Did sexual relations in the Middle Ages contain extreme violence or incest, as in fantasy stories like Game of Thrones, or were they not so different from today? We are illuminated...
Sexuality in the Middle Ages is portrayed as extremely violent or comically repressed. So is this depiction a fair one?
dr. Katherine Harvey says it isn't. (Author of The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages and historian of Birkbeck University of London.)
today's books and movies show us a polarized picture of attitudes towards sex in the Middle Ages. Some fantastic interpretations, such as game of thrones, lead us to believe that medieval societies were heavily sexualized, excessively violent, or considered incestuous. also think of chastity belts, bigoted preachers or mischievous nuns shown in movies...
What did medieval people really think of sex?
And were these thoughts completely different from ours today?
Katherine Harvey explains that there are more similarities between sex in the Middle Ages and sex today:
"Most of the historical evidence on such a subject remains behind tightly closed doors, often forcing us to rely on church or court records that detail what happens when things go wrong. These records often paint a bleaker picture than everyday reality. From this perspective alone, medieval society is much more than we are. looks different.
In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, sex becomes inherently sinful. this is a really important thing for medieval people. This is why the Church has an obsession with chastity and sexual purity. In the late Middle Ages, there was a heavy focus on virgin saints and the Virgin Mary.
With this evidence, we might get the impression that sex was all about sin, but the actual attitudes were much more complex. While we have evidence of cases involving sexual assault, incest, and even pedophilia, medieval society seems to share our distaste for these issues and value the idea of consensual sex.
The idea of both consenting and loving your spouse was very important in medieval marriages. society was uncomfortable with the large age differences between spouses. When adults married very young children, they tended to delay sexual intercourse (nuptial).
Although sex was seen as ideal only within marriage by medieval authorities, it was not always attainable or even desirable. With the court records of husband and wife requesting divorce due to their spouse's sexual inadequacy, sex began to play an important role in life and people began not to be afraid to talk about it in public.
sex (without moderation) was seen as something important to balance the humor and help keep you healthy. Medical documents listing court records of abortions as well as contraceptive methods such as coitus interruptus (ejaculation outside) are evidence that medieval sex was not just about reproduction.
It seems to me that medieval people were grappling with many of the problems we struggle with today. Maybe the ideas of the Church, environmental factors, and some medical theories may have diverged a lot today, but overall I think there is a lot more similarity than I expected to find."
I did know this. Sex in movies portraying that age are usually animalistic