: Brepols.

Ryan, Peter. 2020. “Gynocentrism, Sex Differences and the Manipulation of Men.” Available online at both Gynocentrism and Its Cultural Origins and A Voice for Men.

Schipper, William. 2014. “Secretive Bodies and Passionate Souls: Transgressive Sexuality Among the Carolingians.” Pp. 173-199 in Kambaskovic, Danijela, ed. Conjunctions of Mind, Soul and Body from Plato to the Enlightenment. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Stone, Rachel. 2012. Morality and Masculinity in the Carolingian Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (review by Valerie L. Garver, review by Clara Harder)

A certain church leader named Hilary conducted a hearing in the city Golgotha of Numskulls. The matter was legion. Lot came to family court to contest an order of child support requiring him to pay 60% of his income to his two daughters who had raped him. Interested parties entered the courtroom.

Solomon’s seven hundred wives and concubines sat together. Royally dressed, Solomon’s mother Bathsheba came in and then left to take a bath outside. The pregnant virgin Mary brought her husband Joseph from the house of David. Lot’s wife sat in the front row and worried that Judge Hilary would deprive Lot of almost all his salt. Elizabeth wanted to know if the payments she would receive would be less because her husband Zachariah had become disabled. The Samaritan woman was there, wondering how many different men could be required to pay her at the same time. Rebecca wanted to know how one man’s income would be divided among multiple mothers. Sarah entered, seeking to learn if angels are under the court’s jurisdiction. Hearing that Lot’s daughter would be getting hefty monthly payments for having Moab, Ruth came to see if she could have a child support order imposed on Naomi. Salome, daughter of Herodias, sought to have a child support order imposed on John the Baptist’s head. Hannah, lacking income, prayed in the court for children. Rachel entered, weeping for her sons being destroyed in the family court system.

Judge Hilary called the court to order. Jezebel was counsel for Lot’s daughters. Jezebel moved that the court recognize, as a preliminary matter, that Lot had always desired to have sex with his daughters, and that Lot should be regarded as their common-law husband. Jesus of Nazareth, counsel for Lot, objected that Lot’s adherence to the commandment “love one another” doesn’t imply incest. Judge Hilary sustained Jesus’s objection: “We note that marital status is irrelevant to the imposition of child support obligations.”

Jesus called Noah to testify on Lot’s behalf. Jesus asked Noah’s questions to qualify him as an expert:

What is the difference between an angry circus owner and a Roman hairdresser?

One is a raving showman and the other is a shaving Roman.

Why didn’t the Israelites starve in the desert?

Because of the sand which is there.

And where did the sandwiches come from?

Ham and his descendants bred and mustered there.

Satisfied with Noah’s answer, Jesus entered scripture into the court record that showed that Noah was the inventor of wine and had experience passing out naked and drunk. The court accepted Noah as a qualified witness. The crowd that now filled the courtroom began talking aloud.

Cain said Noah isn’t able. Isaac laughed. Eve felt tempted to get to know Noah. The Witch of Endor saw Noah under the waters. Gomer, wife of Hosiah, said Noah had gotten her drunk and raped her. Potiphar’s wife said, “Me too!” Tamar claimed that Noah neglected to pay prostitutes their full fees. A dove cooed that Noah had harassed her and made her feel unwelcomed. Shepherds blamed Noah for allying with Cain and fencing off part of their grazing land. The woman at the well said Noah never offered her a drink. Ham said Noah cursed his son Canaan for no good reason. A flood of others in the courtroom and on social media joined in denouncing Noah. A chant began: “Say no to Noah, say no to Noah, say no to Noah….”

Judge Hilary angrily arose and screamed, “You shitty deplorables! Where do you think you are? This is no Neanderthal football stadium. This is my court. Shut the fuck up!” The courtroom settled into abashed silence.

