SEXUAL LIFE OF A HUMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES
(superficial judgments that do not claim to be fundamental)
It is he!
- Who is he?
- Boy!
- You didn't say anything about the boy!
Because I didn't want to talk about it!
From the americans. thin series "California"
Each of us - you, you, you, you and I -
have their own personal life, which does not concern anyone -
not you, not you, not you, not you, and me too...
Sergei SOLOVYOV, film director (from a TV interview)
The world of medieval men and women was filled with strong and powerful passions.
In the medieval world, women were adored.
“I love you more than anyone! You alone are my love and my desire!”
But they also evoked hatred and disgust.
“A woman is just a bait of Satan, a poison for male souls,” wrote St. Augustine.
It was a world in which knowledge of medicine, physiology and hygiene of life was still insufficient.
"The mere sight of a menstruating woman can by itself cause disease in a healthy man."
It was a world where bishops get rich from prostitution and virgins "marry" Christ.
“Because I was standing next to the crucifix, I was overwhelmed with such fire that I took off all my clothes and offered all of me to Him.”
A world in which priests accuse their flock of extramarital affairs and other sexual sins.
“There is so much debauchery and adultery on all sides that only a few men are satisfied with their own wives” (1).
It was a time when in the dwellings of the church fathers and even in the palace of the Pope, everyone was indiscriminately engaged in a variety of sex, not disdaining intercourse with boys and young men, which was especially developed in monasteries.
"... the houses of the church fathers turn into a haven for harlots and sodomites."
It was a world in which God, according to the ministers of the church, promises to exterminate all mankind because of sinful aspirations. (As if one of them communicated with him or knows how to read his mind.)
“We must be afraid of human sensuality, whose fire broke out as a result of original sin, which established even greater depths of evil, producing various sins that caused divine wrath and its revenge” (2).
... "Really sexual relations began in 1963." So, at least, wrote the poet Philip Larkey. But this is not true. Sexual activity in the Middle Ages was as vigorous and varied as it is today. How diverse it was can be understood from the questions that medieval priests were obliged to ask their parishioners:
"Did you commit adultery with a nun?";
“Have you committed adultery with your stepmother, daughter-in-law, your son’s fiancée, mother?”;
"Have you made an instrument or device in the form of a penis and then tied it to your sexual organs and committed adultery with other women?"
“Did you not insert a device in the form of a penis into your mouth or into your anus, moving this tool of the devil there and receiving indecent male pleasure at the same time?”;
“Have you used the mouth and buttocks of your son, brother, father, servant boy for Sodomy pleasure?”;
“Have you done what some women do, who lie down in front of an animal and encourage him to copulate in any way possible. Have you copulated in the same way they did?”
Such interest suggests that sexual activity in the Middle Ages was no different from the sexual desires of people today! But the world in which all this happened was completely different! Knowledge about birth and hygiene, about life and death, physiology and human sexual desires was very different from today.
Considering that today people in all countries live up to 75-80 years, in the Middle Ages people barely reached the age of 40. Everyone has experienced death first hand. Most people have seen a brother or sister die. Most parents have lost one or more children. In a medieval village of 100 houses, funerals could take place every eight days. This was facilitated by malnutrition, infections, disease, epidemics and wars.
Life in the Middle Ages was dangerous. It's easy to imagine medieval life as nasty, cruel, and short. At least, this was considered until recently: “At the heart of the early deaths of those years is the struggle for survival, the lack of pleasures, passions and the suppression of one’s sexuality.” But was it really so? Far from it! Medieval records suggest the passions that raged in various parts of society, the deep world of intimacy and sensuality, the close attention to love, sex and various pleasures. And some exotic ways to enhance them.
Many couples wanted to have fun, but in such a way that the woman would not "fly". But the easiest way to avoid fertilization was to cool the fire of desire. True, in this case, and pleasure could not be obtained. To put out the fire of his passion, "Guide to the Secrets of Women" recommended drinking the urine of a man. According to the authors of such nonsense, this should certainly work! There were other ways to avoid unwanted pregnancies. The monks, for example, recommended eating sage for this, which was cooked for three days. After that, allegedly, pregnancy does not occur for a whole year! There were more radical advice: if a woman swallows a bee, she will never get pregnant, and a man who will plant her deeply will feel pain and, probably, he will not want to ejaculate in her!
