The King's Ward/Mistress

Little is known about Ida de Tosny, but she was likely the daughter of Ralph de Tosny (c.1130 - 1162) and Margaret Beaumont. Orphaned at a young age, she was lucky enough to be given to the protection of the King, Henry II.

She first enters the public record in Christmas 1181, when she is married (quite advantageously for her) to Robert Bigod, the 2nd Earl of Norfolk. Robert's father had joined Henry's sons when they rebelled against their father inn 1173-74, so the family lands had been confiscated. The estates—Acle, Halvergate, and South Walsham, all in Norfolk—were returned to Robert (who had remained loyal to Henry) upon his marriage. He did not, however, get his father's earldom until 1189.

Robert and Ida were loyal to the royal family, and provided several (four boys and two girls) loyal children. Their eldest, Hugh, became the third Earl of Norfolk and married a daughter of the powerful William Marshall.

Ida doesn't really become more interesting until long after her death, when a charter is discovered connected to William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury; it refers to Comitissa Ida, mater mea ["Countess Ida, my mother"]. William was known to be an illegitimate child of Henry II, but his maternity was not known prior to this stray comment. It had been assumed (but the rumors came long after his lifetime) that his mother was Rosamund Clifford, Henry's best-known mistress. Clearly, Henry treated Ida as something more than a ward.

And that's all the historical significance we can find for Ida de Tosny, except that she does become, with her husband, a character in the historical novels of Elizabeth Chadwick, most notably The Time of Singing. Immortality can come from very small occurrences, sometimes.

William Longespée

19th c. painting of
William [link]

The Battle of Damme (mentioned yesterday) was led by the 3rd Earl of Salisbury, a man named William Longespée. William, born about 1176, remained loyal to the royal family throughout his life, probably because they were very good to him.

In 1188, still a teenager, King Henry II gave him the Appleby estate in Lincolnshire. In 1196, the second Earl of Salisbury having just died, King Richard married William off to the Earl's nine-year-old daughter, Ela. This made William the 3rd Earl of Salisbury jure uxoris ["by right of marriage"]. Although it was merely a political match that rewarded William (and put Salisbury into safe hands), William and Ela had several children; the eldest, William II, was born c. 1212.

During John's reign, William was given responsibility for several other positions: warden of the Welsh Marches (this was before Wales was divided into English counties); sheriff of (at different times) Wiltshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire; and the very powerful (but now just ceremonial) Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, with authority over  collecting taxes and dealing with crimes at the five important ports on the southern coast.

Besides commanding the expeditions to Wales and Ireland, William led the fleet that did so much damage to the French and brought back so much wealth for the Battle of Damme. He went up against the French again when he was sent to support England's ally, Otto IV of Germany, against Philip. Unfortunately, his efforts in that area failed, and he was captured and ransomed.

Back in England, he sided with John against the rebellious barons that led to the Magna Carta. In the civil war that followed, William led the forces of John in the south. Later, he would be loyal to John's son, Henry III, receiving more honors from him.

The reason he was in such good standing with the royal family is because he was John's half-brother. William was the illegitimate son of Henry II and the Countess Ida de Tosny, who was Henry's ward at the time.

Battle van Damme

A naval battle, from a ms. dated late 13th/early 14th century

We are accustomed to summing up the reign of King John (1199 - 1216) as a failure. His rebellious barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta; he lost the crown jewels; he gained the nickname "Lackland" [Johan sanz Terre] when he lost Normandy. As it happens, however, his reign was  not without successes.

At the end of May in 1213, King Philip II of France (mentioned here) was fighting in Flanders (someday I will get to that story). It was known that France thought John weak, and was planning an invasion of England.  John decided it was prudent to send his forces to Flanders and try to deal with Philip there, while he was already busy in conflict with someone else.