Jezebel began questioning Noah. How often do you drink wine? Do you prefer to drink by yourself? Were you grateful that your sons Shem and Japheth came to when you were drunk and naked? Do you recognize that those who refuse to exalt the best interests of the child should die by the sword? She then turned to Judge Hilary and said that there was no need for further questions.

Jesus arose and said to the court, “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be when justice flows down like flood waters and righteousness like a mighty torrent.” Jesus then turned to question Lot.

Jesus asked Lot a lot of questions. When you lived in Sodom, did the licentiousness of the lawless distress you? Have you forgiven your daughters for raping you? Do you forgive them for acting according to the men-oppressing ideology of gynocentric society? Do you forgive your daughters for not showing lovingkindness toward you their father? Do you love your daughters with self-giving love, wishing only their good? Is freely giving of yourself in love consistent with being compelled to pay child support to your daughters? Was your parenthood of Moab and Ammon planned parenthood? Would fathering children through your daughters raping you be your reproductive choice?

Judge Hilary interrupted Jesus, “Enough. What is truth? And what’s best for women and girls? Isn’t it in the best interests of Lot’s daughters to get monthly payments from him?” Jesus stood before her and remained silent for a long time. Then he said, “Remember Lot’s wife.”

Adam leaned away from Eve. Job cried out to the Lord. Paul declared God’s grace to be sufficient. Abraham promised to rescue Lot even while not knowing how. Jacob sought a ladder to escape from family court. John the Baptist lost his head from such tyranny. David wept for his son Absalom. Rahab left to hang a red cord outside her window. Moses could only stutter. Peter fumed and look ready to assault the judge. The Ethiopian eunuch praised God. Isaac went to gather wood to build a fire for himself. Isaiah foresaw fatherless children. Jeremiah denounced the judge as foolish and senseless, and predicted calamity upon the nation. Joseph of Arimathea promised to do all he could for Lot.

Mary was stunned, Sarah laughed at what was done.
When all had been settled, they returned to their homes.

{ stupebat Maria, ridebat de facto Sara.
Tunc explicitis omnibus domos suas repetierunt. }

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• through labyrinths: medieval fullness of life and joy in creativity
• Martianus Capella, updated: the marriage of Gynecology and Hercules
• medieval monk castrated for adultery; husband doesn’t punish wife

Notes:

The account of Lot’s daughters raping him is Genesis 19:30-38. The above work should not be interpreted to trivialize women raping men or pervasive anti-men sex discrimination in family courts. For a thorough, factual analysis of alimony, child custody, and child support laws, see Real World Divorce.

The above work is a reworking of a Latin work called Cena Cypriani {Cyprian’s Banquet}, also spelled Coena Cypriani. In medieval Europe, Cena Cypriani was attributed to Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage. He lived from about 200 to 258 GC.  Most scholars now think that Cena Cypriani was written between the middle of the fourth century and the middle of the fifth century. Some scholars speculate that Zeno of Verona (died 371 GC) wrote it.

Cena Cypriani is a short Latin prose work that in the modern period has been regarded as bizarre. It consists of about 1500 words. Bayless (1996) p. 19. Doležalová summarized:

It describes a wedding feast organized by king Joel in Cana, Galilee. The king invites many guests – characters from different parts of the Bible and also from the apocryphal Acta Pauli et Theclae (APT). They sit down, accept special dress, cook for themselves, eat, drink, some of them fall asleep, others are entertained, and then they all go home in a festive procession. The next day they return with presents for the king, but as it is discovered that something has been stolen the day before, they are investigated and tortured, until the king decides that only one of them, Achan, should be punished, and so they (including Jesus) kill him and bury him before they return home. After each of the activities is shortly introduced, an enumeration of what the guests did, ate or wore — a list of the Biblical characters and their attributions — follows

Doležalová (2002) p. 187. Bayless observed:

the focus of the story is the inventories of characters and their actions … The text is, in effect, an animated catalog of symbols and correspondences

Bayless (1996) pp. 19-20. The beginning of Cena Cyrpriani provides a good sense of it:

