Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others

269 Pages·2017·12.858 MB·English

by  Ruth Mazo Karras

SEXUALITY IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
Challenging the way the Middle Ages have been treated in general histories
of sexuality, Sexuality in Medieval Europe shows how views at the time
were conflicted and complicated; there was no single medieval attitude
towards sexuality any more than there is one modern attitude. Focusing on
marital sexual activity, as well as behavior that was seen as transgressive,
the chapters cover such topics as chastity, the role of the church, and non-
reproductive activity.
Combining an overview of research on the topic with original interpreta-
tions, Ruth Mazo Karras demonstrates that medieval culture developed sex-
ual identities that were quite distinct from the identities we think of today,
yet were still ancestral to our own. Using a wide collection of evidence from
the late antique period until the fifteenth century, this fully revised third edi-
tion has been updated to include the latest scholarship throughout, includ-
ing expanded coverage of Islamic and Jewish cultures and new ideas on how
medieval sexual violence relates to the modern world. A new companion
website supplements the text featuring an interactive timeline of key events,
links to key primary sources, and references to further reading.
Sexuality in Medieval Europe is essential reading for those who study
medieval history and culture.
Ruth Mazo Karras is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at the
University of Minnesota. Her books include the Oxford Handbook of
Women and Gender in Medieval Europe edited with Judith M. Bennett
(2013), Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages
(2012) and From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval
Europe (2002).

SEXUALITY IN MEDIEVAL
EUROPE
Doing Unto Others
3rd Edition
Ruth Mazo Karras
This edition published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Ruth Mazo Karras
The right of Ruth Mazo Karras to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2005
Second edition published by Routledge 2012
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Karras, Ruth Mazo, 1957– author.
Title: Sexuality in Medieval Europe : Doing Unto Others /
Ruth Mazo Karras.
Description: 3rd edition. | London ; New York : Routledge, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016035208 | ISBN 9781138860889 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138860896 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN
9781315269719 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex customs—History—To 1500. | Europe—Social
conditions—To 1492. | Social history—Medieval, 500–1500.
Classification: LCC HQ14 .K37 2017 | DDC 392.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035208
ISBN: 978-1-138-86088-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-86089-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-26971-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Visit the companion website: www.routledge.com/cw/karras
FOR THEODORA AND FLORENCE

CONTENTS
List of figures viii
Acknowledgments ix
Publishers’ acknowledgments x
1 Sex and the Middle Ages 1
2 The sexuality of chastity 36
3 Sex and marriage 79
4 Women outside of marriage 118
5 Men outside of marriage 168
Afterword: Medieval and modern sexuality 210
Further reading 220
Index 247
vii
FIGURES
1.1 Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry – eleventh century 19
1.2 Detail from a replica of the Bayeux Tapestry 19
2.1 Eve 37
2.2 Radegund prays next to her husband’s bed 51
2.3 Wound in Christ’s side 71
2.4 Torture of St. Agatha 73
2.5 Mary feeds St. Bernard from her breast 74
3.1 Examination for impotence 94
3.2 Wife in mikveh, husband waiting in bed 103
3.3 Lohengrin and Elsa 109
4.1 Bathsheba bathes while King David spies on her from a
window, from a late-fifteenth-century Book of Hours 121
4.2 Punishment of adulterers 127
4.3 A prostitute drives away a destitute man 143
4.4 The seduction of youth 145
4.5 Couples embracing the moralized meaning of Eve’s
temptation by the serpent 150
5.1 Dante, Inferno, punishment of Brunetto Latini 188
5.2 Boy saved from burning by the Virgin Mary 194
5.3 Jupiter and Ganymede 200
5.4 Embrace of David and Jonathan from the thirteenth-
century Somme le Roi, illustrating the virtue of friendship 202
viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The idea for this book, and for the revised edition, came from Victoria
Peters of Routledge, who read a chapter I wrote for a general book on the
Middle Ages and suggested that I expand it. I am grateful to a number of
fellow medievalists and other historians who read the entire draft of the first
edition and made suggestions: Joan Cadden, Anna Clark, Matthew Kuefler,
Jacqueline Murray, John Van Engen. A number of published reviews of the
earlier editions were helpful in revision. I am also grateful to non-academic
readers who helped give me a sense of what would be most interesting and
helpful for them to know: Christopher Karras, Nicola Karras, Henry Lang-
sam, Barbara Ziv. Research assistance on the first edition was provided by
Ellen Arnold and Kathryn Kelsey Staples. Jesse Izzo helped with research for
the third edition. I am also grateful to Laura Mothersole of Routledge for
her work on the permissions.
I owe a huge intellectual debt to a group of scholars too large to list
here, but whose names and works appear in the Further Reading section at
the end of the book. Although I have used notes only when I have quoted
directly, a broad synthesis like this inevitably relies on the scholarship of
others, and I have indicated which parts of the book have drawn on the
ideas of which scholars.
ix