So John sent 500 ships and 700 knights, along with mercenaries and all the extra servants and other non-combatant personnel that a military campaign requires. His fleet made for the estuary of the river Zwyn on 30 May, where they encountered Philip's fleet, anchored at the town known as Damme. The French fleet was over three times the size of England's; rather than present a problem however, the fleet was manned by a skeleton crew, the military all having gone shore to march to Ghent for their battle.

The English captured a few hundred ships, burned a hundred more; the following day, they did it again, as well as disembarking and attacking the town. Unfortunately, Philip returned to Damme that day, and the English had to flee. They were in possession of hundreds of French ships, however, as well as all the goods that the French nobles carried with them while traveling. One writer of the period claimed "never had so much treasure come into England since the days of King Arthur."*

The damage to the French fleet was considerable, and not just from the deliberate actions of the English: there was so much debris from destroyed ships that the estuary was blocked, and the remaining French fleet could not sail out to open water. Philip had to abandon or burn the remainder of his ships.

*The biographer of William Marshall, in L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal ["The History of William the Marshall"]

Reccared's Reign

Reccared chairs he Third Council of Toledo
(you can buy the poster)

Imagine being a king. You do your best for your country:

• Unite various territories of the peninsula
• Defend against Frankish attacks
• Establish a new set of laws that offer equality to all
• Killing your own rebellious son to preserve your kingdom and its religion
• Create new currency

...and then your favorite other son changes everything after your death.

Poor Liuvigild, King of the Visigoths on the Iberian Peninsula. A steadfast Arian Christian, when his son Hermengild converted to Catholic Christianity and rebelled he had to deal with it harshly, didn't he?

Upon Liuvigild's death in 586, his other son, Reccared, became king. Bishop Leander of Seville, who had converted Liuvigild's elder son Hermengild and was therefore exiled by Liuvigild, returned to Spain shortly after. Leander convened the Third Council of Toledo in May 589, which Reccared hosted. During the Council, Reccared read a statement—a statement so theologically astute that the assumption is it was written for him by Leander—in which he accepted Catholic Christianity, rejecting Arianism and declaring Catholic Christianity the official religion of his Visigothic lands.

Many nobles followed his example. The Hispano-Roman indigenous population that the Visigoths had conquered in Spain was largely delighted with the change of heart in ruling class. Reccared's reign is considered an important turning point in the history of eliminating one of the major rivals to Catholic Christianity.

The Legacy of Liuvigild

Liuvigild on one of his campaigns
detail from an ivory reliquary, 11th c.

Liuvigild was mentioned yesterday as the Visigothic King in the Iberian peninsula who killed his own son, Hermengild, after the son was converted from Arian Christianity to Roman Catholic Christianity. Liuvigild then exiled Bishop Leander of Seville who was responsible for converting Hermengild and preaching against Arianism.

Sounds pretty harsh. There's always at least one other side to a story, however.

Liuvigild ruled Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) and Septimania (a territory in what is now southern France, on the Mediterranean). He was born about 525. He first came to the throne in 568, when his brother, King Liuva I, named Liuvigild co-king and heir. At his brother's death in 571/2, he became sole ruler, and set about to make sure all the Iberian Peninsula was united, a goal he largely accomplished by 577.

One of his acts as king was to revise the Codex Euricianus ["Code of Euric"], a set of laws designed before 480 by King Euric of the Visigoths. The earlier version stratified society between Goths and non-Goths. Liuvigild's version, called the Codex Revisus ["Revised Code"], gave equal rights to both the Visigoths under his rule and the conquered Hispano-Roman population.

He was married twice. His first wife, Theodosia, bore him two sons, Hermengild and Reccared. After her death, he married the widow of Athanagild, who had been king before Liuva and Liuvigild. Reccared became his father's favorite; Liuvigild even founded a city which he named after Reccared: Recopolis.

Liuvigild also minted a new coin, based on a Roman design. The Visigoths, by virtue of moving into and taking over much of the Roman Empire, considered themselves its heirs. Liuvigild struck a coin with a design that resembled one that had just been produced by the Byzantine Emperor Tiberius II.