A certain king, Joel by name, organized a wedding in the eastern region, in Cana of Galilee. To this wedding, many were invited. Thus those, who had earlier bathed in the Jordan, came to the feast. At that time Naaman cleansed, Amos sprinkled water, James and Andrew brought hay. Matthew and Peter lay down, Solomon prepared the table, and the whole crowd reclined at various places. But when the place was already full of the reclining ones, those who arrived later, all, as they could, looked for a place for themselves. So Adam, the first of all, sat in the middle, Eve on leaves, Cain on top of a plough, Abel on a milk churn, Noah on an ark, Japheth on bricks, Abraham under a tree, Isaac on an altar, Jacob on a rock …

{ Quidam rex nomine Iohel nuptias faciebat in regione orientis, in Chana Galileae. His nuptiis invitati sunt plures. Igitur qui temperius loti in Iordane adfuerunt in convivio. Tunc commundavit Naaman, aquam sparsit Amos, Iacobus et Andreas attulerunt faenum, Matheus et Petrus straverunt, mensam posuit Salomon. Atque omnes discubuerunt turbae. Sed cum iam locus discumbentium plenus esset, qui superveniebant, quisque ut poterat, locum sibi inveniebat. Primus atque omnium sedit Adam in medio, Eva super folia, Cain super aratrum, Abel super mulgarium, Noe super archam, Iaphet super lateres, Abraham sub arbore, Isaac super aram, Iacob super petram … }

Latin text of Modesto and English translation from Doležalová (2017) p. 46.

During the Middle Ages, Cena Cypriani was rewritten at least four times and prompted at least one extensive written commentary. Hrabanus Mauris, abbot of Fulda and then Archbishop of Mainz, rewrote the Cena Cyrpriani about 855 to create a work known as the Cena nuptialis {Marriage banquet}. Cena nuptialis, which survives in 18 manuscripts, “made the allegory clearer and the narrative more rapid and coherent.” Bayless (1996) p. 39. In Rome in 876 or 877, John Hymmonides (also known as John the Deacon) recast Cena Cypriani into verse. John followed the original closely. Probably about 1050, the monk Azelinus of Reims wrote another version in verse for the Emperor Henry III of Germany. That version is known as Cena Azelini. Another rewriting of the Cena Cypriani occurred perhaps at Arras about 1200. The French Benedictine monk Herveus Dolensis (also called Herveus of Bourg-Dieu or Hervaeus Burgidolensis) wrote a lengthy commentary on Cena Cypriani about 1150. That commentary survives in four manuscripts.

Cena Cypriani was regarded in medieval Europe as both amusing and useful. Well-known throughout the Middle Ages, Cena Cypriani survives in whole or in part in at least 104 manuscripts. These manuscripts apparently was read or copied mainly in monasteries. Cena Cypriani seems to have functioned as a tool, or perhaps a game, for improving biblical knowledge. Not confined to monasteries, Cena Cypriani was known as the highest levels of learning and political power. Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor both refer to it, and Hrabanus Maurus, who rewrote it, was an eminent theologian. Copies of Cena Cypriani were dedicated to kings, emperors, and popes.

As the Waltharius indicates, medieval authors didn’t regard Christian humor to be inconsistent with deep Christian faith. John Hymmonides referred to his rewriting of Cena Cypriani as a “royal jest {imperialis iocus}.” In his poem dedicating his version to Pope John VIII, John wrote:

Whoever desires to discern me, John, dancing,
now listen to my song, attend to the merrymaking:
I will play in running through a medley, formed under God,
that would make Codrus’s belly burst. You, friends, applaud.

