Paucapalea

Paucapalea wrote a ‘Summa’on Church law, dated 1114-1148 AD.

Translation from the latin by John Wijngaards

Women are not allowed to visit a church during menstruation or after the birth of a child.

“Women are not allowed to visit a church during menstruation or after the birth of a child”
. “For only a woman is an animal that menstruates. Through touching her blood fruits will fail to get ripe. Mustard degenerates, grass dries up and trees lose their fruit before time. Iron gets rusted and the air becomes dark. When dogs eat it, they acquire rabies”
“Gregory allowed women to visit a church after birth . . . in the penitential of Theodorus we read on the other hand, that if a woman has presumed to enter a church before a predefined time, she has to do penance by fasting on bread and water for as many days as she would have needed to stay away from Church”.
“Blessed Gregory said that a woman does not sin in this matter when she enters in church humbly in order to give thanks. Theodore on the other hand speaks of another woman who does not enter the church in order to pray but boldly on account of another necessity”.

On Distinctio 5, princ. § 2. v.

Source: Ida Raming, The Exclusion of Women from the Priesthood, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen 1976, pp. 47-49.

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