Liuvigild died in 586. He was succeeded by Reccared.

Leander of Seville

Commentary on Job being given from
Pope Gregory to Bishop Leander of Seville

St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 4 April 636) has been mentioned here before as the author of a popular encyclopedia of information and etymologies. He was not the only saint in the family, however. His brother, Leander (c. 534 – 13 March 600/601), was also made a saint.*

Leander was Bishop of Seville (a position later held by Isidore), using his authority in political ways: he tried to convert Hermengild, the son of the Arian Christian King of the Visigoths in Spain, to Roman Catholic Christianity. Hermengild converted, his father King Liuvigild got angry, and suddenly Leander was exiled.

He traveled to the other end of the Mediterranean, where he continued to oppose Arianism by writing treatises against it. Here he met and became friends with the man who would later become Pope Gregory the Great, (mentioned here). The two remained in contact, and letters that passed between them still exist.

Hermengild, the rebellious son, was put to death by his father (and therefore became a martyr in the Catholic Church). Luvigild died in 589, and sometime after that Leander returned to Spain, convoking the Third Council of Toledo that renounced Arianism. Bishop Leander spent the rest of his life fighting heresy in Spain. When he died, in 600/601, Isidore became bishop in his place.

*As were their siblings, Florentina and Fulgentius.

The Crimea

The much-disputed Crimean Peninsula

On the north coast of the Black Sea, a peninsula extends from the southern part of Ukraine. If you look at enough of its history, you will find numerous occupants: Turks and Italians, Greeks and Goths, Huns and Scythians and Bulgars. One of the earliest occupants of the peninsula were the Cimmerians, an Indo-European tribe that lived there long before the Common Era, presumably driven south by the Scythians from their homeland north of the Caucasus. For a long time it was called Taurica after the Taures, a Cimmerian group. The best guess regarding the derivation of "Crimea" is that it comes from "Cimmerian."

Invasions took place throughout the Classical and Medieval Eras. A group now referred to as Crimean Tatars (descendants of the Mongols of Genghis Khan fame) thrived there in the Middle Ages. Despite their numbers, the Tatars did not always control the territory. Venice created several settlements on the coast in order to control trade on the Black Sea; these were taken over by Genoa in the 13th century and controlled by them for the next two centuries.

...and here's an interesting tie-in to one of the best-known events of the Middle Ages. The first appearance of the Black Death in medieval Europe came on twelve Genoese ships coming from the east in October 1347 and landing in Sicily. It is entirely possible that Crimean ports were the source of the Plague.

In the era of Tamerlane, the Crimean Tatars finally asserted control over most of the area—except the Genoese towns—establishing the Crimean Khanate in 1441 under the rule of a descendant of Genghis Khan. The Genoese towns were finally captured, but not by the Tatars. The Ottoman Empire conquered the Genoese towns, then took the current Crimean Khan captive. He was released after the Tatars recognized the sovereignty of the Ottomans.

In the late 1700s, a treaty between the warring Russian and Ottoman Empires left the Crimean Peninsula in the hands of Russia, one step closer to the present controversy.

Uniting the Kingdom

It was on today's date, 3 March, in 1284 that Wales was incorporated into England via the Statute of Rhuddlan. Wales had been connected to England prior to this, but as its own country with its own ruler, even though he owed allegiance to the King of England.

Wales experienced frequent rebellions—not just against England, but also internally. See this post for the examples that led to the Statute of Rhuddlan. Dafydd ap Gruffydd (1238-3 October 1282), a Prince of Gwynedd and grandson of Llewelyn the Great, rebelled with the King of England against his own brother, and then against England. Because the King of England was the feudal lord of the Prince of Wales, Dafydd's rebellion against England was seen as treason, and so he was subjected to the "Ultimate Torture."

