Sex in the Middle Ages

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We mostly have Pope Gregory IX (13th Century.) to thank for most of our perceptions and laws regarding sex. The Church also gave standards for us on the levels of sexual sin: Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Interfemoral Intercourse (the placement of the penis between the thighs of the passive partner) and Anal Intercourse. Sex, it was taught, was a necessary (reproductive reasons) evil introduced to humanity by the Devil. Sexual feelings and urges were not fully under the control of the human will. And, since women as 'the daughters of Satan' were the reasons for those urges, women were liable for the introduction of sin through sex. That is not to say the Church did not see sex as necessary and even profitable. Prostitution for example…</I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <I>PROSTITUTION </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>How old is Prostitution? Writings dated back to 1750B.C. state that it was old even then. Thomas Aquinas said: "if prostitution were to be suppressed, careless lusts would overthrow society." Pope Gregory IX (13th Century.) Founded the St. Mary Magdalene (White Ladies), these were previous prostitutes who though the kindness and generosity of good Wives were given dowries and sent to marry somewhere else...much emphasis given to somewhere else. Stews (brothels) were regulated and inspected and taxed by the government for most of the Middle Ages. Please note in some places and times the Church was the government. Many 'women of the night' rose to unbelievable heights: Tullia d'Aragona who was not made to were the 'whore's mirror' (professionals in 16th. Century. Florence had to were a veil with a yellow stripe on it), or Rosa Vanozza who had a great career till the age of thirty when she settled down with Pope Alexander VI and birthed him four love-children. However, for each Tullia or Rosa countless women were tormented and killed. Those women who chose or were not permitted to belong to a Stew were at the mercy of the populace and the law. In the 12th Century, hamstringing was a common practice in parts of France. Some of them were exhibited in cages, mutilated, given to prisoners, ducked to death in the river, branded, body parts chopped off (like a nose or breast) or worse. The Church taught it was better for a man to have nonprocreative sex than with his innocent wife (sex was only for reproductive reasons). To better understand this view, the Church taught when it was OK to have sex with ones wife and when it was easier to state when sex is forbidden. </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>"SEX IS FORBIDDEN WHEN A WOMAN IS MENSTRUATING, PREGNANT, NURSING, DURING LENT, ADVENT, WHITSUM WEEK AND EASTER WEEK. ON FEAST DAYS, FAST DAYS, SUNDAYS, WEDNESDAYS, FRIDAYS AND SATURDAYS. DURING THE DAYLIGHT. IF YOU ARE NAKED. IF YOU ARE IN A CHURCH. UNLESS YOU ARE TRYING TO PRODUCE A CHILD. NO FONDLING. NO LEWD KISSES. NO ORAL SEX. NO STRANGE POSITIONS. ONLY ONCE. </I><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#FF00FF" FACE="Book Antiqua" ><I>TRY NOT TO ENJOY IT</I></FONT><I>. WASH AFTERWARDS.</I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <I>Love: the intangible element, was a factor in the Middle Ages; however, its definition by society was defined by the time period. Our forefathers and foremothers loved well and long, and much poetry and literature is given to the many aspects of loving. Indeed, for many centuries -from the time of the Greeks through the seventeenth century - physicians regularly offered treatment for love-sickness, "the lovers malady of heroes," which they regarded as both a physical and a mental affliction. </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>To better understand the supposed relationship between the sexes it is important that you know prior to 1174 women were told: </I></div> <div> <I>"You are the devil's gateway...you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert- that is, death- even the Son of God had to die."</I></div> <div> <I>Typical themes in medieval writings are: women have unbridled passions, inability to keep secrets, weakness for flattery, greed, extravagant dress, pride, duplicity, and shrewish-ness. Sex even within marriage is a sin, women are the source of sin and mortality due to Eve, and woman should be punished throughout her life for the failings of Eve. Only slightly tempered by the concept of courtly love. </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>In 1174, Andreas Capellanus, chaplain to Marie de France, gave the world; The Art of Courtly Love. It is now believed that he was not trying to write a serious code of conduct; instead he was trying to have a bit of fun. Courtly love required adherence to rules elaborated in the songs of the troubadours between the 11th and the 13th centuries. A nobleman in love with a married woman of equally high or higher birth had to prove his devotion by heroic deeds and amorous writings. Once the lovers had exchanged pledges and consummated their passion, complete secrecy had to be maintained. Because most noble marriages of the time were little more than business contracts, courtly love was a form of sanctioned adultery. Capellanus said: ". . . a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out all of love's precepts in the other's embrace." </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>The concept of "pure love" which included strongly self-deprecating behavior and servitude by a man for a distant, unattainable woman was a driving force throughout the high period of medieval love literature. From 1100 to 1300 (most intensely in the quarter-centuries before and after 1200), the language of lady love prevailed in the courts of England and Europe. The concept that women should be admired was vastly different from the misogynist writings that flourished at that time. The sin, guilt and impurities of women were being preached from every pulpit. This new position that a woman was to be worshiped and idolized gave women a new power and a new version of enslavement. For if in this "game" of love the truth was learned, then