Medieval sexuality

This article focuses on John Zonaras’s treatise on nocturnal emissions, providing an annotated translation and introduction. It discusses Zonaras as an author, the addressees of his treatise, its content, and broader context, exploring in particular the competition for religious authority among monastic and secular clergy as a possible background. It argues that Zonaras’s attitude towards the purity of nocturnal emissions is comparable to his attitudes towards sexual intercourse within marriage. This means that although the treatise might have acted as a means to advance Zonaras’s position on religious authority, it was not merely a piece of polemical rhetoric but needs to be understood within his wider views on purity and sexuality.

"In modern society, extra-marital affairs are scandals, signs of breakdown within a marriage. Mistresses are viewed as women who come between husbands and their wives. In the Middle Ages, however, it was more acceptable to pursue love outside of marriage and adultery was common. Yet modern scholars who examine adulterous relationships of the past often approach them with modern biases, leading to misinterpretations.

This paper thus examines how modern notions of marriage have led to misunderstandings of the role of mistresses in the Middle Ages. Katherine Swynford was mistress of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, for over twenty years in the late fourteenth century, before finally becoming his wife in 1396. Modern scholars and some medieval contemporaries have viewed her role as marginal and deviant; she has been depicted as John of Gaunt’s ‘abominable concubine’ and a wedge in the relationship between Gaunt and his legitimate wife. Yet other evidence suggests that Katherine and other mistresses of great men held accepted – even dominant – roles in aristocratic society. Katherine was a member of Gaunt’s household and the royal court, governess and role model to his children, and possibly even friendly with his wife.

My paper will discuss evidence of Gaunt and Katherine’s relationship contained in medieval chronicles and official documentation, juxtaposing it with modern interpretations in both scholarly work and popular culture. Using Katherine Swynford as a case study, I will argue that medieval mistresses often played a central, albeit problematic, part in the lives of their lovers. By closely examining this adulterous relationship, I demonstrate that the tendency to see mistresses as scandalous undermines their potentially dominant identities."

La historia de la mujer que engaña al marido con un hombre más joven y bello es tan antigua como el personaje mismo. En el siglo XIII, las realidades eran múltiples. Ante el surgimiento de una nueva sociedad urbana, una actitud mucho más transgresora de la moral sexual impuesta por la Iglesia se fijó como principio de conducta.  En este sentido, además del discurso propiamente clerical, surgieron otros discursos como los fabliaux y los poemas y romances de la cultura cortés que no presentaban negativamente a la mujer adúltera, sino que, por el contrario, justificaban su actitud en base al placer, el amor y la naturaleza humana. El Decameron de Giovanni Boccaccio es otro de los muchos discursos sexuales que existen en época medieval.  Este trabajo se propone analizar el trato del adulterio femenino en el Decameron de Boccaccio, una obra compuesta en Florencia alrededor de 1350.

The following thesis is based on the transcript and study of the archiepiscopal visitation to the Urgell diocese conducted between years 1312-1315. This data comprises the main part of the doctoral thesis, since the unpublished source is practically unknown. The transcript of the document is of great interest in order to know the religious life of Urgell at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and additionally, it is of great importance due to it is the only known archiepiscopal visitation preserved in the Catalan archives, together with a visitation performed in 1328 to the diocese of Lleida. The source transcription is completed by an in-depth study, performing in first place a brief analysis concerning the pastoral visits, their origin, function and development, providing therefore the main facts surrounding the studied visitation. Subsequently the source is located in its territorial context, consequently describing the territory of the diocese of Urgell in the early fourteenth century. It begins with a brief historical context of the diocese to continue with the delimitation of the geographical area since an ecclesiastical perspective. The study is continued by the analysis of the transcribed source since several points of view in order to outline the main traits of the life of the clergy and lay people of the Urgell diocese within the early fourteenth century. Eventually the visitation is surveyed through the classical scheme of Late Medieval pastoral visits: the visitatio rerum, that is, the visual inspection of the building and the liturgical objects, and the visitatio hominum, the observation of the behaviour of the clergy and laity. Finally, a mapping has been performed in which the parish distribution of the diocese of Urgell within the fourteenth century is displayed.

