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FEARS OF THE VIGILANT ABBOT

The eternal fear of the vigilant abbot was, of course, the
pollution of monastic life by what St. Benedict designated
with his distinctive discretion simply as impropriety
(improbitas),[49] but to which others before and after him
referred with less restraint as "that habit which is contrary
to nature" (usus qui est contra naturam) perpetrated by
men, who oblivious of their own sex turn nature into
iniquity "by committing shameless acts with other men
(masculi in masculos turpitudinem operantes),[50] or "that
most wicked crime . . . detestable to God" (istud scelus
valde nefandissimum . . . quae valde detestabile est Deo).[51]
The crime was common enough to come to the attention of
Charlemagne, who dealt with it in a vigorous act of public
legislation, incorporated in a general capitulary for his Missi
issued in 802.[52]

The monk Hildemar, writing in 845, devoted several
pages to this precarious subject and discussed in detail the
precautions an abbot must take to guard against this
danger. The abbot, he tells us, must watch not only over
the boys and adolescents, but also over those who enter the
monastery at a more advanced age. To each group of ten
boys there must be assigned three or four seniors, or
masters, so that no one among them is ever without supervision.
After the late evening service, Compline, "the boys
must leave the choir, and their masters, with a light in
hand, will take them to every altar of the oratory to pray a
little, one master walking in front, one in the middle, and
the third behind" (unus magister ante, alter magister vadat
in medio, et tertius magister retro); "then whoever wants to
go to the privy, should go perform the necessities of
nature with a light, and their master with them" (cum
lumine et magister eorum cum illis).[53] If a boy finds himself

compelled to respond to this call during the night, "he
must waken his master, who will light a lamp and take him
to the privy, and with the light burning, bring him back
to bed."[54] Even the dreamlife of the monks and its sexual
connotations are subject to supervision. Depending on the
varying degree of sleep or consciousness, the employment
of the senses of touch and vision, or the extent of deliberate
procrastination, the offense must be atoned for by the
recitation of psalms, five, ten, or fifteen respectively, and
if the indulgence was committed with no restraint, by the
reading of the entire psalter.[55]