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c h a p t e r 5 An Age of Affect, 1050–1200 (2) The Conjugal Reflex Alternative Intimacies The saga of Abelard and Heloise is every bit as extraordinary as the lovers themselves. Nevertheless, their relationship can in many ways be taken as representative—expressive of a new emphasis on interpersonal relations and the life of the emotions that characterized this period. In a religious context, this new relational affect could manifest itself in a number of ways. For instance , John Boswell identified the triumphant flowering of a gay subculture among the clergy, while Brian McGuire and others have pointed to the emphasis on spiritual friendship that was awakening in monastic communities. The devotion to Christ’s passion and the cult of the Virgin Mary were on a continuum with these developments, premised on a two-way intimacy between the venerated and the venerator.1 And it is precisely this devotion that laid the groundwork for the affective meditation that Sarah McNamer links with the rise of compassion.2 Amid this spectrum of emotional attachments is the rise of what could be referred to as heteroasceticism: a man and a woman, each committed to the celibate life, manifest an intense attachment to one another, the likes of which have rarely been seen since patristic times. The relationship between Jerome and his spiritual companion and confidante, the matron Paula, could be regarded as the forebearer of these later unions and was even identified as such by the couple themselves. The bond between Jerome and Paula was remarkable not simply for the intensity of their mutual devotion, but also for the way in which this union was at the center of their spiritual lives. This bond would ultimately inspire the pious couple to abandon Rome and carve Conjugal Reflex 151 out a unique destiny in the Holy Land where they founded separate religious communities.3 Of course, there had always been close relations between the clergy and holy women, the rapport of Fortunatus and Radegund being a case in point. From the mid-fifth century, however, there were few, if any, relationships that exhibit the same degree of spiritual interdependence, perhaps even codependence , as had once subsisted between Jerome and Paula. When this possibility begins to emerge in the later eleventh century, it is once again Peter Damian, the reformer who adopted such a hard line against clerical wives, who is on the cusp of this change. Damian’s personal piety was an uncanny predictor of approaching trends. On a devotional level, Peter was an early promoter of the eucharistic piety that emphasized the humanity of Christ and the cult of the Virgin Mary, key zones for the burgeoning religious feeling of the age, while from the perspective of introspection and the burden of personal guilt he was fully the equal of Augustine.4 Peter’s correspondence with religiously inclined women, particularly the Empress Agnes, demonstrates his role in the inauguration of what I am calling the age of affect.5 Thus he writes, “Dejected, I mourn daily while you are absent; indeed I sigh with a singular grief that my heart is far away from me. It is certain that where my heart is, there lies my treasure (Matt. 6.21). For my treasure is beyond doubt Christ. Because I am not unaware that he is hidden in the treasury of your breast, I appoint you as the parlor of the celestial treasure and on that account, though I may turn from you to whatever place, I do not in fact go away.”6 This was not mere rhetoric. After Agnes departed from Rome, Peter was in constant anxiety lest she would be drawn back into the worldly ambit of the court.7 He wrote to his nephew, Damianus, praising the empress’s piety and her recent conversion. Peter welcomes the opportunity to relive some of their cherished moments together. He recounts with relish the tale of two captive princesses, one of whom ingeniously preserved her virginity by concealing rotten meat in her bosom, confident that the smell would avert any sexual overtures. Agnes shared that story with him the night before she left.8 But Peter’s expressions of sorrow pale in comparison with his slightly later contemporary, the hagiographer Goscelin, and the grief sustained by the sudden departure of his spiritual daughter, Eve, a nun at Wilton. Goscelin was about twenty years Eve’s senior and befriended Eve in her youth. Sometime around 1079, Eve had suddenly...

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