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Notes
1. "Intelleximus quod nonnulle mulieres, maritorum suorum exigente contumacia, ecclesiastico interdictio supposite, necnon plures ex fornicario coitu, seu de adulterio, aut alio illicito parientes, et purificatione post partum indigentes latenter sue clandestine ecclesias ingrediuntur, postquam sacerdotes missarum solempnia inceperint, se facientes a dictis improvisi sacerdotibus purificari. Propter quod statuimus et prohibemus ne qua mulier ad missam seu purificacionem admittatur post partum, nisi per certum nuncium vel saltem in mane diu antequam pulsetur ad missam, vel die precedenti denunciari fecerit sacerdoti de velle venire ad purificacionem, ut sic deliberacione habita a sacerdotibus, admittendas admittant et repellandas repellant …." Joseph Avril, Les statuts synodaux angevins de la seconde moitié du XIIIe siècle, Les statuts synodaux français du XIIIe siècle, 3, Collection des documents inédits sur l’histoire de France, 19 (Paris, 1988), p. 102.
2. Adolph Franz, Die Kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter, 2 vols. (1909; repr. Graz, 1960), 2: 231. Franz cites a statute issued from Cambrai around 1300 but uses this information only to comment on women's tendency to make the celebration of the ritual an excuse for adorning themselves in expensive clothing.
3. "Precipimus puniri sacerdotes qui sacerdotum focarias suorum sociorum vel etiam alias adulteras, seu focarias purificent sine licentia nostra, vel archidiaconi loci vel penitentiarorum existentium Rotomagi." Odette Pontal, Les statuts de 1230 à 1260, Les statuts synodaux français du XIIIe siècle, 2, Collection des documents inédits sur l’histoire de France, 15 (Paris, 1983), p. 134.
4. "Prohibemus ne sacerdotes, sue capellani, aut vicarii eorumdem, mulieres jacentes de partu damno, coitu nefario vel fornicario et manifesto, ad purificationem recipiant, sine nostra vel officialis nostri Cameracensis, aut decanorum locorum civitatis Cameracensis, recepta licentia speciali. Qui contra hoc facere praesumpserit, excommunicationis sententiam, eo ipso, incurrat, et nihilominus per officialem nostrum, aut decanum loci, graviter, prout culpa ipsius exegerit, puniatur." Thomas Gousset, Les actes de la province ecclésiastique de Reims, 4 vols. (Reims,1843), 2:493.
5. "Item prohibemus ne sacerdotes capellanam seu vicarii muleres [sic] non uxoratas iacentes de partum dampnato aut coitu nephario vel fornicario procreato sine nostra aut officialis nostri vel de canonorum nostrorum licentia speciali ad purificationem recipiant." Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1591, fol. 40.
6. Sées in 1369 and 1444: Guillaume Bessin, Concilia Rotomagensis Provincia, 2 vols. (Rouen, 1717), 2:436; Bayeux in 1370: Bessin, Concilia, 2:238; Tournai in 1481: Gousset, Les actes, 2:750-1; Rouen in 1484: Ste-Geneviève (Rouen, 1484), fol 20v; Meaux in 1493: Michel Toussaints DuPlessis, Histoire de l’église de Meaux, 2 vols. (Paris, 1731), 2:540-1.
7. "Cum frequentissime, de quo dolendum est, in ista Diocesi sit repertum coitus incestuosos committi: statuimus ut si dictus incestus sit publico, vel in

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loco aliquo divulgatus, suspensionis et excommunicationis poenis prius muliere ad purifactionem nullatenus admittendam." Bessin, Concilia, 2:238.
8. "Praecipimus etiam omnibus Presbyteris nobis subditis, quod si sciverint aliquos Parochianos habentes penes se publice concubinas, hoc Promotori nostro denuntient: nec concubinas huiusmodi recipiant ad purificationem absque litteris nostris emanatis, sub poena gravi." Bessin, Concilia, 2:484.
9. James Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987), p. 184.
10. For the development of the officialité see: Jean-François Lemarignier, Jean Gaudemet, and Guillaume Mollat, Institutions Ecclésiastiques, Histoire des institutions françaises au moyen âge, 3 (Paris, 1962), pp. 257-73 and 357-60; also, old but still very useful is Paul Fournier, Les Officialités au moyen âge (Paris, 1880).
11. On diocesan assemblies and synodal statutes, see Odette Pontal, Les Statuts synodaux, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 11 (Turnhout, Belgium, 1975); C. R. Cheney, English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century, second ed. (Oxford, 1968). On synods in the north of France, see Joseph Avril, "L'evolution du synode diocésain, principalement dans la France du Nord du Xe au XIIIe siècle," in Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. Peter Linehan, Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C: Subsidia, 8 (Vatican City, 1988), pp. 305-25.
12. "Instruant sacerdotes suas parrochianas ut a puerperio relevantes, cum ad ecclesiam eas primitus venire contigerit ad purificationem, quod faciant hoc honeste, hora decenti et consueta, non clam, sed publice, cum in hoc ministerio exhibeatur, Ecclesie reverencia, et honor maritalis, et partus legitimas comprobetur." Abbé Ch. Lalore, Ancienne discipline du diocèse de Troyes (Troyes, 1882), p. 108.
13. Gousset, Les actes, 2: 750-51.
14. Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, G255, fol. 18v.
15. Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, G259, fol. 75.
16. Gustave Dupont, Registre de l’officialité de l’abbaye de Cerisy (Caen, 1880), p. 119.
17. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York, 1979), pp. 170 and 183.
18. See, for example, Martin Irvine, "Abelard and (Re)Writing the Male Body: Castration, Identity, and Remasculinization," in Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler (New York, 1997), pp. 87-106; and Nancy Partner, "No Sex, No Gender," Speculum 68 (1993), 419-43. Partner's article is especially helpful. She offers a thoughtful discussion of and useful bibliography for the debate between social constructionists and essentialists concerning the formation of sexual identity and also makes a convincing case for the self-determined identity of Heloise based on her letters to Abelard.