FULL TEXT AVAILABLE AT http://tdx.cat/handle/10803/390948

Cuando intentamos calificar el mundo inferior que asoma entre la rica iconografía de época románica, solemos aludir a su función condenatoria y admonitoria. El "sermo rusticus" ("humilis" o "vulgaris") descuella en la relativa abundancia de temas marginales calificados como frívolos y obscenos la mar de persuasivos. Un mundo bajo y rural hermanado con lo que Mijaíl Bajtín calificó como “realismo grotesco”, al servicio de los clérigos para criticar las pasiones de los "rustici" iletrados, generalmente lujuria y gula, que no merecían franquear las puertas del templo. Un mundo al revés cuajado de rústicos músicos (la antimúsica de los ministros de Satanás), juglares, contorsionistas, animales y monstruos, propio de la mascarada, que tanta popularidad alcanzó en los templos alzados al rebufo de la ruta jacobea, muchas veces entrelazado con alusiones al Génesis, donde el sexo indujo el Pecado Original (en San Quirce de los Ausines, San Pedro de Tejada o la desmantelada "Porta Francigena" compostelana). Lo mismo parece ocurrir con los exhibicionistas, los bebedores aferrados a sus tonelillos, las mujeres mordidas por sapos y serpientes, las sirenas o las parturientas. Otros motivos menos explícitos y de mayor calado moral (pugilistas o campeones combatientes, caballeros entre féminas mediadoras, herreros, hiladoras, espinarios, asnos arpistas y posibles adúlteros) se irán colando en edificios rurales bastante alejados del camino francés.

A study of the relationships between Christians and Muslims in Castile between the 13th and 15th centuries, focusing on the regulation of interfaith marriages and sexual contact between individuals professing different religious faiths. The study also discusses the possibilities opened up by conversion for overcoming the obstacles hindering the relationships analysed.

This paper introduces the concept of PROXY PAIN™ in order to describe the relationship between purgatory and self-inflicted punishment  in the 13th and 14th centuries. It analyses the dramatic tension between penitential practice and purgatory highlighting the pivotal force of pain in the Life of Christina von Hane. It also studies the self-inflicted maltreatment of sexual organs against the backdrop of theological and mystical ideas.

Botando man dunha ampla documentación medieval (sobre todo galega), en Amigos e sodomitas explícase como entre os séculos XI e XIV se configurou o pecado-delito de sodomía, inexistente nos mil primeiros anos de historia do cristianismo. Para analizar esta evolución da tolerancia á intolerancia, amósase a institucionalización documental máis antiga da unión entre dous homes na Península Ibérica, que se produce en Galiza no século XI (Pedro Díaz e Muño Vandilaz, 16 de abril de 1061), analízase a homofobia como arma política contra a nobreza galega que se enfronta a Afonso X e repásase a evolución dalgunhas historias moi divulgadas na Galiza medieval, como o martirio do santo galego Paio. Obsérvanse tamén desde outro prisma moitos textos do trobadorismo galego-portugués: unha enigmática cantiga amatoria entre dous homes, a sátira contra o lesbianismo en que se fala do amor de dúas prostitutas compostelás ou os indicios dunha identidade grupal homosexual análoga á estabelecida por Michel Foucault para o século XIX.

Premio Vicente Risco de Ciencias Sociais 2011. Premio Fervenzas Literarias ao mellor ensaio en galego de 2011. Primeiro finalista do premio Redelibros 2011 na categoría de non ficción. Finalista do premio Ánxel Casal 2011 ao Libro de Non Ficción.

+ info:
http://www.carloscallon.com/search/label/AeS

"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the literary restoration of an Arthurian hero:
from artes venandi to chivalric romance".

