Benedict of Nursia
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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When Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, gladiatorial games were soon abandoned, and the Christian view of post pubescent nudity as a sin took root. This view spread with the spread of Christianity, until it became normative.
However, until the beginning of the 8th century, Christians in Western Europe were baptised naked, emerging from the water like Adam and Eve before the fall. "The disappearance of baptism by immersion in the Carolingian era gave nudity a sexual connotation that it has previously lacked for Christians" (Rouche 1987 p. 455). About the same time it became common to represent Christ on the Cross wearing a long tunic, the colobium.
In the 6th century, Saint Benedict of Nursia advised the monks in his Rule to sleep fully dressed in the dormitory.
European men wore long tunics until the 15th century, when codpieces, tights and tight trousers gradually came into use; these all covered the male genitals but at the same time drew attention to them.
