The History of Sex: South of France -- How Notre Dame Got Its Name -- (Chap. III, Pt. 5)

By the eleventh century, though, the sexual indiscretions of the clergy and their sisters in Christ had become so flagrant that reformist popes tried to force priests to stop fornicating for once and for all: if necessary, with the aid of angry mobs.

The turning point occurred around 1075, when Pope Gregory VII made celibacy the rule for Western clergy (even though many of his successors were less than chaste).

Around the same time, the image of women in the West received a long-overdue makeover.

The Turks' conquest of the Holy Land triggered the Crusades, and many knights who made it back to Europe returned with a newfound admiration for the Virgin Mary.

(from Ominous Ellipses)

The Mother of God had long been venerated in the East, while the Western Church tended to portray her as merely the lowly female vessel for the male God's Immaculate Conception.

However, the newly imported cult of Our Lady helped put all of womankind on a pedestal—Paris even named its new cathedral after Notre Dame.

Whether a renewable virgin was the best role model for women is debatable, but at least it made a change from being judged guilty by association with Eve.

The Virgin's ascendancy also raised the profile of a less-than-virginal Mary, who may or may not have been a fallen woman but was definitely close to Christ.

According to Gallic legend, Mary Magdalene fled Jerusalem after Jesus' death and settled in the south of France (carrying the Holy Grail with her, if you believe the likes of The Da Vinci Code).

Centuries later, this sensual, fractious corner of Europe served as the crucible for the West's first modern love poetry—courtesy of the troubadours—and a sexual rebellion that spawned the Inquisition.

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