This paper assesses the political and literary reasons that led Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight’s author to propose a moral reivindication of its protagonist, as well the strategies deployed
by him to achieve this goal. Having in mind this argumentative direction, the article place special
emphasis on the narrative functions assigned by the poet to the long-lenght descriptions of the
hunting adventures of Sir Bertilak, pointing to the close relationship that links it to the artes venandi
composed during the period and the models of virtue and masculinity proposed by its texts.
El presente trabajo examina tanto las razones políticas y literarias que llevaron al autor
de Sir Gawain and the Green Knight a proponer una reivindicación moral de su protagonista, como
las estrategias a las que acudió para llevar a buen término esta empresa. Teniendo presente este
objetivo, el artículo presta especial atención a las funciones narrativas que el poeta le asignó a las
extensas descripciones de las aventuras cinegéticas de Sir Bertilak, señalando la estrecha relación
que estas tienen con las artes venandi compuestas durante el período y los modelos de virtud y
masculinidad que proponen.

The article presents Jan Długosz's views on sexual inclinations and practices of the Polish medieval monarchs, seen in terms of sinful behaviours. Juxtaposing the chronicler's statements on the intimate sphere's pathologies of the representatives of the Piast and Jagiellon dynasties is the starting point of conducted argumentations. Then, on the basis of the gathered material, the chronicler's att itude towards these off ences-i.e. debauchery, adultery, rapes, and sodomy/peccatum contra naturam-was examined. Thus understood sexuality of the rulers was studied in specifi c contexts, in which it was referred to in the Annals. This approach results from the nature of the work, which is not a fully credible source of knowledge on the topic of sexual activity in factual sense. As a historiographic work, the Annals-the author of which aimed at giving a moralising and didactic dimension-are, in turn, an excellent foundation for recognising the patt ern of monarchical customs, postulated by the representative of the 15th-century Polish clergy. The conducted analysis also allowed to comment on the signifi cance which the author PUBLICATION INFO

Individual cases of sexual abstinence ascribed to medieval rulers have been discussed by scholars from various standpoints and understood as a peculiar dynastic policy, a deliberate “monastification” of rulership, or as the result of problems with an individual’s reproductive system. This article carries forward the research on the interrelation between regality and sexual abstinence through the example of Henry II (973–1024), emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and his spouse Cunigunde (c.980–1033), both canonised saints, who were believed to live in an innocent matrimony. The development of the image of the royal marriage is traced first in their contemporary self-representations, then in post-mortem historiographic and polemical narratives, and finally in their hagiographical traditions until c.1250, revealing multiple, often contradictory, understandings of the royal sexual abstinence: as the sign of a succession crisis, as moral impurity, or as the highest saintly virtue. Contrary to the idea that Henry II was imagined as a “virgin king” from his canonisation in 1146 onwards, this article suggests that until the beginning of the thirteenth century the sexual abstinence of Henry II was speculated about though never explicitly stated, even in his hagiographic tradition. Only with the papal acknowledgment of Cunigunde as a holy virgin in 1200 did an image of the perpetually chaste marriage gradually come into being, in which Cunigunde was given equal agency and her husband Henry was defined as a male virgin. The analysis of elaborated hagiographic programs, devised by members of the Bamberg ecclesiastical community to praise Henry and Cunigunde, reveals the forms in which the sanctity, regality, and sexual behaviour of Henry and Cunigunde were conceptualized, negotiated, and represented, while at the same time the hagiographic traditions were adapted to contemporary concepts of chastity and abstinence.