After the trouble with Dafydd, King Edward I decided to bring Wales more solidly under English rule. It was divided into counties, the governing of which was determined by the gift of the King of England. The King's son would be named Prince of Wales until the time that he would be crowned king in his turn—this would eliminate the need for the Prince of Wales to rebel against England.

After Rhuddlan, England's common law became (for the most part) Wales' laws, except that they were administered from Caernarvon instead of Westminster. Laws of inheritance were one of the areas with the greatest change. In Wales prior to Rhuddlan, partible inheritance was the norm, with property divided amongst several male heirs rather than keeping the property intact. Also, an illegitimate son could inherit. England allowed partible inheritance to continue, but forbade inheritance by illegitimate children. If that meant there was no legitimate male heir to pass property to, women were now entitled to inherit.

The Hourglass

Detail, Allegory of Good Government
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338

The hourglass has become a symbol of medieval technology, one of our first attempts to quantify and measure time. We know it existed in the 14th century, from a 1338 fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (c.1290 - 1348) in which the allegorical figure of Temperance holds one (Temperance, after all, is about taking a "measured" response to something, rather than uncontrolled actions). In 1345, an English merchant's receipts show that he paid for "twelve glass horologes" in Flanders, establishing that they were probably already prevalent and in demand.

Sailors found the sand-filled hourglass a definite improvement over its predecessor, the clepsydra* (the water clock), which was affected too much by the swaying of the ocean. When Magellan (c.1480 - 1521) circumnavigated the globe, his fleet had 18 hourglasses per ship, with a page dedicated to turning each one to keep accurate time.

They were also preferable in the early Middle Ages to clocks, because they did not rely on complicated and delicate machinery that needed frequent maintenance.

Where and when was the hourglass invented? A story that it was invented in the 800s by a monk at Chartres named Liutprand has no evidence to support it. The clue to the origin may be in the construction. The earliest hourglasses used marble dust for the sand. Also, the hourglass required expertise in glass-blowing. The likeliest location for these two features of the hourglass to be brought together is Italy, particularly Venice, where glass-blowing was a highly developed art and marble was readily available.

By the end of the 14th century, hourglasses were so common that the Goodman of Paris, writing a guidebook for his young wife in the 1390s, included a recipe for preparing the sand/dust for an hourglass:

Take the grease which comes from the sawdust of marble when those great tombs of black marble be sawn, then boil it well in wine like a piece of meat and skim it, and then set it out to dry in the sun; and boil, skim and dry nine times; and thus it will be good.

Not only must the hourglass have become common, but its construction was clearly something that could be contributed to by a regular household.

*clepsydra is from the Greek and means "water thief"; they could be very elaborate, but were naturally susceptible to humidity and temperature.

Problems in Gaza

Gaza is currently the largest city in Palestine with over a half-million inhabitants. Its history stretches back more than 3000 years, its government having passed from Egyptians to Philistines to Romans to Byzantines and more.

At one stage in its history it was converted to Christianity, and the person given credit for that conversion is known as Saint Porphyry of Gaza. His story comes to us from the Vita Porphyrii ["Life of Porphyry"] by Mark the Deacon, an Egyptian monk who was a contemporary and assistant to Porphyry.

Gaza had been in Roman hands at the time—with several temples consecrated to the Roman gods—and the hostility of the Byzantine Emperor Diocletian (303-313) and Emperor Julian (362-363) to Christians created an environment that led to many Christian martyrs and the destruction of their places of worship. According to the Vita, a 45-year-old Porphyry was made bishop of a Gaza with fewer than 300 Christians and an atmosphere so unfavorable to them that their church had been built far outside the walls of the city. A drought the following year was even blamed on Porphyry's presence.

