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Description of  The Manly Priest: Clerical Celibacy, Masculinity, and Reform in England and Normandy, 1066-1300 (The Middle Ages Series)

During the High Middle Ages, members of the Anglo-Norman clergy not only routinely took wives but also often prepared their own sons for ecclesiastical careers. As the Anglo-Norman Church began to impose clerical celibacy on the priesthood, reform needed to be carefully negotiated, as it relied on the acceptance of a new definition of masculinity for religious men, one not dependent on conventional male roles in society. The Manly Priest tells the story of the imposition of clerical celibacy in a specific time and place and the resulting social tension and conflict. Read more