Love, Sex & Marriage in the Middle Ages

A Sourcebook

Conor McCarthy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367706555
• eBook ISBN: 9781000569636
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This updated edition collects an extensive range of evidence for how people in the European Middle Ages thought about the emotional state of love, the physical act of sex, and the social institution of marriage.

Included are extracts from literary and theological works, medical and legal writings, conduct books, chronicles, and letters. These texts discuss married couples who are not having sex, and unmarried ones who are. We encounter marriages for creating alliances, marriages for love, and promises of marriage made in the hope of obtaining sex. Learned texts discuss the etymology of sexual terms and the medical causes of difficulties in conceiving. There are accounts of clandestine marriages, sexual violence, the madness of love-melancholy, and much more. By drawing on diverse voices and presenting less accessible material, this sourcebook provides a nuanced view of how medieval people thought about these subjects and questions the similarities and differences between their perspectives and our own.

With an expanded range of texts, wider geographical scope, suggestions for further reading, and updated explanatory material to reflect changes in scholarship in over two decades, this edition is an invaluable resource for students interested in sexuality, gender, and relationships in the Middle Ages.

Part IECCLESIASTICAL SOURCES

Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/​9781003147404-3

The texts presented in Part I fall into five distinct groups. The first collection of extracts are from the writings of two of the most important of the Church Fathers, St Augustine and St Jerome. These texts are, strictly speaking, not medieval at all, but these late classical texts have such an enormous influence upon the thought of the following millennium that they seem an appropriate starting point. Their subject is the role of marriage in Christian society, and in particular the position of marriage in relation to virginity.

Of course, Augustine and Jerome are not the first Christian writers to treat these topics, and both look back specifically to the writing of St Paul on the subject of marital sex in 1 Corinthians 7.3ff, a cornerstone of Christian thinking about marriage and sexual behaviour:

The husband should give the wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement at a set time to devote yourselves to prayer: and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a different gift from God, one having one kind, and another a different kind. To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion. To the married I give this command – not I but the Lord – that the wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and that the husband should not dismiss his wife.

Augustine quotes this passage of Paul’s in extracts 2, 3, and 4, as well as in numerous other places across his writings (see the discussion in the introduction to Walsh 2001). Jerome likewise engages with the same text throughout his book Against Jovinian. And we can see the influence of Paul along with that of Augustine and Jerome throughout the medieval period.

The second group of texts come from early medieval England. If Augustine and Jerome (and Paul) are concerned to formulate ideals of Christian behaviour, these texts from the early English Church are much more concerned with the realities of sexual and marital behaviour in communities relatively new to Christianity whose existing customs may differ in focus from a Christian sexual ethic. Consequently, there are compromises and contradictions in these texts that might not pertain either in the formulations of Augustine or in the more rigorous regulations of the later medieval Church. This is not to suggest tolerance so much as pragmatism – the Church does not yet have the exclusive jurisdiction over these issues that it will enjoy in the later medieval period.

The third group of extracts represent theological and canon law texts, primarily from the period of Church reform during the eleventh century and afterwards. Extract 10 is a sign of things to come, as the ninth-century Lotharingian king Lothar II’s attempts to divorce his wife Theutberga are frustrated by an increasingly assertive ecclesiastical emphasis on indissolubility. Extracts 11 and 12, from the writings of Peter Damian, a key figure of influence in the eleventh-century church reform movement, are vigorous attacks on both clerical sexuality and a wide range of sexual activities defined as ‘sodomy.’ Extracts 13, 14, and 17 show the development of ecclesiastical thinking on the formation of the marital bond that was to lead to the consensual model of marriage, influenced in no small way by abstract theological issues concerning the marriage of Christ’s parents as well as practical everyday realities. Extract 19 is a selection of English statutes which show the Church attempting to implement its relatively new marriage doctrines in a practical setting in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The fourth group of texts here are concerned with asking how these legal and theological texts intersect with actual marital practice. There is a focus here on local cases from later medieval England, where we can see the practical challenges that the Church’s consensual model poses for courts attempting to determine the status of contested unions (extract 22). But we also see the extent to which the Church attempted to police the extramarital sexual behaviour of the laity, bringing prosecutions for fornication and adultery which resulted in public physical punishment: this is the later Middle Ages as a ‘persecuting society.’ The last extract in this group, from the trial of Arnaud of Verniolle (extract 25), again shows the association of same-sex intercourse with other sorts of marginal behaviours and beliefs: Arnaud is tried for both sodomy and heresy.