In 398, therefore, Porphyry sent his deacon, Mark, to Constantinople to ask the (now friendly to Christians) Emperor Arcadius for help. Soldiers arrived to close the pagan temples, but a bribe to their leader caused them to leave the major pagan temple open. Also, just closing the temples did not do anything to change the attitudes of the pagans toward the Christians. Discrimination continued, so Porphyry himself went to Constantinople and convinced Arcadius' Empress Eudoxia to get from Arcadius an order to destroy the pagan temples in Gaza. This time the destruction of pagan temples and pagan artifacts—including personal effects from homes—was total.

Discrimination continued; whomever was in power in the ensuing centuries oppressed the native inhabitants, who fought back against the authority.

The Five-Paragraph Essay

Found on Pinterest...seriously

The five-paragraph essay was treated as the cornerstone of English classes when I was growing up: it was drummed into me when I was a high school student, and it was a necessity in the English Department at my first teaching job. Despite the fact that a topic does not always fall into three points, enforcing the structure of five paragraphs was considered an ideal way to teach essay writing.

The formal parts of the five-paragraph can be found all over, and of course on Wikipedia:

• Introduction: Introducing a topic. An important part of this is the three-pronged thesis.
• Body paragraph 1: Explaining the first part of the three-pronged thesis
• Body paragraph 2: Explaining the second part of the three-pronged thesis
• Body paragraph 3: Explaining the third part of the three-pronged thesis
• Conclusion: Summing up points and restating thesis

Wikipedia informs me that it is also called (I don't recall ever seeing these terms before today) the "hamburger essay" [see illustration above], "one three one," and the "three-tier essay."

Looking for the origin of the five-paragraph format takes us back in time past the nuns who taught me, past John Dewey, past McGuffey Readers; we have to look back to the first century CE, to a work that was mistakenly attributed to Cicero.

Rhetorica ad Herennium ["Rehetoric: for Herennius"] was a very popular early book on rhetoric. Because Cicero wrote a well-known book on rhetoric (called De inventione ["Concerning the art of discovery"], he was given credit (right up through the Renaissance) for writing this more-complete book. In it, the author offers a format for an argument that may sound familiar to you:

• Exordium — Exhorting your reader to listen to your topic
• Narratio — Narrating/explaining what your topic is
• Divisio — Dividing your topic into main points
• Confirmatio — Confirming your points with arguments (usually three)
• Refutatio — Offering opposing arguments & refuting them
• Conclusio — Concluding your essay with a summary of your arguments

The Refutatio is often a part of a larger essay. The five-paragraph essay can be boiled down to

• Paragraph 1: Narratio + Divisio
• Paragraph 2-4: Confirmatio
• Paragraph 5: Conclusio

...and I spent my teenage years hoping never to be constrained in that way again!

You can read the Rhetorica ad Herennium here.

King of the Broken Kingdom

The various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms

Poor Æthelbert! All the attention this blog gives him is in regard to wergild. He deserves attention for more than putting a price on murder and dislodged teeth. But not today. Today we get side-tracked by the title given to him.

According to Bede, Æthelbert (c. 560 – 24 February 616) was the third of eight kings to be a bretwalda. In context, it is clear that it refers to a ruler who holds sway over various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The term is used by various authors, but is spelled differently. Remember that, at the time, there would be no universal education that would ensure "standard spelling" among all Anglo-Saxon writers. So some manuscripts describing the same status use Bryten-wealda or Breten-anweald.

Because we are talking about Britain, the reader who knows no Anglo-Saxon might hazard a guess that the bret/bryt- root refers to "Britain" and weald might have something to do with "wield" as in "to wield power." This would be an excellent guess, and satisfied scholars for a long time.

One king however, Æthelstan, was referred to as brytenwealda ealles ðyses ealondes, which is best translated as "ruler of all these islands." If brytenwealda already meant "Britain-ruler" there would be no need for the rest of the phrase referring to "all these islands."

The likeliest source of the bret/bryt- root is now thought to the verb breotan which means "to break" or "to disperse." The origin of the phrase used to describe the kings who rule over more than their local kingdom therefore refers to their rule over the "broken" or widely dispersed territories of the Anglo-Saxons. The resemblance to the word "Brit" is coincidental.

