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.
