The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages

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Harvey is careful to balance her story: Christian Europeans ‘othered’ non-Christians, believing preposterous stories about their bodies and sexuality, but Jews and Muslims did the same to Christians. They also struggled with many of the same social issues, such as whether prostitution should be legalized. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of the topic and Harvey moves effortlessly round her varied sources.

I appreciate that Harvey did not sensationalise any of these topics, keeping descriptions of these events brief and non-graphic. A lively and readable account rooted in a deep knowledge of the scholarly literature on sexuality in medieval western Europe.In the eleventh century, the virgin king emerged as a significant figure; Edward the Confessor, the English king whose death without issue in 1066 led to the Norman Conquest, is probably the best known.

It’s so tempting to think we’ve advanced as a society, but so many of the things I thought of as backwards in this book are still held as “true” by a good number of people these days. She holds a PhD in Medieval History from King’s College London and has published widely on medieval topics, including sexuality, gender, emotions and the body. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about whom they could have sex with, in what way, how often, and even when, and could be harshly punished for getting it wrong. Although Mary was pre-eminent among the medieval virgin-saints, she had numerous popular counterparts, notably the Virgin Martyrs.parents arranged a marriage for her, she insisted that she intended to preserve her virginity for her heavenly spouse and cut off her nose with a sword. Sex was something men did to women, preferably during marriage, though female pleasure was important because without it conception couldn’t occur. The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much - or too little - sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. The book is sad and unintentionally funny, sometimes verging on the horrific, and vastly informative. Some of it the content is bleak, of course; the chapters focusing on sex work and sexual violence, in particular, make for difficult reading.

Book Review: Jack Kerouac’s “Pic” — Last But Not Least In "On the Road," Jack Kerouac voiced a longing to be “. I can't think of a more brilliant Christmas book to give to one's significant other if they have even a passing interest in medieval Europe or the rich and extraordinary sex life of its inhabitants.Here, in all its messy complexity, is medieval life - life laid bare, but always with respect and care. or falling into the trap of believing an absence of evidence for some behaviours and attitudes means they didn’t happen.