of these organs. Sometimes more extreme measures were warranted. In retelling the story of the hermit Godric, Gerald explained that the saint was overcome by lust and abstained for a full week to quell his “illicit urgings.” But, unable to stifle his passions and subjected to involuntary ejaculation, he finally threw himself into a thorny briar patch like St. Benedict. When this too failed to produce the intended result, he immersed himself in icy, cold water; at last, he “extinguished the passion which frequently raged in him.”100 This story brings to the forefront what Jacqueline Murray called the “problem of male embodiment.”101
The conflict present within the religious male body provoked some monastic writers to offer an alternative possibility: mystical castration. Gerald of Wales presents a story from the patristic era, when a monk by the name of Eliah created a monastery for women. After two years of ministering to the nuns, he suddenly began to experience carnal temptation. Terribly disturbed by his own thoughts, he fled to the wilderness to fast for two days and pray for an end to this temptation. One night in his sleep, Eliah was visited by three angels, who seized him, held him down, and “mystically” cut off his testicles with a knife. Afterward, Eliah reported feeling that a great burden had been lifted from him. He was able to lead this community of women as a fully intact male, without ever experiencing carnal temptation again.102
Religious writers underscored that choosing chastity was not the same as choosing impotence, physical or social. The chaste, celibate body was still sexually functional, so long as it had not been physically castrated. Various episodes narrated in these texts clearly demonstrate that the male celibate still experienced sexual desires, manifested by his erections and ejaculations; his body was still responsive. The celibate male’s struggle was to fight his own nature, his sexual desires, and, in that moment, become remasculinized. Gerald of Wales was an advocate of celibacy, and his numerous discussions of sexual behavior created a discourse on sexuality that served to incite desire. His recollection of stories could be seen as discursive reenactments of the war against the flesh, his flesh certainly and those of his readers.103 He stands as an example of how religious writers transformed clerical sexuality from the site of practice to the site of the imagination, all the while maintaining their chaste bodies.
Gerald was aware that young monks may have experienced sexual temptation more frequently, due to their youthful vigor. In his Gemma, he presents a letter written from Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, to an abbot, who reported a curious problem with one of his young monks. It appeared that the monk in question was having problems with involuntary seminal emission. Bishop Hildebert was more skeptical as to the monk’s culpability:
You say that when your confrere is prostrate for the sake of praying, an evil spirit approaches him, places its hands on his genital organs, and does not stop rubbing his body with its own until he is so agitated that he is polluted by an emission of semen. You say also that this apparition does not bother him in his thoughts or in his sleep. This experience takes place while he is praying and is done by [what seems to be] truly a man’s hand.104
The bishop was informed that the young monk had followed all the rules, that he was a “virgin, that he has never eaten cooked meat, and that he has avoided the vices of the flesh.” Nonetheless, he expressed skepticism that this event was involuntary and the result of an evil spirit. He advised the abbot to have the monk “examine his conscience carefully, and if he finds that he has fought the temptation manfully (viriliter), let him continue to pray.” If, the monk finds he is, in fact, consenting to such masturbation, “let him pray more devoutly … let him pursue the path of sacred fasting, let him weep in his bed every night, let him undertake frequent and grave penances, let him chastise his body as Paul did and bring it into subjection.”105 In order to explain why this righteous monk would face such temptation, Gerald explains that “this temptation was given, therefore, either to augment the youth’s merits (provided he resisted manfully (viriliter), without giving any consent) or to increase his punishment (if he had given, perhaps, some slight consent).”106
The fight against the flesh appeared often in religious texts as a military battle, underscoring the traditional presentations of vowed celibates as soldiers of Christ (milites Christi). The notion of monks as milites Christi is so well established in monastic literature that it is unnecessary to supply an extensive discussion of the model. Katherine Smith’s excellent study has already shown that military imagery was profoundly central to male monastic life during the age of reform.107 The monk as soldier was not an asexual being; he was, instead, a warrior who defended his vow of chastity. The group of monks behind an 1132 polemic portrayed the monastic life in such a manner. While the use of such metaphors in this tract can be connected to ancient monastic literature, its presence here was clearly intended to create a masculinized monastic life, centered around the battle against carnal desire. For example, the writers devote a considerable amount of this tract to arguing that monks form an elite military corps. Using well-known biblical passages, these monks argue that a soldier should not get involved in civilian affairs, especially the vices of the flesh; after all, good soldiers [monks] fight the “good fight.”108 By this argument, they set up an anti-norm of the religious male body, the clerical body that engaged in fornication and concubinage. They further argue that the faithful in the Church, undoubtedly referencing priests, “ought to imitate the virtues and work of holy men manfully (viriliter).”109 The monk-soldier, dominated by ascetic self-control, defends the citadel of God with his brethren and stands in stark contrast to the disorderly priestly body.
Military imagery was most powerful when it was tightly connected to the battle against the flesh. Ecclesiastical writers overarticulated this struggle against the flesh in all genres of writings. Gerald of Wales positioned the agon (struggle) as a continuous battle against the flesh in his Gemma Ecclesiastica. He reminds his readers that “it is the outcome, not the battle, which is crowned. Victory is crowned after the day’s battle.” In criticism of those clerics who wait until old age to commit to the religious life, out of fear they will be unable to remain continent, Gerald lectures that “no crown is given unless the struggle of a fierce battle has taken place. It is highly praiseworthy if they restrained themselves in the heat and passion of youth. Thus might they exercise the rule of reason over their reluctant flesh and chastise their body … otherwise they will wallow in unbridled wantonness.”110 Gerald believed that life on earth was an eternal battle with the “enemy” and so posed this question:
who is more victorious—he who overcomes the enemy after a severe struggle and long battle, or he who immediately and powerfully triumphs over him in the first stages of the struggle? … The enemy is conquered by force and overcome by strength if he is overthrown immediately, without delay. He who dallies and at length begins to do battle seems hardly likely to win.111
Continuing on from his discussion of patristic authors, Gerald reiterates some of the ideas found in these ancient texts. He advises those who struggle against their sexual urges to do what early fathers like Jerome and Augustine did: “If, therefore, you are tempted and troubled as these men were, resist manfully (viriliter) and do battle as they did, in order that you may receive the crown which they received and for a temporary struggle receive everlasting rewards.” Quoting St. Paul, Gerald urges, “No one will receive the crown unless he strives manfully.” He follows with a quote from St. Jerome: “You are an effeminate (delicates) soldier if you hope to be crowned without a battle.”112 Gerald further underscores that those “servants,” undoubtedly referencing priests, “are effeminate and deserving of reproach who, having given themselves over to every excess, refuse to follow their Lord through difficulties and hardships.” He concludes his argument by stating that, if one cannot die for Christ, “let us at least carry it in the other two ways (by being compassionate and by disciplining the body and manfully (viriliter) resisting temptations).”113
The battle against the flesh was so important for priests because many writers believed the purity of the altar and sacrament was at stake. Monastic writers made great use