The final pair of texts here look beyond medieval Christendom: the canons of the Council of Nablus (extract 26) show a certain extremity of outlook on sexual offences in a zone of intersection between Christian and ‘Saracen’ cultures, a perspective which then seems to return to influence legislation across Europe (Karras 2020). And Maimonides’s The Book of Women (extract 27) outlines the Jewish community’s rules on marriage, a reminder that there were also non-Christian marriage regimes operating in medieval Europe.

We can see continuities as well as contrasts in Christian thinking on marriage and sexual behaviour across the period. The scope of Christian intervention and authority in sexual and marital behaviour increases across the period, eventually coming to claim legal jurisdiction over all issues relating to sex and marriage except those relating to property. But we can also detect lay resistance, explicit and implied, to Christian regulation of marital and sexual ethics across the Middle Ages, and we should keep those caveats in mind as we read the texts here.

The Church Fathers

DOI: 10.4324/​9781003147404-4

1 Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

St Augustine of Hippo (354–430) is the most influential of the Church Fathers to write on marriage, and he returns to the subject repeatedly across his large body of writings. Augustine’s writing on marriage is subject to several influences. First, biblical writings on marriage, and in particular Genesis and 1 Cor. 7, exercise a significant influence on his conception of marriage and sexual relationships. Second, he is influenced by the writings of Ambrose on sex and marriage (Brown 1988: ch. 17). Third, his personal experiences leave their mark on his ideas about marriage and relationships: this extract from the autobiographical Confessions (c.397–401) is Augustine’s personal account of his youthful relationships, and we can perhaps see its influence in extract 2. Fourth, in his youth Augustine had been a Manichaean, a member of the heretical group founded by the prophet Mani (216–277), who held a dualist belief that there were two eternal first principles, God and Satan, who ruled worlds of light and darkness. The soul came from God, but the body came from Satan, and so renunciation of the body was recommended. Strict renunciation applied only to the Manichaean elect, but believers in general were to avoid procreation, which was the work of the Devil. Augustine’s writings on marriage and sexuality are concerned to refute the arguments of his former colleagues, the Manichaeans, and to argue that marriage and reproduction are in fact good (Noonan 1986: ch. 4, Walsh 2001). Fifth, Augustine is writing in the context of the controversy on marriage and virginity created by the writings of Jovinian, a Christian contemporary of Augustine’s who argued that marriage and virginity were equally good. Augustine is concerned to refute Jovinian’s position (as he tells us in his Retractiones), but he is also concerned to take a more moderate line than Jerome, whose Against Jovinian (extract 6) was seen as going too far in its attack on marriage.

Further reading: O’Donnell 1983, Noonan 1986: ch. 4, Brundage 1987: ch. 3, Brown 1988: chs 17, 18, 19, Clark 1991, 1996, Augustine 1999, Walsh 2001.

Text: Augustine 1991.

Meanwhile my sins multiplied. The woman with whom I habitually slept was torn away from my side because she was a hindrance to my marriage. My heart which was deeply attached was cut and wounded, and left a trail of blood. She had returned to Africa vowing that she would never go with another man. She left me with the natural son I had by her. But I was unhappy, incapable of following a woman’s example, and impatient of delay. As I was not a lover of marriage but a slave of lust, I procured another woman, not of course as wife. By this liaison the disease of my soul would be sustained and kept active, either in full vigour or even increased, so that the habit would be guarded and fostered until I came to the kingdom of marriage. But my wound, inflicted by the earlier parting, was not healed. After inflammation and sharp pain, it festered. The pain made me as it were frigid but desperate.

2 Augustine of Hippo, The Excellence of Marriage

In The Excellence of Marriage (c.401) Augustine is addressing some of the issues that continue to trouble Christian writers on marriage for the entire medieval period: in particular, to what extent can marriage be said to be good, to what extent can sexual intercourse within marriage be free from sin, and what is it that distinguishes marriages from other sorts of unions? On this question, perhaps we can see some echoes of Augustine’s personal experiences as described in extract 1 from his Confessions.

