© Rafał Borysławski

1/4

Intimacy and its risks in the Middle Ages: Medieval women and the
private sphere.

1. The status of a medieval woman is classified sexually:

•

virgins

•

wives

•

widows

2. Lust / lechery (luxuria) - the curse of mankind and the result of the Original Sin (post-
lapsarian i.e. after the Original Sin).

Such lust – unless controlled rigorously – could lead to eternal damnation.

From The Book of Vices and Virtues (14th c.):

The sixte heved of this best [of deadly sin] is lecherie, that is outrajeous love and yvel
ordeyned in lykyng of reyns [that is of loins] or in delyt of fleschely lustes. And in this
synne tempteth the devel a man in fyve maneres, as Seynt Gregory seith: First in
folily lokes. And after in foule wordes. And after in foule touchynges. And after in foule
kissynges. And after cometh a man to do the dede. For thurgh the folily lokes cometh
a man to speke, and fro speche to touchynge, and from touchynge to kissynge, and
fro the kissynge to the foule dede of synne.

3. Marriage – the only legitimate outlet for it.

St. Paul:
Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have
sexual relations with a woman.”

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality,

each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband
should give to his 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 for a limited time, that you may
devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not
tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
(I Corinthians 7: 1-5)

4. Marriage: based on the consent of the couple (although arranged):

“I take you as my wife, I take you as my husband” – words sacramental in themselves
(church marriages promoted, but marriages in secret were equally legitimate).

Stages of a proper marriage:
1. financial settlement agrees between the bride and groom’s families (bride’s dowry

often in land);

2. betrothal ceremony before witnesses;
3. banns were read three times in church; marriages not permitted in Lent and Advent;
4. bride and groom meet at the church door and the groom makes an announcement as

tom what the bride is to receive and then offers, on a book or shield, a ring to the
bride;

5. the couple enters the church for the mass and blessing, the couple’s children receive

legitimacy;

6. the wedding feast;
7. the priest blesses the bedchamber and bed.

© Rafał Borysławski

2/4

5. Marriage and childbearing:

Sexual intercourse created bonds that had to end up in marriage. Inability to engage
in sexual intercourse annulled the marriage.
Marriage strategies and marriage arrangement – important element of building a
family’s position.
Childbearing: estimates are that 1 in 40 women died in labour and 200 out of 1000
children died before the age of five.

Medieval childhood / life stages (based on Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae):

•

infancy – up to 7 yrs: in the care of mothers; no moral reasoning; in need of
close attention; godparents responsible for protection from fire and water.

But heirs / heiresses could be passed on to guardians as babies.

•

childhood – up to 14 yrs

•

youth – up to 28 yrs

Upper class women – no involvement in upbringing of babies (wet nurses employed).

6. Women, intimacy and sinfulness within the private sphere: a masculine /
misogynistic perspective.

Medieval misogyny: women = lust = changeability = charms / magic.

In The Book of Good Manners (1174-78) by Stephen de Fougéres, chapelain to Henry
II:

•

concern with the idleness of upper class women – exposed to temptation due
to their laziness and indolence;

•

First sin: such women are predominantly guilty of perverting the course of
God-ordained events by secret practices allegedly passed on to one another;

•

claims that such women possess features of sorceresses – beauty potions,
lipsticks, rouges, powders, other cosmetics which “change whores into virgins
and those ugly and old into beauties.” Cosmetics condemned;

•

claims that women produce contraceptives and means for stillbirths;

•

Second sin: that such women enchant men by means of magic and that they
sometimes seek their death (to unite with lovers) by torturing waxen dolls;

•

Thus marriage is a war and conflict – such women cannot bear the natural
dominance of men. They are vengeful, sly and their means of revenge is
finding a lover;

•

Third sin: lechery and lust which women cannot control. The result is adultery
and licentiousness which leads to unnatural carnal relations with other women.