{ Quique cupitis saltantem me lohannem cernere,
Nunc cantantem auditote, iocantem attendite:
Satiram ludam percurrens: divino sub plasmate,
Quo Codri findatur venter. Vos, amici, plaudite. }

Latin text from Bayless (1996) p. 41, my English translation, benefiting from that of id. In his letter dedicating Cena nuptialis to Pope John, John Hymmonides wrote: “take this amusement, Pope John; may you be laughing, if it itself is able to please {ludentem papa Iohannes accipe; ridere, si placet, ipse potes}.” Similarly from id. p. 42. With the starkness that characterizes Proverbs and other biblical wisdom, Burchardus, Abbot of Believaux, in the twelfth century wrote:

some laugh with delight at the excellence and honor and glory of wisdom; others laugh with silliness at the growth and hawking of foolishness. The wise are made merry by laughter and do not jeer; the foolish are made silly by laughter and indulge in ridicule.

{ alii rident cum iocunditate ad laudem et honorem et gloriam sapientiae, alii rident cum iocositate ad incrementum et propalationem stulticiae: iocundantur sapientes in risu et non irrident, stulti iocantur in risu et derident. }

“In defense of beards {Apologia de barbis}” 3.179-81, Latin text and English translation from Bayless (1996) pp. 204-5.

Recent studies suggest that Cena Cypriani was within the mainstream of literature from about 1500 to 2000 years ago. Cena Cypriani has parallels with Petronius’s Satyricon 35. Manca (2008) pp. 89-90. Similarities also exist with respect to Apuleis’s Metamorphoses 6.24-5. Casaretto (2006) pp. 239-46. Testamentum Porcelli {The Testament of a Piglet}, written perhaps in the fourth century, provides another parallel. Livini (2011) p. 287.

For texts and studies of Cena Cypriani, Modesto (1992), Bayless (1996), and Doležalová (2007) are the most important works. Modesto (1992) includes German translations of the various versions of Cena Cypriani. Doležalová (2007) includes an English translation of the original version based on Modesto’s critical Latin text. Bayless (1996) includes an English translation of the Arras Cena Cypriani. Doležalová (2007), which is freely accessible online, includes a Latin text close to the base Cena Cypriani, with notes indicating the textual variants. Radej (1989), also freely accessible online, includes a Latin text and a Bosnian translation. Here are additional instances: an online, machine-readable Latin text and an online Latin manuscript. Conybeare (2013) uses the laughter of Sarah in Cena Cypriani as a starting point toward exploring cultish academic writings. Cena Cypriani, recreated in the context of Lot’s daughters raping him, seems to me to be capable of promoting both delightful laughter and social justice.

The reference above to the church leader Hilary is open to several interpretations. Hilary of Poitiers served as as Bishop of Poitiers from 351 to 356 GC. Hilary of Arles served as Bishop of Arles in southern France from 429 to 444 GC. Whether either Hilary adjudicated any child support cases isn’t known.

The questions above concerning the angry circus owner and the Roman hairdresser are from Susan Stewart via Parker (1985) p. 84, n. 5. The questions concerning the Israelites’ food in the desert are from Robert Graves via id. p. 79. I was alerted to the relevance of Five Constipated Men in the Bible via Manca (2008) pp. 94-5. The final quote is the last two lines of Cena Cypriani, in Latin and in my English translation. Some versions read “Mary is stunned {stupet Maria},” but “Mary was stunned {stupebat Maria}” is Modesto’s superior reading.

[image] Lot and his daughters. Seventeenth-century painting by Marcantonio Franceschini. Preserved in the Museo di Stato di San Marino. Via Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Bayless, Martha. 1996. Parody in the Middle Ages: the Latin tradition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Casaretto, Francesco Mosetti. 2006. “Modelli e antimodelli per la «Cena Cypriani»: il «teatro interiore», Zenone e… Apuleio!” Wiener Studien. 119: 215-246.

Conybeare, Catherine. 2013. The Laughter of Sarah: Biblical Exegesis, Feminist Theory, and the Laughter of Delight. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Doležalová, Lucie. 2002. “Receptions of Obscurity and Obscurities of Reception: The Case of the Cena Cypriani.” Listy Filologické / Folia Philologica. 125 (3-4): 187-197.

