Social Classism in Moral Valuation at the Dawn of the Middle Ages

Typically, our conception of morality and reflection considers the ideas of right and wrong, virtue and vice. Yet, more subtly, moral language often serves another function: it charts the social space we live in. As a 5th-century Christian poet, Paulinus of Pella’s Eucharisticus recounts his sexual excess in youth, his language serves as a striking example of how moral valuation is often inseparable from social stratification; indeed, as outsiders looking back on an antiquated time, we can easily observe the social arrangement which those in the same antiquated time would simply consider normal:

Text and Translation

The poet’s confession is not simply personal or penitential but is a categorization of moral weight based on class in a moral system wherein class not only influences honor and the political, but also influences the weight of wrongdoing.

From the start, Paulinus introduces his moral lapse as a delayed ignition rather than as sudden corruption:

iam prope sero calens aevi pro tempore nostri
“now, tardy to my time of life, I felt new fires.”

Here, Paulinus frames desire as untimely, something misaligned with the societal expectations of aristocratic youth. He places himself between parental hopes (vota parentum) and also the demands of lineage (in nostram tendentia posteritatem). In this way, the danger of desire is not essentially categorized by the harm of the act or the act itself; rather, its danger is defined by social disruption: sexual excess threatens the smooth streaming of elite identity and its patrimony, reputation, and uninterrupted ordered transmission of status—a type of social and moral currency.

Yet Paulinus makes sure to qualify that his indulgence was not unrestrained. He claims that even in his lapse, desire was still subject to discipline:

lasciva licentia cauto stricta coherceri potuit moderamine freni
“reckless wantonness could be restrained with careful control, the moderating bridle.”

The metaphor used here is telling. A bridle strapped over a horse does not simply restrict movement; it directs it. Paulinus’s moral achievement amidst his failure lies not in abstention (from worse things), but in containment along social lines. Further, his self-imposed rule clarifies this positioning:

ingenuis oblatis sponte caverem
“that I should beware even free-born women when offered willingly.”

Unlike typically stated modern secular valuations, consent alone is not enough. The free-born body carries certain consequences—legal, genealogical, reputational—that extend beyond the private sphere wherein common principles like consent lie. Indeed, the moral danger does not lie in desire itself, but in the misdirection of desire towards those whose social status mirrors one’s own. This is clear as Paulinus’s rule permits the alternative unhesitantly:

contentus domus inlecebris famulantibus uti
“to be satisfied with servile amours in my own household.”

Here, the stratified moral logic is ever more explicit. There is no clear, delineated moral bright line delineating right and wrong. Rather, the servant’s body is viewed as a moral solvent in which desire dissipates without being crystallized into a public offense. The servant is not considered a morally bound subject but a medium through which Paulinus’s excess can pass without consequence. Importantly, the asymmetry of power featured in these dynamics is neither acknowledged nor problematized; it is simply rendered as typical and tolerable.

Following this logic, Paulinus explicitly articulates his moral calculus:

quippe reus culpae potius quam criminis esse praeponens famaeque timens incurrere damna
“for I preferred to be guilty of a fault than of an offence,⁠ fearing to suffer the losses of my well known name”

The semantic distinction between culpa and crimen is significant. A culpa is considered containable and survivable, whilst a crimen is a public thing that destabilizes and contaminates the social. What separates the two is not some intrinsic injustice of the act, but rather the social visibility of the consequence. While a servant’s suffering does not disrupt the name or escalate guilt, the involvement of a free-born woman would. Clearly, moral gravity increases with rank in this system.

Even the tangible biological consequences are bound by this logic as Paulinus briefly acknowledges his illegitimate offspring:

unum me nosse ex me illo in tempore natum
“I know one son was born to me at that time”

The child is a consequence, but unseen, as they disappear, dying young without leaving a trace. The child’s erasure mirrors the same moral invisibility of his class. In this way, what is considered is not the tragic loss of life, but an avoidance of a worse tragedy that could be caused by illegitimacy—the disruption of a lineage. In Paulinus’s reflection, death cleanly resolves the problem. Memory itself is stratified.

Ultimately, Paulinus attributes his restraint to divine care:

cum mihi lascivae inlecebris sociata iuventae libertas gravius quisset dominando nocere, ni tibi, Christe, mei iam tunc quoque cura fuwisset
“when freedom, allied with the lustful wantings of the youth, might by gaining mastery, have more heavily hurted me, have not then, O Christ, even had care for me then.”

The role Christ plays in Paulinus’s analysis is revealing. Divine providence does not preserve the soul from injustice, but rather preserves Paulinus from excess. Here, salvation is purely personal, reputational, and inward: it does not question the crooked moral architecture that renders certain bodies expendable and others valuable. In this way, Christianity disciplines desire, but does not (at least yet) restructure the moral concern across social lines; rather, it perpetuates the hierarchy of bodies.

Thus, what emerges from this passage isn’t either confession, reform, or even hypocrisy, but coherence. Paulinus’s moral logic keeps internal consistency within a hierarchical society. Ethics are less of a check against vice, but rather a technology of order. Certain acts are dangerous since they threaten the continuity of the elite, while others can be tolerated because their victims are socially silent, so that the lapse/excess can safely dissipate through them. Thus, moral language becomes an instrument of stratification, risk is pushed upward, and guilt is thrust downward.

Sin clearly has a rank. Some transgressions stain the name while others simply dissolve as a culpa. Reading Paulinus’s confession closely reveals a story less of temptation to be overcome later but more so a charting of moral valuation. What is censured is not domination, but disorder. Even Christian redemption and divine care do not begin with justice or moral purity for the people, but with the preservation of the self.

PS. While this does mainly focus on the moral framework surrounding the Church near the beginning of the Middle Ages, this stratified moral logic is not limited to that time. This system persists wherever we weigh actions more by their social position of the actor and victim than by the substance of the action itself—that’s a lot of places. Although our modern legal systems like to proclaim equality, moral gravity is ever more indexed to status, visibility, and power. In the 1980s, US alignment with drug-runners in Nicaragua was permitted because of actors’ relation to commies, while at the same time, consumption by the American public was condemned and prosecuted. Some misdemeanors result in deportation, while certain felonies simply result in a mugshot t-shirt amidst a political campaign. Remember to recognize this, it is not enough to simply indict hypocrisy whenever it is evident, but we must confront the discomforting truth: the success (in terms of efficacy) of moral frameworks is typically not based on whether they promote justice, but whether they can preserve order. And unless that order, both its own substance and value, is questioned, the servant’s body—ancient or modern—will continue to be de-humanized and bear the cost for the sake of stability of the elite and their lineage.