{"id":6345,"date":"2021-10-13T16:51:20","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T14:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=188965"},"modified":"2021-10-13T17:04:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T15:04:13","slug":"sex-in-the-middle-ages-have-attitudes-really-changed","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/sex-in-the-middle-ages-have-attitudes-really-changed\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex in the Middle Ages: have attitudes really changed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Emily Briffett\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 13 October 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Today\u2019s books and films show us a polarised picture of medieval attitudes towards sex. Some fantastical interpretations, such as Game of Thrones<\/em><\/a>, would have us believe that medieval societies were intensely sexualised, excessively violent or accepting of incest. On the other hand, picture the caricatured chastity belts, puritanical preachers or naughty nuns we might expect from a Carry On<\/em> film. But what did medieval people really think about sex, and were those thoughts all that different from ours today? Speaking on the HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast<\/a> about her new book The\u00a0Fires of Lust<\/em>, Dr Katherine Harvey explained that there are more similarities than we might expect.<\/p>\n

With a subject such as this, explains Harvey, much of the historical evidence remains firmly behind closed doors, often leaving us to rely on church or court records detailing what happened when things went wrong. These records often paint a bleaker picture than the everyday reality. If solely viewed from this perspective, medieval society appears to be very different from our own.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the biblical story of Adam and Eve,\u201d says Harvey, \u201cafter the fall of man, sex becomes inherently sinful. That\u2019s a really important thing for medieval people. Of course, the Church also seemed to have an obsession with virginity and sexual purity. There was a real focus in the later Middle Ages on virginal saints and the Virgin Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katherine Harvey will be discussing her new book and answering your questions in her\u00a0HistoryExtra<\/em>\u00a0LIVE talk on Thursday 14 October, 7pm BST.<\/p>\n

Find out more and book your tickets<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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\""VL_Katherine\"<\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section>

However, while we might get the impression that sex was all about sin, it seems that attitudes were far more complicated. Although we do have evidence of sexual assault, incest and even cases containing young children, it seems that medieval society generally shared our repugnance of these same issues. Instead, the idea of consensual sexual relationships appears to have been valued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ideas of consent, and that you should like your partner, were both very important in medieval marriage,\u201d states Harvey. \u201cMedieval people were quite uncomfortable actually, for the most part, with big age gaps between spouses. And if adults did marry very young children, they would tend to hold off consummation until later.\u201d<\/p>\n

While sex only within marriage was seen as ideal by the medieval authorities, it was not always achievable or even desired. With court records of husbands and wives calling for annulments due to their partner\u2019s sexual incapability, sex clearly played an important part in life and people were not afraid to have conversations about it in a public space.<\/p>\n