The soldier’s life: martial virtues and hegemonic masculinity in the early Byzantine Empire
This dissertation argues that martial virtues and images of the soldier’s life represented an essential aspect of early Byzantine masculine ideology. It contends that in many of the visual and literary sources from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE, conceptualisations of the soldier’s life and the ideal manly life were often the same.
‘Some Like it Hot’: The Medieval Eroticism of Heat
The late fourteenth-century romance Sir Launfal narrates the financial, martial and erotic adventures of one of the lesser-known knights of the Arthurian court.
Jews Have the Best Sex: The Hollywood Adventures of a Peculiar Medieval Jewish Text on Sexuality
According to quite a few books and films produced in the last few decades in Europe and North America, sex is widely celebrated in Jewish sources
The Meek And Mighty Bride: Representations of Esther, Old Testament Queen of Persia, on Fifteenth-Century Italian Marriage Furniture
Cassone and spalliere panels depicting the Old Testament Book of Esther were produced by a number of Florentine artists during the fifteenth century.
Traditional Jewish Sexual Practices and Their Possible Impact on Jewish Fertility and Demography
Why do Jews have such a low reproduction rate? And is this something that also characterized them in earlier periods?
How far did medieval society recognise lesbianism in this period?
There are countless practical issues surrounding the study of women and their sexuality during the Middle Ages. An unfortunate fact is that the majority of contemporary sources available from this period were written, compiled or transcribed by men. It can, as such, be incredibly difficult to detect the medieval women’s voice.
Valentine’s Day Medieval Love: Books for that special someone
Love is in the air! Here are a few medieval books on the topic of love for your Valentine.
What Makes Her Beautiful? Feminine Beauty Standards in Renaissance Italy
Perhaps one of the most straightforward elements of beauty was the skin. Pale and undamaged skin was considered the most beautiful for women.
Sodomy and the Knights Templar
In this article, I will analyze testimony relevant to the charges of the Inquisition that members of the order of Knights Templar throughout Christendom practiced homosexual acts of various sorts from illicit kisses to sodomy.
Sex and obscenity in medieval art
When researching early or ‘forbidden’ historical subjects it can be a considerable challenge finding primary sources that give a first-hand experience of contemporary events.
Menstruation in Sacred Places. Medieval and Early-Modern Jewish Women in the Synagogue
How sacred is the Synagogue? Can a woman enter this holy place while menstruating? What is more sacred: the space, or the Holy objects within it?
Looking in the Past for a Discourse of Motherhood: Birgitta of Sweden and Julia Kristeva
This essay explores two parallel trajectories of mythic retrospection: medieval “myths” of the Biblical past (like Birgitta’s prophetic visions), and modern “myths” of the medieval past (like Kristeva’s survey).
A Male Transvestite Prostitution In 14th Century London: The Testimony of John Rykener
A Male Transvestite Prostitution In 14th Century London: The Testimony of John Rykener By Erkan Oruçoğlu Published Online (2013) Introduction: Studies of sexuality, homosexuality,…
Promiscuous Priests and Vicarage Children: Clerical Sexuality and Masculinity in Late Medieval England
Historians continue to debate the the full extent to which priests had relationships with women, but unchaste clergy on the European Continent have been more forthrightly acknowledged and studied than those in England.
Dead virgins: feminine sanctity in medieval Wales
Examines literature on the medieval traditions associated with Welsh holy women. Prerequisites for feminine sanctity; Biographical pattern of the female saints; Implications of the popularity of the Welsh women saints.
Estreitement bende: Marie de France’s Guigemar and the erotics of tight dress
This article examines the change in women’s fashion that occurred during the 12th century. Garments went from loose and flowing to tightly fitted, featuring belts and laces. The author examines this cultural change through the romance stories complied in the “Lais” of Marie de France, specifically one featuring the character of Guigemar.
Maria Mediatrix: Mediating the Divine in the Devotional Literature of Late Medieval and Early Modern England
In medieval theology, Mary‘s body, as the physical site of the Incarnation, provided an opportunity for speculation about the relationship between divinity and humanity…An examination of how Marian imagery is used as a rhetorical and meditative device in devotional texts will shed light on the way the relationship between human body and divine spirit was experienced.
Gay Reformers? Why the Medieval Church Banned Priests from Marrying
Among the issues that the current-day Roman Catholic Church is debating are whether or not priests should marry, and how accepting they should be of homosexuals. Interestingly, about nine hundred years ago both of these issues intertwined in the Anglo-Norman world.
Mundane Uses of Sacred Places in the Central and Later Middle Ages, with a Focus on Chartres Cathedral
Although technically reserved for worship, church buildings were put to numerous non-devotional uses in the Middle Ages, raising the question just how set apart from daily life medieval churches were.
Birth Control and Abortion in the Middle Ages
The medieval period might be unique in that it is perhaps the only time when you can read the same author in one work condemning the use of birth control and in another giving directions on how to use it.
Sex, lies and the Íslendinga sögur
Sex, lies and the Íslendinga sögur By Damian Fleming Sagas and Society, No.6 (2004) Abstract: Past scholars used to look upon the Icelandic…
Holding it Straight: Sexual Orientation in the Middle Ages
Historians tend to be reticent about applying the phrase ‘sexual orientation’ to periods before the nineteenth century, but should we be so quick to dismiss the concept?
Transvestite Knights: Men and Women Cross-dressing in Medieval Literature
In this thesis, I will look at mainly French and German texts from the 12th to the 15th centuries which deal with the subject of cross-dressers in the decidedly masculine domain of the knight. There are many tales of cross-dressing, particularly of women, but the concept of men dressing as women while jousting, and women dressing as knights, brings up several questions about the clothes, what it meant to be male and female, and how cross-dressing could be viewed on the tournament field.
Time, consciousness and narrative play in late Medieval secular dream poetry and framed narratives
This thesis proposes to look at the equation between time and text in the later medieval period. Time-telling and tale-telling have a particularly dynamic relationship in the considers time-telling and temporal referencein an era (c.1230 – 1500) that time-measurement multiple cultural experiencesa greatvariety of types of and
attitudes to time.
Ganymede/Son of Getron: Medieval Monasticism and the Drama of Same-Sex Desire
The subject of this essay is a late-twelfth-century St. Nicholas play called Filius Getronis (The Son of Getron) that has been little studied, and never in this context