"Medieval Icelandic gender and sexuality have been a constant source of scholarly debate since the late 20th century, with Preben Meulengracht Sørensen and Carol J. Clover elucidating the volatile nature of Old Norse masculinity. Medieval explanations for sex difference have also been a source of much debate in this period, Thomas W. Laqueur’s controversial and popular one-sex model complemented by Joan Cadden’s more heterogeneous treatment of the issue. This thesis provides an extensive interpretation of Guðmundr inn ríki’s portrayal in Ljósvetninga saga. Guðmundr, a powerful goði living in the late 10th and early 11th century, was subjected to sexual insults by his rivals Þorkell hákr and Þórir goði Helgason. These sexual insults described him as effeminate and cowardly, and the thesis shows that the Ljósvetninga saga text follows suit with these slurs. Guðmundr’s description is tied with medieval medical perceptions of sex difference, and with gender perceptions prevalent in medieval Iceland. It is argued that these are not so distant as sometimes suggested, supported by Lars Lönnroth’s study of Latin scholarship’s influence on Íslendingasögur character descriptions.
Keywords: argr, níð, homosexuality, sodomy, sex difference, gender, medieval sexuality, medieval medicine, medieval Iceland, Ljósvetninga saga, Guðmundr inn ríki


Kyn og kynhneigð á Íslandi á miðöldum hafa verið mjög til umræðu meðal fræðimanna á seinustu áratugum frá því að meðal annars Preben Meulengracht Sørensen og Carol J. Clover drógu fram hið óvissa eðli fornnorrænnar karlmennsku. Hugmyndir miðaldamanna um kyn hafa verið mjög til umfjöllunar á þessu tímabili, einkum hið umdeilda en vinsæla „eins–kyns-líkan“ eftir Thomas W. Laqueur og rækilegri og vandaðri umfjöllun Joan Caddens um málið. Þessi ritgerð felur í sér rækilega túlkun á ímynd Guðmundar ríka í Ljósvetninga sögu. Guðmundur var öflugur goði sem var uppi undir lok 10. aldar og snemma á 11. öld og var níddur af keppinautum sínum, þeim Þorkatli háka og Þóri goða Helgasyni. Í níðinu fólst að stimpla hann sem kvenlegan og ragan og í þessari ritgerð er sýnt fram á að texti Ljósvetninga sögu dregur fram þessa svívirðingu. Lýsingu Guðmundar má túlka út frá læknisfræðilegum miðaldahugmyndum um kynferðamun sem hafi verið ríkjandi á Íslandi á þessum tíma. Því er haldið fram að það sé ekki langsótt að gera ráð fyrir slíkum áhrifum, og rökfærslan styðst við rannsókn Lars Lönnroths á áhrifum latnesks lærdóms á mannlýsingum í Íslendingasögum.
Lykilorð: argr, níð, samkynhneigð, sódómska, kynferða munur, Kynhneigð á miðöldum, læknisfræði á miðöldum, Ísland á miðöldum, Ljósvetninga saga, Guðmundr inn ríki


סוגיות במחקר מיניות ומגדר באיסלנד של ימי-הביניים היו מקור לדיונים רבים מאז סוף המאה ה-20, כאשר פרבן מולנגרט סורנסן וקרול ג'יי קלובר ביארו את טבעה הבלתי-יציב של הגבריות הנורדית העתיקה. הסברים ימי-ביניימיים להבדלים בין המינים הפכו גם הם למוקד של דיונים רבים בתקופה זו, מחקרה הרבגוני יותר של ג'ואן קאדן משלים את מחקרו המפורסם אך שנוי במחלוקת של תומאס ו. לאקור בנושא. תזה זו מספקת פרשנות מקיפה לעיצוב דמותו של גוד'מונדר אין ריקי ('החזק' או 'בעל הכוח') בסאגת ליוסווטנינגה. גוד'מונדר, מנהיג רב-השפעה שחי בסוף המאה העשירית ובתחילת המאה האחת-עשרה, היה קורבן להכפשות מיניות בידי יריביו ת'ורקל האוקור ('החצוף') ות'וריר גוד'י הלגאסון. הכפשות אלו מתארות אותו כנשי ופחדן, ותזה זו מראה כי הטקסט של סאגת ליוסווטנינגה תומך בהשמצות אף הוא. תיאורו של גוד'מונדר כרוך בתפישות של הבדלים בין המינים שרווחו בשיח הרפואי הימי-הביניימי, וכן בתפישות מגדר שרווחו באיסלנד הימיביניימית. התזה טוענת כי המרחק בין אלו אינו גדול כפי שלעתים גורסים, טענה הנתמכת בחקרו של לארס לונרות' על השפעת השיח בלטינית על תיאורי דמויות בסאגות של האיסלנדים.
מילות מפתח: ארגר, ניד', הומוסקסואליות, מעשה סדום, הבדלים בין המינים, מגדר, מיניות ימי-ביניימית, רפואה ימי-ביניימית, ליוסווטנינגה סאגה, גוד'מונדר אין ריקי"

