Medieval Sexuality: A Casebook - Julian Emperor

2Sex and TextThe Afterlife of Medieval Penancein Britain and IrelandDominic JanesThe Christian communities of early medieval Britain and Ireland have beencredited with originating a specialized genre of Catholic religious texts knownas penitentials. These were, in essence, intended as adjuncts to the process ofconfession. They consisted of lists of sins and associated corrective measures.However, from the early modern period onwards, these documents became anembarrassment to later historians and theologians due to their frank sexuallanguage, a problem for Protestants, who frequently connected them with thesupposed immorality of the medieval Catholic Church, and Catholics who were,as a result, thrown onto the defensive. In the nineteenth century this debate overthe penitentials was exacerbated by national tensions between the Irish and theEnglish. In this article I will be exploring the afterlives of the early medievalinsular penitentials as featuring an intertwining of scholarly, sectarian andmoral concerns in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain and Ireland. Thisprovides insights into the way in which modern prejudices can influence thereadings of medieval documents as well as the way in which medieval documentshave fed modern prejudices. I will begin to suggest how it was that documentsrepresenting a harsh moral code could themselves become regarded as dangerouslyobscene:It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words.That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call aspade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for. 1(Lord Henry in Oscar Wilde’s The Pictureof Dorian Gray, 1891)