A step closer to a true King of all Britains would wait until the late 9th century with King Alfred the Great.

The Price of a Man (With Details)

King Æthelbert of Kent (c.560-616) was first mentioned here in an explanation of wergild, the price paid by law for a man's death by the killer. This system helped to halt the endless "Hatfield and McCoy" style of revenge killings that could destroy families and tear apart a community.

But was each man worth the same amount? And what were they worth? And what if he wasn't killed, but there was some other transgression that required revenge? Æthelbert had that covered; here are some "items from the menu":

[The bracketed items are my translations of the Anglo-Saxon terms.]

3. If the king drink at any one's home, and any one there do any lyswe [corrupt thing], let him make two-fold bot [compensation].
4. If a freeman steal from the king, let him pay ninefold.
5. If a man slay another in the king's tun [manor], let him make bot with fifty shillings.
6. If any one slay a freeman, fifty shillings to the king, as drihtinbeah [lord's payment].
7. If the king's ambihtsmith [court craftsman], or laadrinc [escort], slay a man, let him pay a half leodgeld [wergild for manslaughter].
8. The king's mundbyrd [protection], fifty shillings.
9. If a freeman steal from a freeman, let him make threefold bot; and let the king have the wite [penalty fee] and all the chattels.
10. If a man lie with the king's maiden, let him pay a bot of fifty shillings.
12. Let the king's fedels [livestock] be paid for with twenty shillings
13. If a man slay another in an earl's tun [earl's/lord's village/manor], let him make bot with twelve shillings.
14. If a man lie with an earl's birele [steward], let him make bot with twelve shillings.
15. A ceorl's [low-class freeman; a churl] mundbyrd, seven shillings.
16. If a man lie with a ceorl's birele, let him make bot with six shillings; with a slave of the second (class), fifty sceatts [coin worth 1/20th of a shilling]; with one of the third, thirty sceatts.
17. If any one be the first to make an inroad into a man's tun, let him make bot with six shillings; let him who follows, with three shillings; after, each, a shilling.
18. If a man furnish weapons to another where there is strife, though no evil be done, let him make bot with six shillings.
19. If wegreaf [highway robbery] be done, let him make bot with six shillings.
20. If the man be slain, let him make bot with twenty shillings.
21. If a man slay another, let him make bot with a half leodgeld of 100 shillings. . . .
31. If a freeman lie with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his wergild, and provide another wife with his own money, and bring her to the other.

(...regarding fighting:)

34. If there be an exposure of the bone, let bot be made with three shillings.
35. If there be an injury of the bone, let bot be made with four shillings.
38. If a shoulder be lamed, let bot be made with thirty shillings.
39. If an ear be struck off, let bot be made with twelve shillings.
40. If the other ear hear not, let bot be made with twenty-five shillings.
41. If an ear be pierced, let bot be made with three shillings.
42. If an ear be mutilated, let bot be made with six shillings. 

(...and what I think is my favorite:)

51. For each of the four front teeth, six shillings; for the tooth which stands next to them four shillings; for that which stands next to that, three shillings; and then afterwards, for each a shilling. (See this explained on YouTube.)

It goes on. There are 85 rules of payment in all. You can find them (and more early medieval laws) here.

Peter Damian & Omnipotence

St. Peter Damian, letter writer

Peter Damian (c.1007 - 21 February 1072/3), the author of the Liber Gomorrhianus, was more than just a critic of priests' vices. He was a reformer whose piety caused him to be named a Doctor of the Church and to be placed in one of the highest levels of Heaven by Dante.*

He has a place in philosophy, however, due to one of the 180 letters he wrote. This particular one is called De divina omnipotentia ["Concerning divine omnipotence"]. In it, he discusses two questions that came up in a mealtime conversation during a visit to the Abbey of Monte Cassino.