Var den norske middelalderkongen Harald Gille masochist? Som historikere må
vi tørre å stille kildene våre rare og dumme spørsmål. Ikke bare kan slike spørsmål
være underholdende i seg selv, noen ganger kan de også avsløre spennende, og kanskje
til og med ukjente sider ved fortidige mennesker og samfunn.

St. Margaret of Antioch was one of the most popular saints in medieval England and, throughout the Middle Ages, the various Lives of St. Margaret functioned as a blueprint for a virginal life and supernatural assistance to pregnant women during the dangerous process of labor. In her narrative, Margaret is accosted by various demons and, having defeated each monster in turn, she is taken to the place of her martyrdom where she prays for supernatural boons for her adherents. This book argues that Margaret’s monsters are a key element in understanding Margaret’s importance to her adherents, specifically how the sexual identities of her adherents were constructed and maintained.

More broadly, this study offers three major contributions to the field of medieval studies: first, it argues for the utility of a diachronic analysis of Saints’ Lives literature in a field dominated by synchronic analyses; second, this diachronic analysis is important to interpreting the intertext of Saints’ Lives, not only between different Lives but also different versions of the same Life; and third, the approach further suggests that the most valuable socio-cultural information in hagiographic literature is found in the auxiliary characters and not in the figure of the saint him/herself.

In galician-portuguese medieval lyric, we know some satiric poems here a man speaks about having sexual relations with another one. Besides that, more surprinsingly, we keep one cantiga that seems to show a love relationship between two men. This one would be related to the homoerotic tradition of another medieval lyrics, also in the Iberic Peninsula. It is known as «Aquestas coitas que de sofrer hei», by Rodrigo Eanes de Vasconcelos.

Indecent Theology, as coined by Marcella Althaus-Reid (2000) is a theological perspective which radically perverts accepted doctrines in sex, gender, and politics and re-establishes their borders. In this session and roundtable, we aim to bring theology out of the closet, centring indecency in religious perspectives. We will explore the ways in which the border of decent/indecent can be broken down, drawing on such feminist and queer lineages as the work of Mary Douglas in Purity and Danger, Leo Bersani's work on sexuality, Julia Kristeva and other scholars' work on the abject, and Robert Mills' work on late medieval sexuality and gender. Medieval and early modern theology becomes a place for prospective non-normative discourses because this affective theology disturbs the borders of private and public. The point of departure is the understanding that the established social and religious codes and expectations for theology can be perverted by lived experience. "Pervert" here in its original Latin meaning to overthrow, ["to turn, turn back, be turned; convert, transform, translate; be changed"] and therefore not to encounter hidden meanings in the margins, but at the centre of religious life itself, so centred that perversion becomes a point of arrival-unfitting and indecent.

La figura de Aristóteles, dada su condición pagana, fue especialmente controvertida para la Iglesia hasta su consolidación definitiva como base de la filosofía occidental en el siglo XIV. Esta doble percepción del Filósofo tuvo consecuencias directas en la iconografía medieval, representándose como culmen del saber asociado a los ciclos de las Artes Liberales o víctima de leyendas apócrifas que lo vinculaban con la figura del senex amator –el viejo lujurioso burlado por una jovencita–, popular en la comedia ya desde época romana. Este artículo explora en qué modo la audiencia y el lugar de representación condicionaron el desarrollo de ambas tendencias en el arte medieval.

