The Bishop's Many Masculine Bodies: Conflict, Authority, and the Discourse of Clerical Manhood in the Anglo-Norman Church

Beginning in the mid-eleventh century, masculine language was increasingly utilized by clerics of all ranks and orders to assert masculine dominance in conflicts with secular authorities and with each other. While this discourse was initially created by monastic reformers as they generated a model of clerical manhood, it soon became a discourse expressed by bishops and their opponents in conflicts over power and authority in the Anglo-Norman church. Bishops and their opponents used the language of virility in their battles over ecclesiastical authority, even in conflicts with other clergy. This paper examines two case studies of bishops and their use of the language of virility in conflicts with other clerical groups. The first case involves the struggle for primacy between the archbishophrics of Canterbury and York, in the twelfth century. The presentation of this struggle by contemporary chroniclers illustrates that masculine discourse was utilized to assert one side’s authority while calling into question the other side’s masculinity.  In the second case, I will show how Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux (1141-1181), employed masculine language to uphold an ideal of clerical masculinity as he resisted efforts to change cathedral chapters into ones governed by secular clerics (as opposed to regular clerics). Both cases will show that masculine discourse was employed by bishops in many conflicts as an attempt to negotiate the boundaries of clerical manhood as a reforming ideal, particularly in disputes involving secular and regular (monastic) clerics.