a number of English Benedictine abbots conferred in the 1120s and, in their enthusiasm for the Mother of God, began promoting the idea that Mary had been conceived without the normal human correlation of concupiscence (lust); because her conception was immaculate, unspotted by sin, so was her flesh. The doctrine was controversial: Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the loudest advocates of devotion to Mary in his preaching, said flatly that the idea of Immaculate Conception was a novelty which Mary would not enjoy, and that no conception, not even hers, could be separated from carnal pleasure.