Doležalová, Lucie. 2004. “Quoddam notabile vel ridiculum: an unnoticed version of Cena Cypriani (Ms. Uppsala, UL C 178).” Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi (Bulletin Du Cange). 62: 137-160.

Doležalová, Lucie. 2007. Reception and its Varieties: reading, re-writing, and understanding Cena Cypriani in the Middle Ages. Trier: Wiss. Verl. Trier.

Doležalová, Lucie. 2017. “Measuring the Measuring Rod: The Bible and Parabiblical Texts within the History of Medieval Literature.” Interfaces 4: 39-58.

Livini, Andrea. 2011. “Il caso della Cena Cypriani: riflessioni sulla circolazione alto-medievale di un libellus tardo-antico.” Wiener Studien. 124: 279-295.

Manca, Massimo. 2008. “La Coena Cypriani fra pantagruelismi letterari e oralità popolare.” Incontri Triestini di Filologia Classica. 8: 85-97 (Edizioni Università Trieste).

Modesto, Christine. 1992. Studien zur Cena Cypriani und zu deren Rezeption. Classica Monacensia, 3. Tubingen: G. Narr.

Parker, Douglass. 1985. “The Curious Case of Pharaoh’s Polyp, and Related Matters.” SubStance. 14 (2): 74-86.

Radej, Irena. 1989. “Parodijske osobine teksta ‘Cena Cypriani.’” Latina et Graeca. 1 (34): 19-41.

Concubines rank lower than wives in most societies’ social structure. But what about men’s status?[1] The learned and eloquent ancient Roman orator Cicero described the desperation of husbands suffering from their wives’ abuse. In early-eleventh-century Baghdad, the rich merchant ibn Jumhūr had to endure torrents of abuse from his concubine Zād Mihr. In actuality, husbands are not only subordinate to their wives, but also subordinate to their concubines.

A coherent medieval collection of prayers spanning all stations of society documents the struggle against men’s subordination to their concubines. The collection begins by acknowledging the failures of all:

Let us pray for every status in the Church!
All have gone astray. Together they are made hurtful. There is none who would do good, no, not one.

{ Oremus pro omni statu ecclesie!
Omnes declinaverunt, simul inutiles facti sunt. Non est qui faciat bonum, non est usque ad unum. } [2]

The next three prayers harshly denounce the behavior of the nominally leading men of medieval society:

For the pope and the cardinals.
From elders is coming forth the wickedness of my people, who the bad example they see, they follow.

For our king.
Destruction and misery are in his way, and the way of peace he has not yet discovered.

For the leaders of the land.
O Israel, your princes are rebellious, companions of thieves, and act very similar to tyrants.

{ Pro papa et cardinalibus.
A senioribus egressa est iniquitas populi mei, qui malum quod videt in exemplum trahit.

Pro rege nostro.
Contricio et infelicitas et inquietudo in viis eius, ut viam pacis nondum invenit.

Pro principibus terre.
O Israhel, infideles principes tui socii furum sunt et tyrannis similimi. } [3]

About thirty prayers later, the collection reaches the nominally lowliest ranks of medieval society:

For our household servants.
The elderly servants are always slow. While they eat, they get warm; when working, they get cold.

Let us pray also for our concubines.
They themselves will truly be our judges and rule us with an iron rod, by which for our faithlessness our property is squandered.

For our extra-marital children.
They themselves are witnesses of their parents’ wickedness, which will itself walk by its own paths.

{ Pro familia nostra.
Prespiterum servi sunt omni tempore tardi. Dum comedunt sudant, frigescunt quando laborant.

Oremus etiam pro concubinis nostris.
Ipse enim erunt judices nostri et regent nos in virga ferrea, quarum perfidia nostra consumitur substantia.

