ABSTRACT
According to Gerald of Wales, St Gilbert of Sempringham’s combination of preaching and striptease was entirely successful in curing the transgressive desire of one of his nuns. Gerald’s account of this incident can be interpreted in several different ways, but perhaps the most salient aspects of the episode relate to the probable date (Gilbert died in 1189, aged over 100, so this is clearly sited in the mid-to-late twelfth century), the overtly religious milieu (an enclosed foundation), and the ways in which the interplay between the genders is underpinned by a concern with sexuality. To modern eyes, there are some unfamiliar features of the scene. Here the male body is presented as the object of the female gaze, and also as abjected and repellent, although the man himself remains in complete control of what his sexed body signifies in the enclosed feminine space of the nuns’ chapter house. The extent to which these factors can be generalised is by no means clear: can this episode be used to uncover wider truths about medieval people’s religious sentiment and understanding of gender? On one level, it is impossible to discuss this kind of story with any degree of certainty, given the modern commentator’s distance in time and space in addition to the insurmountable problem of the impossibility of truly accessing another person’s subjective experience. However, this kind of evidence can, and we feel should, be explored with a range of possible readings in order to allow modern commentators as much insight as possible into the relationship between gender and religious culture in particular, as well as medieval understandings of belief systems in general.