it was the woman that was punished. Her virtue was a great conquest and her value would only last as long as she was prey. If she were to yield and their tryst discovered than she was seen as the weak, wanton creature that the Church said, and the man was viewed with the admiration that any victor would receive. </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>The art of Courtly Love had very clear, but conflicting rules: A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love, yet, a true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved. And love is always a stranger in the home of avarice (jealousy), yet, jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved. There are 31 rules listed in this game of love. It was devised in such a way that almost no man could win if called in to a 'Court of Love'. However, what was to be a game soon became a societal viewpoint. The role of women and the conceptions of love have been altered ever since. </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>Another publication can lay some claim to modifying the aspects of love: Romance of the Rose (Le Roman de la Rose), a long thirteenth-century French poem, extremely popular and influential in the Middle Ages, was written by two authors. The first part, 4,058 lines by Guillaume de Lorris, is a dream-vision allegory in which an aristocratic young man falls in love with a rosebud, symbolizing a lady or her sexual favors. The Lover is aided by a personification called "Fair Welcome" but opposed by other personifications that symbolize the personal and social restraints standing against his advances. Fear, Shame, Gossip ("Malebouche" in French; "Wikked Tongue" in a Middle English translation), and "Daunger," our word danger, which, personified as a churl wielding a club, here representing instinctive female resistance to male sexual desire. The first part was never finished; it breaks off with the rose imprisoned in the castle of Jealousy with the Lover disconsolate on the outside. </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>Jean de Meun, an academic at the University of Paris, who continued it for another 17,724 lines, which cover religion, philosophy, history, science, sex, love, marriage, and women, took up the poem. From its teachings women were told: There is also a proper way to weep, but every woman has the skill to weep properly wherever she may be. Even when no one has caused them any trouble or shame or annoyance, they still have tears at the ready: they all weep in whatever they like, and make a habit of it. And we learn that, in short, [men] are all deceitful traitors, ready to indulge their lusts with everyone, and we should deceive them in our turn and not set our hearts upon just one of them. It is a foolish woman who gives her heart in this way. She ought to have several lovers and arrange, if she can, to be so pleasing that she brings great suffering upon all of them. If she has no graces, let her acquire them and always behave more cruelly towards those who will strive all the harder to serve her in order to win her love, while exerting herself to welcome those who do not care about it. </I></div> <bR> <div> <I>Our ancestors enjoyed a good love story as much as we do. And, no other love story fulfills this inclination than that of Abelard and Heloise. It contains passion, forbidden love, forbidden sex, unwed-pregnancy, torture, imprisonment, longing, unrequited love, of resentment and castration.. This is a summary of their story; Pierre Abelard (1079-1142), who was by all accounts a brilliant scholar and theologian, met Heloise (1101-1164) 22 years his junior and soon was smitten with her... </I></div> <div> <I>"Take thou this rose, O rose, Since love's own flower it is, And by that rose Thy lover captive is." --Abelard</I></div> <div> <I>...and had prevailed upon her Uncle Fulbert, a Canon of the Cathedral, to become her private teacher. </I></div> <div> <I>"We were united first in the dwelling that sheltered our love, and then in the hearts that burned with it. Under the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of love, and learning held out to us the secret opportunities that our passion craved. Our speech was more of love than of the books which lay open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words. The very sundering of our bodies served but to link our souls closer together; the plentitude of the love which was denied to us inflamed us more than ever."--Abelard</I></div> <div> <I>The Uncle found out, Heloise found she was pregnant, Abelard married her, the Uncle found them and brought her back, then she had a boy named Astrolabe. Abeland and Heloise wanted to keep the marriage secret, so Abeland and Heloise ran off. Heloise hid in an abbey as a nun, the Uncle showed up thought she was forced to take the veil so he had Abelard castrated. </I></div> <div> <I>"...for they cut off those parts of my body with which I had done that which was the cause of their sorrow." --Abelard</I></div> <div> <I>Then Abelard and Heloise both took holy orders. Their love, far from fading, intensified. Abelard founded a convent. He called it "Consoling Spirit". Later, Heloise became the Abbess. Heloise wrote him long love letters and love poems and they were published in the Historia Calamitatum so that all could read them.. These missives of love and longing lasted for years with him begging her to stop writing and her writing more, and him writing her to say sweet words and her writing more, then he would write--no we must not. </I></div> <div> <I>"Peace, O my stricken lute! Thy strings are sleeping.., would that my heart could still, Its bitter weeping!" --Abelard</I></div> <div> <I>Upon his death Heloise had Abelard's body brought to the Paraclete, where she was later buried beside him. They lie together still. This medieval soap opera kept upper nobility on the edge of their seats for years. Love in the medieval world was as complex as it is today. Yet, perhaps it was even more so, because in a short span of time love was defined by a new set of rules in a game we are still playing.</I></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <I>     </I></div> </td> </tr></table></body>