Further reading: as extract 1.

Text: Augustine 1999.

(I) MARRIAGE: THE FIRST BOND OF SOCIETY

1. Every human being is part of the human race, and human nature is a social entity, and has naturally the great benefit and power of friendship. For this reason God wished to produce all persons out of one, so that they would be held together in their social relationships not only by similarity of race, but also by the bond of kinship. The first natural bond of human society, therefore, is that of husband and wife. God did not create them as separate individuals and bring them together as persons of a different race, but he created one from the other, making the side, from which the woman was taken and formed, a sign of the strength of their union. For those who walk together, and look ahead together to where they are walking, do so at each other’s side. The result is the bonding of society in its children, and this is the one honorable fruit, not of the union of husband and wife, but of their sexual conjunction. For even without that kind of intimacy, there could have been between the two sexes a certain relationship of friendship and kinship where one is in charge and the other compliant.

(II) WHAT CONSTITUTES A TRUE MARRIAGE?

5. It is often asked whether one should call it a marriage when a man and a woman, neither of whom is married to anyone else, form a union solely for the purpose of giving in to their desires by sleeping together, and not for the purpose of having children, though with the understanding that neither of them will sleep with anyone else. It is not absurd perhaps to call this a marriage, provided they maintain the arrangement until the death of one or other of them, and provided they do not avoid having children either by being unwilling to have children or even by doing something wrong to prevent the birth of children. On the other hand, if one, or both, of these conditions is lacking, I do not see how we can call these marriages. If a man makes use of a woman for a time, until he finds someone else more suited to his wealth and social standing to take as his partner, that state of mind makes him an adulterer, not with regard to the woman he is on the lookout for but with regard to the one he is sleeping with without being married to her. As a consequence, if the woman is aware of this and still consents to it, then she too is unchaste in her relationship with the man with whom she is not united in marriage. Nevertheless, if she is faithful to him, and when he takes a wife she does not also think about marrying, but sets herself entirely against such a course of action, then I would not dare to call her an adulteress, easy enough though it might be to do so. Yet who would say that she does not sin, since she knows she is involved with a man who is not her husband? Just the same, if for her part all she wants from that union is to have children, and whatever she puts up with over and above what serves the purpose of having children she puts up with unwillingly, she is certainly to be preferred to many married women. Although these are not adulteresses, they often constrain their husbands to perform their marital duty, even when they wish to abstain, not out of desire to have children but making unreasonable use of their rights because of passion. In their marriages, just the same, there is at least the good feature that they are married. It was for this reason that they married, so that by being confined to the lawful bond sensuality might not wander around ugly and degenerate. In itself sensuality has the unbridled weakness of the flesh, but from marriage it has the permanent union of fidelity; in itself it leads to uncontrolled intercourse, but from marriage it has the restraint of chaste childbearing. Although it is a shameful thing to intend to make use of one’s husband for passion, it is proper nevertheless to want to have union only with one’s husband and to have children only by one’s husband.

(III) MARRIAGE AS A REMEDY FOR SENSUALITY

6. […] Marital intercourse for the sake of procreating is not sinful. When it is for the purpose of satisfying sensuality, but still with one’s spouse, because there is marital fidelity it is a venial sin. Adultery or fornication, however, is a mortal sin. For this reason abstinence from all sexual union is better even than marital intercourse performed for the sake of procreating.

(IV) THE THREE GOODS OF MARRIAGE

32. The value of marriage, therefore, for all races and all people, lies in the objective of procreation and the faithful observance of chastity. For the people of God, however, it lies also in the sanctity of the sacrament, and this has the consequence that it is forbidden for a woman to marry anyone else while her husband is still living, even if she has been divorced by him, and even if it is only for the purpose of having children. Although this is the only purpose there can be for a marriage, the bond of matrimony is not broken when its purpose is not achieved, but only by the death of husband or wife. It is like ordination to the priesthood, which takes place for the purpose of forming a community of the faithful, but even if the community of faithful does not eventuate, the sacrament of ordination remains in those who were ordained. If anyone ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• Introduction
• PART I Ecclesiastical Sources
• PART II Legal Sources
• PART III Saints’ Lives, Letters, Chronicles, Conduct Books
• PART IV Literary Sources
• PART V Medical Writings
• Bibliography
• Index