Since the church allowed sex only for procreation, it categorically rejected the use of contraception. The jurist Burchard, Bishop of Worms, even introduced penance (punishment) for a period of ten years for contraception. However, despite all these prohibitions, various contraceptives known since ancient times were used in practice: herbal tinctures, special exercises after intercourse, genital creams, vaginal suppositories and more. Coitus interruptus was also practiced, perhaps the most effective method of contraception at that time. Termination of pregnancy was resorted to in extreme cases and mostly dispensed with surgical intervention: heavy physical exertion, hot baths, tinctures and other drugs that cause miscarriage. A researcher on the history of contraception, John Noonan, noticed a very curious thing: if in the early Middle Ages much attention was paid to sexual positions, conspiracies and magical amulets as a means of contraception, then in the high and late Middle Ages it was already interrupted sexual intercourse and ejaculation of a man on a woman’s stomach or on a bed. .
Obviously, the medieval understanding of sexual relations was primitive. The anatomy was undeveloped and an autopsy was rarely performed. (Which, by the way, the church actively opposed. It was the lack of knowledge in the field of medicine that caused the outbreak of the most dangerous epidemics in crowded places - primarily in cities.) But this did not stop some of the greatest minds from revealing the secrets of sex. In centers for the study of sciences throughout medieval Europe scientists pondered topical issues.
What is the difference between men and women?
Why do people most often like sex, and are they ready to break all conceivable biblical prohibitions for the sake of sexual pleasure?
What is the nature of sexual satisfaction?
What is attraction? What is its essence? And is the devil guilty of it or is it still a divine gift?
The consensus reached by these male authors, many of whom were clerics, was that the woman was the problem. According to classical theory about the four fluids, men were conceived hot and dry. Which was good. The women were cold and wet. Which was bad. This made them sexually insatiable.
“A woman is more thirsty for copulation than a man, because the dirty is drawn to the good,” wrote St. Augustine.
The real mystery was how the female anatomy works. At Oxford in the 14th century, Dr. John Garsdon expressed the common belief of the Middle Ages that menstrual blood was in fact female semen. No wonder, it was thought, that women needed sex to get rid of this semen, menstrual blood.
“This blood is so disgusting that upon contact with it, fruits cease to grow, wine becomes sour, trees do not bear fruit, the air darkens and dogs become wild with rabies. The mere sight of a menstruating woman can by itself cause disease in a healthy man."
In a word, all women were poisonous in the literal sense of the word! (And not just some mothers-in-law, as they think now!)
Medieval thinking was as logical as ours, but based on different assumptions. It often came from religious doctrine or the opinion of ancient authorities. And the biblical story of the Garden of Eden dominated the explanation of the nature of female sexuality.
In the story of original sin, the devil chooses to deceive Eve, not Adam! As has been said, attack human nature where it is weakest. Eve's actions were an act of betrayal that few churchmen could forgive.
"Eve was a bait for Satan, a poison for men's souls," wrote Cardinal Peter Damien in the 11th century.
And he: “Evil from a woman! Women are the biggest evil in the world! Don't you women understand that Eve is you! You have desecrated the tree of knowledge! You have disobeyed God's law! You convinced a man where the devil could not win by force! God's judgment on your sex still hangs over the world! You are guilty before men, and you must endure all hardships! You are the devil's gate!"
It is not surprising that with such an attitude towards women, medieval courtship was a rather unromantic activity that few dared to do. In general, marriage at that time was different from today's romantic ideal. He had very little to do with love, if at all. This appeared later.
Most often, it was an alliance between families and an agreement that included the transfer of some property. The wife was considered as part of this property. Such property should have been carefully inspected prior to the conclusion of the transaction. In 1319, Edward II sent the Bishop of Exater to inspect Philippa Edaena as a proposed wife for his young son. The bishop's report reads like a description of future property:
“The lady has attractive hair - a cross between blue-black and brown. The eyes are deep dark brown. The nose is quite even and even not upturned. Pretty big mouth. The lips are somewhat full, especially the lower ones. The neck, shoulders, her whole body and lower limbs are moderately well formed. All its members are well fitted and unmutilated. And on the day of Saint John this girl will be nine years old.”
The report was accepted by the customer with satisfaction. An agreement has been reached. Nine years later, Philippa married the son of Edward II, who later became Edward III.
And here is how the curiosity of a 13-year-old groom in relation to his bride is shown in the French feature series "Borgia":
“Have you seen my bride, brother?
- Saw.
- Your silence disturbs, brother! Calm down baby-Jofre!
- Be calm, Jofre, she is not horned!
- She's beautiful?
- No.
- She is kind?
- Like, no!
Does she have anything good in her?
- She has two legs, a full set of eyes, ten toes!
- So, she is not beautiful and not kind ... She has two eyes, ten fingers ...
- I forgot my toes. Also ten, in my opinion!
