Book Summary: Sex In The Middle Ages
Sex in the Middle Ages
Sex is a taboo subject; many do not want to talk about it. Sex may be talked about more and premarital sex may be more accepted, but many still have the same views as those of medieval times did. When researching about sex in the middle ages, a person usually happens upon crazy escapades of the rulers and find very little on the culture as a whole. It is common knowledge that the Church was very strict about intercourse; however, sex was not as rare as many would like to think.
All the sexual morals of medieval Christianity are from Pagan Roman culture. The church, of course, had strict rules about sex.1 Christians promoted chastity for all, even those in marriages: “limitations were paced on couples about when, where, how and with whom they could make love; in other words, not in …show more content…
It wasn’t very common but Damian offers the only complete book. Written in the late 11th century, he wrote about what he calls the “sins against nature”. Those sins include masturbation, mutual masturbation, interfemoral intercourse (between the thighs) and anal intercourse, the complete act against nature. He goes on to say that “the devil 's artful fraud devises these degrees of failing into ruin such that the higher the level the unfotyunate soul reaches in them, the deeper it sinks in the depths of hell 's pit.”7 So it is apparent that the ideas of sex haven’t changed much in all these centuries. Things aren’t kept as secret but many still retain these same thoughts that the Pagan Roman church did. Many don’t think about the personal lives of people in the Middle Ages when looking at this era; they usually focus on wars and religious debates. The significance of knowing this information is that thought the Church set up and tried to enforce strict rules, much of the time those rules were not followed. It makes the people of medieval times, more like actual
Sex is a taboo subject; many do not want to talk about it. Sex may be talked about more and premarital sex may be more accepted, but many still have the same views as those of medieval times did. When researching about sex in the middle ages, a person usually happens upon crazy escapades of the rulers and find very little on the culture as a whole. It is common knowledge that the Church was very strict about intercourse; however, sex was not as rare as many would like to think.
All the sexual morals of medieval Christianity are from Pagan Roman culture. The church, of course, had strict rules about sex.1 Christians promoted chastity for all, even those in marriages: “limitations were paced on couples about when, where, how and with whom they could make love; in other words, not in …show more content…
It wasn’t very common but Damian offers the only complete book. Written in the late 11th century, he wrote about what he calls the “sins against nature”. Those sins include masturbation, mutual masturbation, interfemoral intercourse (between the thighs) and anal intercourse, the complete act against nature. He goes on to say that “the devil 's artful fraud devises these degrees of failing into ruin such that the higher the level the unfotyunate soul reaches in them, the deeper it sinks in the depths of hell 's pit.”7 So it is apparent that the ideas of sex haven’t changed much in all these centuries. Things aren’t kept as secret but many still retain these same thoughts that the Pagan Roman church did. Many don’t think about the personal lives of people in the Middle Ages when looking at this era; they usually focus on wars and religious debates. The significance of knowing this information is that thought the Church set up and tried to enforce strict rules, much of the time those rules were not followed. It makes the people of medieval times, more like actual