The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages

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By exploring their sex lives, this book brings ordinary medieval people to life, revealing details of their most personal thoughts and experiences.

Harvey notes that “According to the other monks, the elderly pair spent much of their time reading in the kitchen. The obvious problem haunting such a discussion is how accurately the sex lives of ordinary people can ever be recovered. Anybody going into this with a notion of the middle ages as "The Dark Ages" will hopefully begin to realise how misinformed they were. One of the best known was St Agnes, a thirteen-year-old girl who faced torments including imprisonment in a brothel and a miraculously unsuccessful burning before she was eventually stabbed to death.Although Oda lived as a nun for many years after this incident, her hagiographer presented her as a martyr for virginity. 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.

A lively and readable account rooted in a deep knowledge of the scholarly literature on sexuality in medieval western Europe. The book begins by putting the subject of sex into context of the wider world of the time period, which I think is one of the best things this book did; it’s a lot easier to understand some of the topics under discussion when you have a better idea of how they viewed sex and relationships in general.Really hope the author does more work for us general readers covering this period and its less well known subjects like Heresy etc.

Every story and contradiction adds to the understanding of the complicated thing that is medieval sex history. 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. Fornication was forbidden, though tolerated given what all accepted as the wayward passions of youth. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.T he Irish Times ‘An entertaining but thoughtful study, descriptive without becoming didactic or pedantic. A distinction was also made between a woman who had sex for pleasure and ones who did so for financial need and desperation.

Sex was something men did to women, preferably during marriage, though female pleasure was important because without it conception couldn’t occur. The church (then or now) hasn’t dared to admit just how blatantly ineffective it is to deny basic human needs and inclinations. Despite its high ideals and strong rhetoric, medieval Christianity was ultimately a religion that offered hope and the possibility of forgiveness. There was a strong desire to separate the Virgin from not only the indignities of sexual intercourse, but the related contaminations of the female body, so that it was widely believed that the birth of Christ was free from pain and from the polluting effects of afterbirth. Desk and exam copies of certain titles are available to lecturers who wish to consider books as course texts.Mary Flannery, Times Literary Supplement ‘An expansive, accessible and highly engaging account of what we do – and don't – know about western European sexual culture in the Middle Ages. Today he might be considered bisexual, given his activity, but nonbinary, trans, or gender fluid as to his identity.