- I marry only once, mother!
- Brother Jofre! She's not just pretty!
- Yes?
- She's beautiful!
- Is it true?
- She is an angel who grew up on the land of Naples! And know: if you do not marry, I will marry her myself!
- Is it true?
- Yes its true! Do you allow me?
- No, Juan! She is my bride!
- Yes, that's right! Who is the lucky one?..”
We add that the bride was five years older than her teenage fiancé. And later, brother Juan (this is a historical truth) could not resist his lust and right during the wedding celebrations, having improved the moment, he took the girl out of the hall and took possession of her in an empty room, standing, pressing against the wall, lowering his pants, pulling up her wedding dresses, lifting her legs.
Here's this scene from the movie:
"Be good to him! Promise?
- Like this?
- He is my little brother!
- But how, "good"?
<Тут у обоих одновременно наступает бурный оргазм. Оба стонут, извиваются, переживают наслаждения, глубоко дышат...>
- That's it! .. That's it! ..
- So I can! .. Yes! .. Yes! .. "
After that, the bride, well inseminated by her older brother, went to "be kind" with her inexperienced young husband...
In all marriages, the woman's property and belongings became the property of her husband. Just like the woman herself.
The law often allowed husbands to treat their wives however they pleased. Therefore, on their wedding night, many young men and women subtly raped their young wives, considering only their desires and feelings, sincerely believing that they want the same and that they would like it. The cries of the young wife deprived of innocence during the wedding night delighted all the guests, the parents of the groom and even the parents of the bride. And in the morning, the young husband could publicly and in detail savor how, in what position and how many times he took possession of his young wife, how pleased he was, how his dearest wife did not want it, in what way, how he forced her to copulate and how it hurt during defloration.
“It is lawful for a man to beat his wife when she harms him, unless he kills or maims her,” said English law.
The female part of humanity, invoked as the cause of original sin, feared for its sexuality and taken in exchange for property, livestock or goods, and sometimes subjected to violence for its pleasure and satiety, was by no means happy.
In the period of the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, cruelty against women was a manifestation of the sexuality of young people in Venice as well. Rape was considered a serious crime if it was committed against children, the elderly, or members of the upper class. Sexual violence against women of lower or equal status was not criminalized (as long as the victim remained alive and unharmed), and was sometimes even considered part of a courtship ritual. For example, some Venetian youths proposed to their chosen ones after they had taken possession of them several times, most often with the use of force. With rare exceptions, the rape of a young girl was part of the wedding ritual. When the older generation had already agreed on everything, the parents with their daughter (or son) came to visit the parents of the future groom (bride). A young man and a girl, under some plausible pretext, retired. And while the parents talked to each other about the weather and city news, the guy behind the wall took possession of his young guest, regardless of her desires. The girl's cries were ignored. The children returned to their parents: he was satisfied with the pleasures received and sexual release, she, who had known male power, inseminated by a young lustful baboon, was in tears. The parents of both were satisfied with the past evening, the guy too. And the girl?.. Who asked her about it? After some time there was a return visit, during which the girl no longer resisted her fiancé so much (mother explained everything to her in detail), but the ritual of returning to his parents - satisfied, and her - in tears was obligatory. And then, if the key fit the lock, an offer was made. Or another bride or groom was looking for. It is somewhat unclear how the issue of contraception was resolved in this case. However, there is evidence that many Venetians were not sure that the firstborn in their family was the offspring of the head of the family.
In general, in Venice, as in other European cities, there was an illegal, but very widespread sexual culture - prostitution, street and domestic rape, forced extramarital cohabitation. All this was the result of the fact that young people began to marry at a later age (3).
