Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, & Demonology in the Middle Ages by Dyan Elliott (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS71 Backes's The Hundred Years War in France (xi), and an authentic list of 81 primary and secondary sources, the research underpinnings of Timeline. ROBERT J . BLANCH Northeastern University DYAN Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, el·Demonology in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 300. isbn: 0-81223460 -x (cloth), $49.95; 0-8122-1665-2 (paper), $19.95. This is a fascinating and very important book, demanding concentration from the reader simply because the arguments are so rigorously laid out, in very clear and uncompromising prose. Professor Elliott details the attempts ofthe Western Church not only to contain sexuality but to get rid of it altogether, first among the clergy and then, grudgingly, among the laity. The distrust (and misunderstanding) of sexuality led to this absorption with the subject which occupied some of the best minds in the church's hierarchy. The book's six chapters follow the pattern laid out in the title. The first chapter deals mainly with nocturnal pollution in the male clergy and the resulting nightmares and waking visions engendered in the male psyche. These nightmares were caused by evil thoughts inflicted by the devil (as in Gregory the Great's Moralia), including the visitations of incubi and succubi. One such waking dream details the devil in the shape of a Benedictine nun visiting one of the sleeping brothers, who died within three days (31). The second chapter details the idea of 'demonic defloration' when the life of the imagination was allied with the demonic. In all the examples given in these chapters, the bed is the locus of transgression. In the third chapter, 'Sex in Holy Places,' the holy place, the church, a monastery, or the graveyard, is the locus oftransgression. This chapter required a precisely engaged, analytic mind to help the reader understand many hypothetical situations, for example, the situation of the demand by a partner in a marriage to have sex in a church. Because the people are married to each other, the partner who demands sex in a church must be satisfied, since Paul writes that the marital debt must be paid. The partner who must comply, therefore, commits no sin, since compliance is obligatory. Professor Elliott explores this hypothetical situation as an example ofmedieval anxiety about sex. Theodulf of Orleans (d.821) gives the offence the rubric of 'Irrational Fornication,' and William ofWaddington's Manueldes Péchiez describes such actions as a kind of theft from the holy place. Sin is attributed to the partner demanding the activity, as discussed by Alexander of Hales in the thirteenth century. The heart of the book is to be found in chapters four and five, 'The Priest's Wife' and 'Avatars of the Priest's Wife.' Most of the polluting elements in the first chapters take on a female form, like the devil in the form of a Benedictine nun. In chapters four and five, the subtext becomes clear. The fear ofwomen, irrational in itself, looms large in the church's attempts to control sexuality. Until the eleventh 72ARTHURIANA century, priests were allowed to marry, but as the doctrine of transubstantiation was developed, the clerical wife herself was seen as a polluting presence for the minister ofthe altar. Since the priest handled the very body and blood ofChrist, he had to be absolutely pure, and part ofthis purity was abstention from sexual activity as well as withdrawal from the very temptation to engage in such activity. The clerical wife was seen as an ambigous, mixed hybrid. Peter Damián wrote that 'God recognizes only three kinds of women: virgins, wives, and widows.' One wonders just how Peter knows this. The clerical wife did not fit any of these categories, and so she could not arrive in God's presence. The last chapter deals with demonology, discussing angelic and demonic disembodiment and the idea that since demons have no body, they cannot be sexually defiled. Professor Elliott must be commended for the clarity of her prose in presenting original sources as well as intricate analytical unraveling of much of this material, which seemed arcane to this reader. It is astonishing that the church would use so many resources...