Some medieval clerics believed so:
The picture was further complicated by the medieval tendency to embrace (and indeed emphasise) an individual’s mental state alongside his physical experiences. This meant that a cleric was only truly chaste if he not only renounced all sexual partners, but also eschewed all forms of sexual activity, including masturbation and impure thoughts.15 Furthermore, it was possible both to lose one’s virginity without having sexual relations of any kind, and also to regain spiritual virginity even after sexual relations had taken place.16 The deeply problematic nature of clerical sexuality, and especially of clerical virginity, is illustrated by the case of a young monk who had been physically attacked by a demon. Whenever this monk prostrated himself in prayer, ‘an evil spirit approaches him, places its hands on his genital organs, and does not stop rubbing his body with its own until he is so agitated that he is polluted by an emission of semen.’ The young monk was otherwise of good behaviour. Yet when Bishop Hildegard of Le Mans (1096-1125) was asked to consider the case, he ruled that the monk could no longer be considered a virgin, since he has been ‘polluted…through masturbation’ and has been tempted by the devil to consent to a ‘shameful act of fornication.’17
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The picture was further complicated by the medieval tendency to embrace (and indeed emphasise) an individual’s mental state alongside his physical experiences. This meant that a cleric was only truly chaste if he not only renounced all sexual partners, but also eschewed all forms of sexual activity, including masturbation and impure thoughts.15 Furthermore, it was possible both to lose one’s virginity without having sexual relations of any kind, and also to regain spiritual virginity even after sexual relations had taken place.16 The deeply problematic nature of clerical sexuality, and especially of clerical virginity, is illustrated by the case of a young monk who had been physically attacked by a demon. Whenever this monk prostrated himself in prayer, ‘an evil spirit approaches him, places its hands on his genital organs, and does not stop rubbing his body with its own until he is so agitated that he is polluted by an emission of semen.’ The young monk was otherwise of good behaviour. Yet when Bishop Hildegard of Le Mans (1096-1125) was asked to consider the case, he ruled that the monk could no longer be considered a virgin, since he has been ‘polluted…through masturbation’ and has been tempted by the devil to consent to a ‘shameful act of fornication.’17
Episcopal Virginity in Medieval England
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