Before we jump into his answers to the two questions in his letter, we must first bring up the Law on Non-contradiction, which states that a thing cannot be at once true and untrue. Sounds sensible. Aristotle in his Metaphysics states definitively that "contradictory propositions are not true simultaneously." He was building on Plato and Socrates and others.

The two questions that Damian tackles are these:

1. Can God restore a woman's virginity?
2. Can God undo history?

Damian maintains the view of God's omnipotence that says he can restore virginity. Virginity is a good thing, and so regaining it is a good thing; God will do something if it is a good thing. Therefore, God can and would do it, if He felt the situation warranted it. Restoring virginity would require two things: restoring the merit of virginity and restoring the physical change that loss of virginity causes (restoring the "integrity of the flesh"). The first is accomplished by returning to God's Grace, the second a simple matter of God restoring a person's flesh to an earlier condition.

Does this, then, imply that Damian believes that God can undo history? Not quite. In the case of restoring virginity, Damian states that God can do so as a miracle in the present time. He is not undoing an event that took place; He is changing a person's current state back to an original state.

Then what about history?

Damian, after a long and complicated discussion of the law of non-contradiction (and criticism of his peers for not understanding the subtleties of the question), explains that God cannot turn what has been done into something that has not been done. He denies, however, that this is an instance of a lack of omnipotence. Damian argues that God's omnipotence is His ability to bring about what is good. Creating a contradiction by changing what has been done to something that has not been done would be creating a contradiction, and therefore would be a bad thing. It would be turning something into nothing, and God creates things out of nothing, He will not create nothing out of something.

Okay, fine, but what about evil things? Wouldn't it be good for God to undo evil actions? Damian gets a little vague about this, and tells his audience not to worry about evil things. Evil things don't have the same kind of existence/value as good things, and so to erase them does not create a contradiction in the same way as erasing from the historical record a good thing.

Well, who am I to argue?

*In Canto XXI of the Paradiso, in the Seventh Heaven, a bright soul comes to speak to Dante and identifies himself as Peter Damian. The subject of corrupt popes comes up (surprise!).

The Book of Gomorrah

PLEASE NOTE: This post should have a NSFW [Not Safe For Work] label. My apologies if this is not to your liking.

Illumination from Liber Gomorrhianus

Peter Damian (c.1007 - 21 February 1072/3), who later became a saint, wrote a book called Liber Gomorrhianus ["The Book of Gomorroah"]. Addressed to Pope Leo IX about 1050, it blasted the clergy for their many sexual vices. There are many works that condemn sexual practices that were considered deviant—such as handbooks designed to describe (and help one avoid) vice—but the Liber Gomorrhianus goes into much greater detail than others.

There are four particular vices he rails against:

Four types of this form of criminal wickedness can be distinguished in an effort to show you the totality of the whole matter in an orderly way: some sin with themselves alone [masturbation]; some by the hands of others [mutual masturbation]; others between the thighs [interfemoral intercourse]; and finally, others commit the complete act against nature [anal intercourse]. The ascending gradation among these is such that the last mentioned are judged to be more serious that the preceding. Indeed a greater penance is imposed on those who fall with others than those who defile only themselves; and those who complete the act are to be judged more severely than those who are defiled through femoral fornication. The devil's artful fraud devises these degrees of failing into ruin such that the higher the level the unfortunate soul reaches in them, the deeper it sinks in the depths of hell's pit.*

He finds particularly damning those priests who have relations with young boys, and those superiors who do not enforce proper discipline and punch these actions.

Damian made no friends with this exposé of clerical sins. Pope Leo IX came to dislike the book, feeling that the situation was not as widespread in the Church for which he had responsibility and authority as the Liber painted it. The pope did not mete out punishments as harsh as the Liber suggested, choosing to dismiss only those priests who were long-time repeat offenders.

*from Pierre J. Payer (ed.): Book of Gomorrah: An eleventh century treatise against clerical homosexual practise, Waterloo, Ont., 1982.