Pro spuriis nostris.
Ipsi enim testes sunt iniquitatis parentum suorum, in quorum semitis et ipsi ambulabunt. } [4]

The prayer for concubines, placed between prayers for servants and extra-marital children, implicitly recognizes concubines’ low social status. That prayer also implicitly acknowledges men’s weakness in relation to beautiful women. Men’s weakness in relation to beautiful women is both economically disastrous for men and leads to women ruling over them.

In the difficult circumstances of their lives, men often accept passively injustices done to them. The biblical story of the massacre of the men of Shechem tells of treacherous, vicious violence against men because of Shechem’s illicit love for Dinah. Violence against men still remains the undistinguished, untroubling understanding of violence. When the Hebrews wandering in the desert lacked water, Moses and Aaron had to do something. Men are valued as men in their doings, not merely in their being. Whatever the man Jonah did was wrong. A whale ate him at sea and on land the sun beat down on his head. Who has compassion for Jonah’s suffering and for the suffering of men generally? About 855, a highly learned German theologian poignantly portrayed men’s despair:

But already Shechem was asking for the dishonored Dinah,
Aaron was spilling water, competing then with Dinah,
bald Jonah was destitute, shipwrecked in the sea;
together they mourned, stroking their trimmed foreskins.

{ Sed quia iam prostitutam quaerebat Sichem Dinam,
Aquas Aaron effundebat, contendebat tunc Dina,
Ionas calvus nudus erat naufragus in maria;
Plangebant cuncti recisa palpantes preputia. } [5]

Mutilation of baby boys’ genitals continues today across atheists, Christians, and Jews without any truly believed religious justification. Circumcision of baby boys’ genitals attracts less social concern than restrictions on women’s fancy clothes. Men’s subordination to their concubines reflects the impotence of men resigned merely to stroking their trimmed foreskins.

Learned and wise authorities have long sought to dissuade men from gyno-idolatrous subservience to their concubines and to women in general. At some time between the middle of the ninth century and early in the sixteenth century, a scribe copying the prayer for concubines added wisdom from Cicero:

And can I regard as being free a man over whom a woman rules? On whom she imposes laws, and to whom she orders, commands, and prohibits? Moreover, is not he himself a miserable little man who none of her rulings is able to negate, who dares to refuse her nothing? If she calls him, he is coming. If she asks, he is giving. If she throws him out, he is leaving. If she threatens, he is trembling.

{ An ille michi liber videtur, cui mulier imperat? Cui leges imponit, prescribit iubet, vetat? Ipse autem miser homuntio nichil imperanti negare potest, nichil recusare audet? Si vocat eum, veniendum est. Si poscit, dandum est. Si eicit, abeundum est. Si minatur, extimescendum est. } [6]

These are the men that men-abasing courtly love ideology celebrates. These little men are prevalent in gynocentric society. They are not free men. Teach your sons not to be those men!

Women who love men must do more to help men. Not satisfied with merely the authority of Cicero, perhaps another scribe added wisdom from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes:

I find, says the prophet, more bitter than death the woman whose heart is a hunter’s snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. One who pleases God will flee from her. The other, a sinner, is taken by her, more bitter than death.

{ Inveni, inquit propheta, amariorem morte mulierem, que laqueus est venatorum, sagena cor eius, vincula sunt manus eius. Qui placet Deo fugiet illam; qui autem peccator est capietur ab ea, amarior est morte. } [7]

Today such wisdom tends to be trivialized through name-calling. Medieval authorities were more enlightened. Matheolus warned men against oppressive practices of women and the church. The satirical medieval Fifteen Joys of Marriage described men becoming prisoners in their marriages. Some medieval women viciously cuckolded their husbands. Teach your daughters not to be those women!

The combined authority of Cicero and Ecclesiastes sadly has been insufficient to save men from subservience to women. As the medieval manuscript indicates, inadequate philological education in schools hinders vigorous social criticism. Thus to the quotes from Cicero and Ecclesiastes under the prayer for concubines, a medieval reader added explanatory glosses: “she imposes laws {leges imponit}” glossed as “command {mandatum}”; “she orders {prescribit}” glossed as “what must be made to be {quid faciendum sit}”; and “she vetoes {vetat}” glossed as “she prohibits {prohibet}.” One must first understand in order to resist.

