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Sexuality Archive
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Reading between the lines: Old Germanic and early Christian views on abortion
Posted on May 24, 2013 | No CommentsThe object of my studies was to determine whether women in the early medieval Germanic West (could have) committed abortion, when confronted with an unwanted or inconvenient pregnancy. -
The Erotic Paternoster
Posted on May 4, 2013 | No CommentsThe word paternoster has been applied in a variety of senses. In the Middle ages paternoster became a synonym for lovemaking. -
Comparing Harems: Abbasid and Ottoman Harem Organization
Posted on April 26, 2013 | No CommentsThe following research delves into the organizational structures of the luxurious harems of Medieval Abbasid and Ottoman Empires; comparing the two different empires' harems within the political, economic, and social spheres that the royal women lived in. -
Wynne whoso may, for al is for to selle: Sexual Economics and Female Authority in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
Posted on April 18, 2013 | No CommentsChaucer’s inimitable Wife of Bath stands out as one of the most analyzed literary characters of all time, in part because of her existence outside of any defined medieval cultural classification, and in part as an archetype of a rising social tradition. -
Julian of Norwich’s “Christ as Mother” and Medieval Constructions of Gender
Posted on April 13, 2013 | No CommentsRecent Christian feminists have revived an interest in women mystics and feminine religious imagery. In light of what most people generalize about medieval misogyny and about the veneration of the Virgin as a surrogate for a female divinity, Julian of Norwich's trope of Christ as Mother seems even more remarkable. -
The Interrogation of of a Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth Century London
Posted on April 11, 2013 | No CommentsDespite the general rule that sexual offenses were matters for the church courts, in some cases the city of London took charge of these offenses. Prostitution and procuring, for example, involved public order; the temporal courts dealt with them for that reason, so that the same people might be prosecuted in both jusrisdictions for the same offense. -
Sexuality in the Natural and Demonic Magic of the Middle Ages
Posted on March 27, 2013 | No CommentsThroughout the Middle Ages – especially the later Middle Ages – ideas of magic played a large part in the formation of deviant sexual behaviours and it was believed that magic played a main role in sexual malfunctions and abilities. -
The Sexual Riddles of the Exeter Book
Posted on March 26, 2013 | No CommentsAmong the Exeter Book riddle collection there is a group more or less explicitly of riddles which deals sex. -
Licit and Illicit Sexuality in Medieval Iberia: A Survey of Las Siete Partidas
Posted on March 22, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis examines Las Siete Partidas, a thirteenth-century Castilian legal code of laws, including on marriage and illicit sexual behaviors. -
Woman-Woman Love in Islamic Society
Posted on March 9, 2013 | No CommentsWomen have only recently become visible at all in Islamicist/Orientalist discourse. Within most present-day Islamic states, where representation of even married heterosexual conduct is heavily censored, woman-woman sexuality remains thoroughly submerged. -
The Welsh Female Saint: Patterns within a Social Framework
Posted on March 2, 2013 | No CommentsHistoria Divae Monacellae, the Latin Life of Melangell is also comparatively late in composition, with the earliest manuscript being from the 16th century, but possibly drawing on earlier written sources.3 When we look at the availability of written texts relating to male saints the difference in source material is immediately evident. -
Kings and Courtesans: A Study of the Pictorial Representation of French Royal Mistresses
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsAs France emerged from the Middle Ages, the monarchy began to establish itself as a more stable institution and a curious development took place: the French kings began to install official mistresses at court. With this official status these women became parallel members of the royal family. They lived like queens, with various estates granted to them by the kings. -
Traditions of Courtly Love and the Canterbury Tales
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsChaucer uses both common and courtly love in the Canterbury Tales. His pilgrims represent nearly every level of the social scale and range anywhere from a knight to a miller to a parson to a pardoner. Thererfore, their status will determine what kind of tale they will tell. -
Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsSyphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe Eric B. Ross Current Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 333-337 Abstract While debate continues over the geographical origin of syphilis... -
Sex in the Middle Ages
Posted on February 14, 2013 | No CommentsHere are some of the more interesting pieces of research we have uncovered about sex in the Middle Ages. -
The Church and sexuality in medieval Iceland
Posted on February 13, 2013 | No CommentsFrom its earliest days Christianity has attempted to control human sexuality. The letters of Paul and the writings of the Church Fathers praise the state of virginity above that of marriage, and within matrimony permit sex only for procreation. -
Mi Suete Leuedi, Her Mi Béne: The Power and Patronage of the Heroine in Middle English Romance
Posted on February 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe Middle English Romances are somewhat difficult to study as a group. In order to examine these works accurately, one must take into consideration other literature produced at the same tirne, as well as that which preceded it. -
Bawdy badges and the Black Death : late medieval apotropaic devices against the spread of the plague
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsOwing to the fact that historians generally view the late medieval period as an "age of faith," the existence ofthese remarkable objects raises some fundamental questions about the exact socio-religious nature ofmedieval culture. The primary questions, however, that need answering are: when, where, and for whom were the badges produced, and perhaps most importantly, why. -
Awkward Adolescents: Male Maturation in Norse Literature
Posted on January 25, 2013 | No CommentsAlthough medieval masculinities have become a subject of scholarly interest, there has been relatively little discussion of the transition in Old Norse until very recently. -
Anaphrodisiac Charms in the Nordic Middle Ages: Impotence, Infertility, and Magic
Posted on January 16, 2013 | No CommentsThis essay, however, looks to explore, not this seductive form of charm magic, but rather its opposite, ie charm magic that prevents the consumption of a relationship, or that makes a fruitful union impossible. -
Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages
Posted on January 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe Middle Ages are often viewed as a repository of tradition, yet what we think of as traditional marriage was far from the only available alternative to the single state in medieval Europe. -
New directions for early medieval women’s history?
Posted on December 30, 2012 | No CommentsIn what follows, I will be looking largely at the period 500–1000. There is a lot of vitality in late antique women's history in the late antique period, springing ultimately from the twin roots of feminist analysis of early Christianity, such as by Rosemary Radford Ruether and Elizabeth A. Clark, and the work of authors such as Michel Foucault and Amy Richlin on classical sexuality. -
Looking Back: Medieval French Romance and the Dynamics of Seeing
Posted on December 24, 2012 | No CommentsThis dissertation builds upon the work of feminist medievalists and other literary and cultural scholars to argue that sight, and objects that are seen, articulate love relationships between characters in medieval romances, and that seeing is frequently a locus of resistance to gender norms the texts both establish and refuse to accept. -
Nordic Witchcraft in Transition: Impotence, Heresy and Diabolism in 14th-century Bergen
Posted on November 26, 2012 | No CommentsWithin the orbit of witchcraft, what is the relationship between sexuality, heresy, and diabolism? -
Singing Slave Girls (qiyan) of the Abbasid Court in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries
Posted on November 25, 2012 | No CommentsThe category of slave in the Middle East encompassed a number of different duties and positions: eunuch, chattel, domestic servant, sexual subject, infantryman, concubine, entertainer, laborer, and sometimes a trusted and valued member of the household.