Dyan Elliott’s “The Corrupter of Boys” wins Medieval Academy of America’s Haskins Medal

February 9, 2023

Professor Dyan Elliott is pictured next to the cover of her book. She is wearing circular black glasses, a pearl necklace and earrings, and is smiling in the sun. — Dyan Elliott, Peter B. Ritzma Professor of the Humanities

Dyan Elliott, Peter B. Ritzma Professor of the Humanities and professor of history, has won the Medieval Academy of America’s Haskins Medal for her 2020 book, The Corrupter of Boys: Sodomy, Scandal, and the Medieval Clergy.

The Haskins Medal is awarded annually for a distinguished book in the field of medieval studies. It is the Academy’s most prestigious award, usually granted to a relatively senior scholar for a work of their maturity. In their announcement of the win, the Haskins Committee lauded Elliott’s “extraordinary mastery of the source materials and her ability to offer another field-changing intervention” – referring to her outstanding 2004 book, Proving Woman: Female Mysticism and Inquisitional Practice in Late Medieval Europe.

Corrupter of Boys traces the late-classical and medieval roots of clerical abuse of young boys in Europe. Elliott describes how misogynistic polemics against women, concerns about clerical marriage, and the inherent denigration of children (thought to be naturally disposed to evil) all contributed to and helped mask the practice.

Called a “game changer” by The Medieval Review, Elliott’s latest book also received the Otto Gründler Book Prize in 2022. Elliott holds the distinct honor of being the first person awarded the Gründler prize for a second time – her first, for Proving Woman.

“Dyan Elliott’s bold book is unflinching in its examination of the long history of clerical pederasty and the ecclesiastical culture of silence about sexual predators. Her argument will provoke important reconsiderations of the history of sexualities, of medieval anti-clericalism, and of conceptions of childhood.”

—Martha Newman, University of Texas at Austin