Sex lives of medieval people | HistoryExtra
"‘One of the concepts that was really important to them that I think is less important to us was the idea that sex pretty much always involves a passive and an active partner. And that's something that in what we would now call heterosexual sex tends to be about sex is something a man does to a woman. But we actually see even when they talk about same sex sex, they tend to try and force couples into those roles. So definitely, when you get prosecutions of men who have sex with men, often they talk in terms of the passive and active partner, and the active one gets punished more harshly. And a lot of that, very, very few cases of women who have sex with women who end up in the court, but a lot of them are still constructed in terms of one woman passing herself off as a man, or taking the man's power. And so that's completely alien to us...
Somehow before the Fall, sex would have been sinless, in fact that all sorts of mad discussions about what sex would have been like in the Garden of Eden, and some people think it would have been much, much better’...
‘There's obviously this idea of it being sinful behavior and something to repent for. But also there's this contrast with other attitudes that sex was associated with health or with well being. And the idea that sex could be good for you too, or but, had to help balance your humors.’
‘Yeah, and as you say, inevitably, because everything in medieval medicine comes back to humors. It's very much seen in a humoral context. And sex, I suppose, is almost a form of excretion. So it can be a way to help you balance those humors. Which means that yeah, regular sex is good for you. According to its medical theory. You mustn’t have too much or too little. You know, there are stories about this mainly clerics who die of having, not having sex. But there’s several stories about sort of, yeah, bishops and things who die of celibacy. Thomas Beckett was told by his doctor apparently that he should give up celibacy, or he would die. And of course, being a good saint, he went up charm said [sp?]. Yeah, but on the other hand, there are stories about, and it is usually men who die of having too much sex...
Men because they're already hot and dry, if they expel too much semen, and then they get, they're sort of dead, dry themselves out. And there are literally stories about men who sort of have too much, and their brains dry up and their eyes shrink to the size of currants. And that's, that's what gets them. Women because they're innately cold, and they're warmed by sex, to, that, it seems they seem to think that it's difficult for women to have too much sex. And that sort of, their humoral biology makes them innately lustful. Because we're, you know, whereas we very much got the head of this Victorian idea of sort of women being frigid and not really liking sex, the medieval idea is very much yes, their biology makes them very lustful, that they want to have lots of sex. The danger for women of not having sex is that you don't expel enough seed, and then it sort of locks up in your body and you die of suffocation of the womb.’...
‘How easy or difficult was it to sort of get together, or date? How do people do it?’
‘Yeah, I mean. So this is something that we probably don't know as much about as we would like. I suppose a lot of people have got the idea that were sort of all arranged marriages, and all very young people getting married. And I think one of the things that I found actually was that, apart from maybe the various highest levels of society, those people have quite a lot of agency. And most people don't get married until they're, at least in their late teens. And sometimes their early 20s is, you know, the average in parts of Europe in the Middle Ages. And so there are lots of considerations about sort of what your family wants. And it seemed very important that you marry somebody who your family approves of, but things like, did you like the person, are you attracted to the person do matter. I mean, the, I think probably they share ideas that you shouldn't marry purely based on lust, because that's not a basis for a long term relationship. But that the idea that you should like your, like your partner, and consent is a very important idea in medieval marriage. So you know, and that they have, because they're quite uncomfortable, actually, for the most part with marriages with big age gaps. And often if they do, with elite couples, elite families do married very young children, they tend to hold off consummation until they're at least into their teens. So a lot of say a lot of those ideas about sort of forced marriages, very young children, that really was quite unusual...
The medieval authorities very much got the idea that they should be controlling people’s sexual lives both for their own good because, you know, if you're a sinner you need to be made to repent, but also for the sake of society because one bad apple spoils the entire barrel, and because potentially God will punish the entire society’...
‘With premarital sex, when people sort of warned not to, one of the reasons is because despite the churches, sort of attempts to make everybody get married in church in the Middle Ages, you can get married, just by exchanging vows with each other. And then the inevitable happens, people exchanged vows, they have sex, and then one of them decides actually, they don't want to be married. And then you end up in court with being sued for breach of promise. Usually, inevitably, it's women sue men, but sometimes it is the other way around. And yeah, so it's sort of fraught with all sorts of changes.’
‘Yes, a fascinating aspect in your book is the impotence examinations. Can we hear more from you on those?’
‘Yeah, so I mean, sex is seen as a really important part of medieval marriage to the point that if you are incapable of having sex, in theory, your spouse can sue for an annulment on the grounds of your inability to have sex. And it pretty much is always women suing men. Basically, the attitude is that you know that there are very rare cases where women are sued because they're frigid. Whereas women sue their husbands for impotence, because they want to be allowed to marry somebody else and have children. And then yeah, people have to undergo these physical examinations. Sometimes that's done by experts. So sometimes it's doctors or midwives, sometimes it's prostitutes. You know, people who for various reasons, are seen as experts *something*, and they will do all sorts of sort of tests to try and see whether somebody can be aroused, whether they can maintain an erection, comment on the size of their genitals, all that sort of thing. Sometimes the neighbors do it. There's a case in York in the I think it's the early 15th century, where about a dozen of this man's neighbors all sorts of have a good look at him, and comment on the size of his genitals in relation to their husbands or their own. I mean, it sounds really funny, but it must have been absolutely mortifying. That chap does actually prove his, prove his abilities, and they're made to stay married. But it's yeah, it's bizarre.’...
‘Going back to those tombstones you just mentioned, Richard I is one of those that some have suggested could point to a sexual and romantic relationship. Is that right?’
‘Yeah, I mean, I think with Richard I and is it Philip Augustus of France, I think a lot of that rests on the idea that they shared a bed. And that, to me seems a tricky one, because there's no doubt that bed sharing was really quite common in the Middle Ages. And it could very much just be a sign of faith or a sign of political alliance. It's like a lot of the sort of the kissing that goes on the you know, the kiss of the peace was a really big thing. And so it's very hard to read things like that. Some of the tombstones, this was one in Istanbul, I think it is of 2 14th century knights who, one of them died. There's a chronicle record as well related to them. And it says that one of them died, and a week later one of them died of sorrow. So there's clearly a very close bond between these men. Is it sexual? We don't know… How do we know? I don't think we can’
‘Right. Another example of perhaps suspending our modern sensibilities’"
No worries - queer history means making things up and reading what we want into the past