Most men today lack the opportunity to study medieval Latin language and literature. Yet even deprived of that important opportunity, men can understand gynocentric oppression simply by asking questions. Why does the gender composition of highly privileged persons such as corporate executives, political leaders, and math professors generate more public concern than the massively disproportionate incarceration of men? Why are men deprived of any reproductive rights whatsoever and have only the choice to engage in abortion coercion? Why does grotesque anti-men gender discrimination continue to pervade family courts while governments move to enact paid parental leave? The fundamental answer to those questions is simple: the actual status of ordinary men is lower than that of their concubines.

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• Cicero unpacked: piss on learned hypocrites to cultivate public fields
• did Lot support daughters who raped him? Cena Cypriani rewritten
• Sabine women win Pyrrhic peace for Roman men

Notes:

[1] On the formal and actual status of medieval concubines, see Brundage (1993) and Karras (2014). Medieval historians typically share common delusions about men’s status in the present. Their historical work on gender is thus scarcely credible.

[2] Prayers for every status in the church {Orationes pro omni statu ecclesiae} 1, Latin text from Bayless (2018) p. 53 (text 7), my English translation. For ease of reading, I’ve made some insubstantial changes to Bayless’s Latin text, e.g. differentiated v from u, and j from i. Subsquent quotes from this text are sourced similarly.

Bayless has edited this text from MS. Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Pal. lat. 1050, fols 293r-294. This manuscript was written in parts in 1475 and 1530. Id. The line of commentary following the call for prayer adapts Psalm 14:3 (in modern numbering).

Two other manuscripts of similar collections of prayers have survived in manuscripts written in the fifteenth century. Those texts are printed in Walther (1931). For discussion of these similar collections, called Prayers of the priest’s housekeeper {Preces famulae sacerdotis}, Bayless (1996) pp. 172-5. These or similar collections might well have been composed in the twelfth century or earlier.

[3] Orationes pro omni statu ecclesia 2-4. As Bayless notes, the lines of commentary for these three prayers adapt Daniel 13:5, Romans 3:16-7, and Isaiah 1:23, respectively.

[4] Orationes pro omni statu ecclesia 27-29 (out of 33 prayers in total). Prespiterum apparently is a medieval Latin spelling of presbyterum. Bayless notes the commentary to the prayer for household servants is “common in medieval satire.” Prayers 28 and 29 adapt Matthew 12:27 and Psalm 2:9; and Wisdom 4:6, respectively. Bayless (2018) p. 59, notes.

[5] Hrabanus Maurus, The Wedding Banquet {Cena nuptialis} ll. 233-8, Latin text from Modesto (1992) p. 192, my English translation. Hrabanus’s Cena nuptialis adapted into verse Cyprian’s Banquet {Cena Cypriani}. The relevant text from Cena Cypriani:

But since someone was contending with Dinah, Aaron was spilling water, and Jonas was destitute.

{ Sed quoniam contendebat Dina, aquam effundebat Aaron,
et nudus erat Ionas. }

Latin text from Modesto (1992) p. 30, my English translation. Dinah seems to be related to Aaron spilling water through the implicit sense that she was crying over her brothers killing her beloved Shechem. Hrabanus Maurus wrote his Cena nuptialis about 855 and dedicated it to Lothar II, King of Lotharingia. On Cena nuptialis, Bayless (1996) pp. 38-40.

[6] Orationes pro omni statu ecclesia 28.4-8 (additional commentary). The text notes: “These are Cicero in Paradoxes {Hec Cicero in Paradoxa}.” The reference is to Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes {Paradoxa stoicorum} 5.36, which is quoted closely, but not exactly. For Paradoxa stoicorum in Latin and English translation, Rackham (1942). The glosses to this text, discussed subsequently above, are given in Bayless (2018) p. 59, notes.

