Boys to manly men of God: Scottish seminarian manliness in the nineteenth century

Abstract

This article examines what it meant to be and to become a man of God in the nineteenth century. It concentrates on the gendered aspects of priesthood, developed and enforced in the seminaries employed by the Scottish Mission to mould its future labourers. The article sets the ideas in the context of nineteenth-century discourse on both clerical and secular manliness and masculinity. It addresses the peculiarities of the Roman Catholic seminary experience and the paradoxes of developing manliness in this environment, combining ideals of moral and religious superiority, fatherhood, camaraderie, chastity and maturity, developing in close contact with other boys and male superiors in the virtual absence of women. The research relies on archival sources on the students of the French colleges associated with the Scottish Mission after the French Revolution, supplemented by material relating to other Scots Colleges on the continent.