7. The feminine body as the body that perturbs and disturbs men – nature, life and
death combined in the woman.

Burchard, bishop of Worms compiles Decretum Burchardi (early 11th c.), a penitential
book (decrees, principles, statutes and doctrines for confessions).
Demarcation of sin: ecclesiastical documents for the use during confessions –
detailed and intimate questions as instruments of control and dominance.

Examples of questions:
Have you observed the traditions of the Pagans, as if by a demonically-administered
law - as if a hereditary law, one which fathers have ever left to their sons even to

© Rafał Borysławski

3/4

these days - that is, that you should worship the elements, the moon or the sun, or the
course of the stars, the new moon; or at the eclipse of the moon, that you should be
able by your shouts or by your aid to restore her splendour; or that these elements
[would be able] to succour you; or that you should have power through them; or have
you observed the new moon for building a house or making marriages? If you have,
do penance for two years on designated fast-days; for it is written, "All, whatsoever ye
do in word and in work, do all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ [Col 3:17]."

Have you come to any place to pray other than a church or other religious place
which your bishop or your priest showed you, that is, either to wells or to stones or to
trees or to crossroads, and there in reverence for the place lighted a candle or a
torch, or carried bread or any offering there, or eaten there, or there asked for any
healing of body or soul? If you have done or consented to such things, do penance
for three years on designated fast-days.

Have you done as some women are accustomed to do at given times of the year?
Have you laid the table and prepared food and drink for the three sisters known by the
ancients as the Parkae? Have you believed that the sisters may be of later use for
you?

Have you done as some women are accustomed to do? They lie with their face to the
floor, bare their buttocks and order that bread be kneaded on their buttocks. The
baked bread they then give to their husbands; this they do so that they will burn the
more with love of them. If you have done this, you shall do penance for two years on
approved holy days.

Have you done as some women are accustomed to do? They take their menstrual
blood and mix it with food or drink, and give this to their husbands to eat or drink, so
that they might be more loving and attentive with them. If you have done this, you
shall do penance for five years on approved holy days.”

Have you ever believed or participated in this perfidy, that enchanters and those who
say that they can let loose tempests or to change the minds of men? If you have
believed or participated in this, you shall do penance for one year on the appointed
fast days.

Have you made as some women are accustomed to make a certain machine
(machinamentum) of the size that suits you and have you attached it to your own
private parts or to the private parts of your female companion secretly seeking
pleasure and licentious deeds with other evil women?

8. The dread of the power of women over the life-force (of men).

The same penance administered for six sins – seven years of heavy fasting and
penitential practices:

•

murder;

•

poisoning;

•

using talismans against divine will;

•

teaching others how to perform an abortion;

•

sodomy;

•

drinking one’s husband semen;

•

the dream of leaving one’s body in order to perform satanic rituals and fry and
eat male hearts.

© Rafał Borysławski

4/4

Can we imagine men falling asleep beside their wives and dreading the thought of
what their wives might do to them?

9. The feminine and the masculine elements are intertwined:

The Book of Genesis [2:22-2:25]:

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took
one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22

and the rib, which the Lord

God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23

And

Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24

Therefore shall a man leave his father

and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25

And they

were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

St Augustine believes that within every human being there exist both masculine and
feminine elements. The masculine part is rational the feminine part is bodily (pars
animalis).
The rational element is virile (virilis), the animal element is governed by appetites and
lust (appetitus).

All this means that Adam (the man) is created by God, while Eve (the woman) is
presented as a secondary creation. If Adam is created in God’s own image, then Eve
is created out of the image of God (subjection to man).

10. Medical perspectives confirmed it;

•

Galen (Greco-Roman, 2

nd

c. AD): women and men correspond to one another in their

anatomies; both men and women produce seed, but female seed was potentially
lethal (hence the need for systematic cleansing, i.e. menstruation);

•

Aritsotle (favoured in Middle Ages): women are defective males (the parts that are
outside in men are inside in women); women provide the matter for male seed to work
on.

Taboos: the above was connected with the dangers posed by feminine seed – the
contaminating effect of menstrual blood (turning new wine sour, crops going bad from it,
fruit falling off trees, beehives becoming empty). The magical / scientific thinking.