Cicero in Paradoxa stoicorum presented women’s dominance as a problem in men’s intimate relations with women. In fifteenth-century Europe, women’s dominance was regarded as a matter of high politics:

Let us inquire, and we find that nearly all the world’s kingdom have been overthrown because of women. The first of them, the happy kingdom Troy, was destroyed because of the abduction of a single woman, Helen. Many thousands of Greeks were slain. The kingdom of the Jews had many evils and deaths because of the very bad queen Jezebel and her daughter Athaliah, queen in the kingdom of Judah. Athaliah had the sons of her son slain so that with his death she herself could reign, but both Jezebel and Athaliah were slain. The kingdom of the Romans endured many evils because of Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, a very bad woman. And so on for others. Hence no wonder if the world now suffers from women’s evil.

{ Invenimus fere omnia mundi regna propter mulieres fuisse versa. Primum enim quod fuit regnum felix, scilicet Troye, proper raptum unius femine, scilicet Helene, destructum est, multi milibus Graecorum occisis. Regnum Judeorum multa mala et exterminia habuit propter pessimam reginam Jezebel et filiam eius Athaliam reginam in regno Jude, que occidi fecerat filios filij ut eo mortuo ipsa regnaret, sed utraque occisa. Regnum Romanorum multa mala sostinuit propter Cleopatram reginam Egipti, pessimam mulierem. Et sic de alijs. Unde non mirum si mundus iam patitur ob malitiam mulierum. }

The Hammer of Witches {Malleus maleficarum} Part 1, Question 6, part 2, Latin text from MacKay (2006) v. 1, pp. 289-90, my English translation, benefiting from that of id. On the relative propensity of queens and kings to engage in war from the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, Dube & Harish (2019). Modern readings of the Malleus maleficarum have obscured that men vastly predominated among witches who were killed, just as today men vastly  predominate among victims of lethal violence.

[7] Orationes pro omni statu ecclesia 28.10-13 (additional commentary). The text begins “Ecclesiastes 7 {Eccl 7}.” It quotes closely but not exactly the Vulgate text of Ecclesiastes 7:26 (in modern numbering). In medieval versions of the Vulgate, this verse ended with “more bitter than death, that is, than the devil {amarior est morte, id est, diablo}.” Bayless (2018) p. 59, notes.

[image] Young Man at Prayer (excerpt). Painting by Hans Memling, made about 1475. Preserved as accession number NG2594 in the National Gallery (London, UK). Via Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Bayless, Martha. 1996. Parody in the Middle Ages: the Latin tradition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Bayless, Martha, ed. 2018. Fifteen Medieval Latin Parodies. Toronto Medieval Latin Texts, 35. Toronto, Canada: Published for the Centre for Medieval Studies by the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies.

Brundage, James A. 1993. Sex, Law and Marriage in the Middle Ages. Aldershot: Variorum.

Dube, Oeindrila and S.P. Harish. 2019. “Queens.” University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper No. 2019-120. Available at SSRN.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. 2014. Unmarriages: women, men, and sexual unions in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. (review by Walter Prevenier)

Mackay, Christopher S., ed. and trans. 2006. Malleus maleficarum: the hammer of witches. 2 vols. Cambridge University Press.

Modesto, Christine. 1992. Studien zur Cena Cypriani und zu deren Rezeption. Classica Monacensia, 3. Tubingen: G. Narr.

Rackham, Harris, ed and trans. 1942. Cicero. On the Orator {De oratore}, Book III; On Fate {De fato}; Stoic Paradoxes {Paradoxa stoicorum}; Divisions of Oratory {De partitione oratoria}. Loeb Classical Library 349. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Walther, Hans. 1931. “Parodistische Gebete der Pfarrköchin in einer Züricher Handschrift.” Studi Medievali. n.s. 4: 344-57.