FISURAS

This Hermaphrodite Order, [the Gilbertines] made up o f both Sexes, did veiy soon bring forth Fruits worthy o f itself; these holy Virgins having got almost all o f them big Bellies These Nuns to conceal from the World their Infamous Practices, made away secretly their Children; and this was the Reason, why at the time o f the Reformation, so many Bones o f Young Children were found buried in their Cloisters, and thrown into places where they ease Nature.

Gabriel D ’Emiliane, A Short History o f Monastical Orders^

The sexual activities o f priests, female penitents, monks and nuns were to become a major preoccupation in a corpus o f erotic anti-Catholic material during the long eighteenth century. A multiplicity o f books and pamphlets describing their cavortings was published and reprinted, all taking up similar themes. Some o f them addressed the debauched activities o f priests; some focused on the seduction o f young nuns by secular young men. This material provided many o f the first basic elements that would be included as principal features o f later English pornography.

This erotic sub-genre was a pivotal point in the development o f erotic writing, bringing together sex and religion for the main purpose o f arousing the reader. Although there is a long history o f writings connecting sex and religion, its main focus had been the use o f sex for attacking the Church. Earlier works had tended to use sexual

Gabriel D ’Emiliane, A Short History o f Monastical Orders (London, Robert Clarvell, 1693), pp. 133- 134.

accusations as ammunition in debates about the corruption o f the Catholic Church whilst highlighting the hypocrisy and lasciviousness o f the clergy. This was true o f both seventeenth-century English works, and o f French material, the latter material carrying its objective through the eighteenth century.^ Whereas earlier English eighteenth-century material had included a degree o f sex among a welter o f anti­ clerical attacks, later pornographic anti-clerical works encouraged this sexual element to flourish. Its prime intention was to cause sexual arousal. The topical material falls loosely into four categories: First was the anti-Catholic polemic, a specific response to home-grown fears about inveigling priests and the seduction o f young innocent Protestant women. The seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw a surge o f English denunciations o f the Catholic clergy which employed either venomous or satirical attacks in order to expose the sexual misdemeanours o f priests, its primary function being as propaganda against the Catholics. The second category comprises English reports o f French priests’ trials. Catholic priests accused o f seduction came under examination in Court, deputations about their sexual activities were transcribed, and reported back to England, either verbatim or in greatly exaggerated form. Such reports ranged fi'om what purported to be ‘a true and accurate account’ to blatant fabrication o f sexual scenarios with notorious priests’ named as protagonists. In the English translations o f the reports o f the trials o f Abbé des Rues and Father Girard examined below, sex was brought even fiirther to the forefi'ont than in the earlier attacks. Although written in the guise o f concern for the female penitent, the explicitness o f the sexual details indicates an intention to arouse sexually. The third type o f material can be seen in the Nunnery Tales, a spin-off fi'om both the anti-Papist rhetoric and the trial reports written in the form o f Gothic fiction. These stories explore sexual initiation o f innocent young noviciates. The fourth type o f material was French pornographic prose-style novels and their English translations.^ This material.

^ See Wagner, Hunt and Damton, all point to the French anti-Catholic pornographic material as

having a prime objective o f attadcing the Church and State.

^ Both ‘pornographic’ and ‘novel’ are anachronisms used here to assist the twenty-first century reader in identifying the type and style o f material.

again purely fictional, made no apologies for its blatant pornographic style. Not all this material fits neatly into categories. Venus in the Cloister for example overlaps the third and fourth category. It fits into the former, as a nunneiy tale, and the latter, in that it is French pornography yet it is still in dialogue form and has not yet developed a prose style as with either the nunnery tales or the French pornographic novels. Though it is also a nunnery tale, is not over-concerned about the treatment o f nuns, as with some o f the examples o f this genre. To some extent, there was a cross-over between all four sub-sets in the genre, in that the foctual exposés o f genuine seductions were fi^ u en tly recounted in the same language as fictional descriptions o f priests debauching young female penitents. This mix was confused still further by the foct that some erotic fabrications attempted verisimilitude by writing in documentary prose and adding foctual footnotes.

French pornographic material was to influence heavily the development o f English pornographic material. A parallel can be seen between French attacks on the Church o f Rome and English attacks on dissenters fix>m the seventeenth-century onwards in that they had shared primary aims; the objective was vilification o f the religion rather than erotica for the sake o f sex alone. Aggression towards dissenters came in the form o f violence and sexual slander resulting fi'om public foar, ignorance and resentment. Quakers attracted hostility during times o f economic hardship as they were the middlemen in the grain trade. Tales circulated o f Anabaptists and Quakers cutting their enemies’ throats therely fuelling violent public reaction. Mobs vandalised preaching- houses and even killed sectarians. Methodist itinerant preachers were seen as a particularly unpleasant aspect o f religion. Preachers were often at the centre o f accusations o f seduction, the butt o f many a sexual jibe. Similarly to the Catholics, Methodists and Quakers were accused o f usurping the patriarchal role in the family.^

* Fw further information on minorities see J. D. Walsh, ‘Methodism and the Mob in the Eighteenth Cwitury’ in G. J. Cuming and D. Baker (eds.). Popular Belief and Practice^ Studies <» Church Mstory, Vol. V m (Cambridge, Cambridge UnivCTshy Press, 1972); B. R e ^ , The Quakers and the English Revolution (Hounslow, Temple Smith, 1985), pp. 81-100; D. Hempton, Methodism and

Erotica gave vent to this animosity targeting the dissenters, mainly in the form o f caustic parodies which carried descriptions o f sexual encounters. This body o f work has, to some extent, already been examined.^ This chapter will concentrate on the anti- Catholic material since it formed the bulk o f the more obscene material. It was this material which most influenced the development o f English pornography.

The material under study ranges from the raucous to the obscene. Some texts used satire or humour. Conversely, the more cutting anti-Papist rhetoric was often violent and aggressive. More importantly, a subtle shift is evident in anti-clerical sexual material available at different times through the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Sex became the prime aim, the religious background was reduced to a setting for sexual scenarios. Descriptions o f sexual activities became extended, more detailed and at the forefront. An awareness developed o f how religious anxieties could be channelled in material which would not only titillate, but also excite in a more profound sexual way.

This chapter will first examine English attitudes towards the Catholics. It will then go on to examine four areas o f anti-Papist propaganda; a genuine English case o f the seduction o f a young Protestant girl, English calls for the castration o f priests, exposes o f the Catholic clergy, and attacks on religious flagellation. The third part examines the French priests’ trials. The fourth part will examine the convent, spatial confinement in relation to sexuality, and the fictional nunnery tale. Finally, the last

Politics in British Society, 1750-1850 (London, Hutchinson, 1984); H. R. Trevor-Roper, Religion, the Reformation, and Social Change, (London, Macmillan, 1967).

^ Space prevents a detailed examination o f this work. Few o f the books or pamphlets form part o f the

definitive bibliographies o f erotica mentioned in Chapter One, pp. 30-32. For a summary, see Albert M. Lyles, Methodism Mocked. The Satirical Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century

(London, The Epworth Press, 1960); Thompson, Unfit fo r Modest Ears, pp. 40-56; Wagner, Eros Revived, pp. 59-72.