La catedral de León estuvo regida en un primer momento por un cabildo que vivía en régimen comunitario bajo la tutela del obispo. Estos canónigos no disponían de rentas fijas, puesto que al contrario que en otras catedrales hispanas los cargos no estaban ligados a un estipendio regular, sino que dependían de la voluntad del obispo; para solucionarlo el obispo don Diego promulgó unas nuevas constituciones en 1120, por las que se separaban las mesas episcopal y canonical y se establecían las rentas perpetuas asociadas a las dignidades. Sin embargo la medida, que buscaba poner orden en una situación económica caótica, no obtuvo el efecto deseado: los canónigos se encontraron con una independencia económica que no poseían anteriormente y la vida en comunidad se fue relajando progresivamente, hasta el punto de que un reducido grupo pidió permiso al obispo para retirarse al monasterio de Carbajal, en las afueras de la ciudad.
Aquellos canónigos que permanecieron en León y que mantuvieron sus rentas con sus propiedades se relajaron todavía más. A principios del siglo XIII la situación era tan caótica que en 1224 el papa envió al cardenal Pelayo Albanense, para llevar a cabo una reforma integral del cabildo; sin embargo las medidas cayeron en saco roto, y sólo unos años más tarde llegó a España un nuevo legado pontificio: Jean d’Abbeville, canónigo de Amiens y cardenal de Sabina, vino con la nada fácil tarea de reformar a los díscolos canónigos españoles, que no sabían hablar latín, mantenían barraganas y no asistían a los oficios. Sus medidas y rigor quedaron recogidas en varios concilios, destacando especialmente las constituciones dadas en Valladolid en 1228.
El principal objetivo de esta comunicación es trazar una línea que, tomando León como ejemplo, explique la evolución y el paso de los cabildos regulares a los seculares ya en la Baja Edad Media hispana, y la compleja realidad de los canónigos en un territorio que hasta hacía unos años había sido “tierra de nadie” en cuestiones litúrgicas.

A close reading of Ausiàs March's poem 61, which reveals a striking subject: the lyrical voice requested his lady's correspondence, with expectations of a spiritual love, "fin'amors". She did correspond him, but turned out to be unable to give him but her body. She cannot feel "fin'amors", only "foll'amors". He, therefore, speaks from an ambivalent position: his spirit suffers bitterly from these frustrated expectations --but his body is happy in the present situation.

This is a series of translated excerpts from Brian Lawn (ed.), The Prose Salernitan Questions Edited from a Bodleian Manuscript (Auct. F.3.10) (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), translated from the Latin by M.H. Green.  Question-and-answer literature was a popular scientific genre throughout later Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The following questions come from a collection of questions that were written by an Englishman ca. 1200. Although they may not derive from Salerno itself (a town in southern Italy famous for its medical teachings), they do draw heavily on questions known to have been written there or on the works of such Salernitan masters as Urso and Maurus. The questions touch on all aspects of the natural world: why plants look or smell the way they do, why animals behave in certain ways, what causes certain natural phenomena, etc. Questions about sexuality, generation, and female nature are notably common.

The Middle English Cleanness is a poem unique in the medieval context in that it couples its homophobic discourse with a powerful vindication of sexual pleasure and its role in relationships without referring to the procreative telos of marriage. In fact, Cleanness does not even stress that the only proper arena for erotic desire is the marriage bed, with the narrator emphasising the mutuality of pleasure instead. The article investigates the text’s rhetorical interplay between the vilification of homosexuals and the divine endorsement of heterosexual lovemaking. Going beyond the established critical consensus on the issue, it argues that the contrast between the two serves not only to allow the author to vent his homophobic prejudice but also connects with the epistemological concerns of Pearl, the text that precedes Cleanness in the Cotton Nero A.x manuscript.

A collection of 25 articles on various topics in Jewish history and literature, encompassing biography, text editions and translations, grammar and lexicography, exegesis, philosophy, theology, polemics, textual criticism, codicological-textual history, Dead Sea Scrolls, and historiography.
For the Table of Contents and further details click on the publisher's link above.