From the early Middle Ages, the secular authorities and the church believed that it was impossible to rape your bride if there was an agreement between the parents, or your wife, since she gave her voluntary consent to sex when she got married. It was also not considered a crime to rape a prostitute, because she earns with her body. Gang rape was also common in the late Middle Ages. Any woman walking or walking alone through the streets in the evening risked being raped by a pack of young scoundrels. The attackers announced their approach by shouting “Whore!” In order to legitimize their further actions in this way. Often, the cries of the raped women either went unheeded or attracted to themselves by the fact that the townspeople, even armed and well-wielding a sword, joined the rapists in order to deprive their pleasure on this wonderful evening, especially if the victim was sexually attractive. A case is described when a very young servant girl, after being raped by three 18-year-old young nobles, continued to be taken by force by the guys from the city guard who came running to the cries of the guard. (Now, if it was a robbery, then they would have stood up and detained the criminals!) It was an exception if one of the passers-by stood up for an unfamiliar woman out of noble motives. (After all, in his youth, this husband did the same thing: he caught victims and raped with his friends! Well, let the youth frolic!) Rather, one flock of guys, threatening another gang of youths with weapons, beat off the girl in order to become her first. Sometimes because of this, real fencing battles began on the streets with injuries and deaths of young people on both sides. During these fights, the girls were somehow forgotten (it was necessary to keep an eye on the enemy so as not to miss a dangerous injection or blow of a sword!) And they managed to slip away. Then it turned out like this: after a tense battle, the rivals retreated, there were wounded or even killed, and the prize with pretty eyes, a protruding ass and other fresh, appetizing forms, for the possession of which a swara began, disappeared! But it was a rare luck for the girls: the victim during the skirmishes was always carefully guarded by the younger members of the gang. I must say that sometimes the fights before the rape of the girls were provoked by older guys on purpose, because getting sexual release after a tough battle with a strong opponent was an exotic way to enhance the pleasure of copulation. For this, they did not even consider the possibility of the death of friends. Therefore, young men from adolescence were constantly trained, and then improved their art of owning a sword. It was not only prestigious, at that time the life of these undergrowths, and the number of girls they could recapture from their rivals, and then en masse to seize those who were considered whores depended on the reaction and ability to fence. Take possession here, right on the street...
They returned home in the morning. The servant helped to undress, put the young master to bed. (It was not customary to wash, to take care of oneself.) And, young man, remembering what happened during the evening (those fights in which he participated, and those girls whom he had), falling asleep, he thought: yes, the day was not in vain! ..
French researcher Jacques Rossiod believes that young people deliberately sought to "spoil" as many girls as possible, thus expressing dissatisfaction with the social order. I suppose this is the primitive thinking of a person who, apparently, has read Marxist literature, after which public protests appear everywhere, even in obvious criminality (in modern times). How does this researcher imagine it? Probably so:
- Hey, guys, let's protest with this girl the existing order in our glorious Venice! Well, bring her here!
- Yes, be quiet, you fool, do not get out! We will only protest and let you go!.. Now, I’m already lowering my pants for protest!.. We, the protesters, are only ten people!..
- Spread your legs! .. You see how the desire to protest is already bursting me! It will get worse!
- Oh, how well my protest went! .. Who is next to protest? ..
- Oh, homies, how great we protested today! Wonderful night! Let Venice know: we are against it!..
No! Young people (most often with servants peers who were responsible for their master to his parents, and sometimes took part in the rape of victims after masters) willingly joined gangs, usually consisting of five or six (maximum 15) people aged from 18 to 20 years for the purpose of having fun and raping a group of girls and pretty women. Apparently, they were attracted not only by the chance to assert themselves, to get sensations unknown in adolescence, to “become an adult”, but also to see the nakedness of the female body, which is not available in everyday life (how, to the horror of the crazy hypocrites, do not think about the beneficial effects of pornography! ), notice fear in the eyes of your future victim. In addition, some were attracted by the opportunity to gain experience, to look at the sexual intercourse of their half-naked friends from the side (after all, there was no photo and video porn then!), And some were also excited by the fact that they were watching him during sexual intercourse ...
Here is what one of the Venetian rake wrote to his close friend:
“... In the evening you were not with us again! It's a shame your father didn't let you go. You lost a lot yesterday. The two girls we made whores have come to know us. One cried, tried to pay off, offering us<свой>wallet<с деньгами>. We wished (i.e. took by force) only her honor, not only, as usual, but also in a way condemned<церковью>(4). Both blood and tears<было>a lot of.<...>
You said that you admire (in the sense: excites) when you see how guys play (i.e. enjoy) with a girl. It also delights me (in the sense: turns me on). What you! Especially when I know<во время моего сношения>you are watching me. At such moments, I always want you to be with us (that is, near). Feelings of this<когда ты за мной наблюдаешь во время моего полового акта>are Arkhangelsk (5).<...>
Are you coming today? Make your father let you go! Do you want my father to talk to yours (6)? After all, our walks cost us nothing but a sleepless night. And now there is a girl near her husband or in her father's house, whom we will make today a city whore. Cynus!<...>I'm already burning with desire! Rather, the night! .. "(7)
At the head of such gangs was a slightly older leader. The appearance of such packs in the late Middle Ages testified to a significant decrease in the influence of the church, since the members of the gangs themselves often called themselves "monastic brotherhood", and their leader was called "prince", "king" or even "abbot". Young men left such groups on the day of their marriage. But there were also exceptions. In particular, if the young man was in one of the main positions, he could afford to be in a gang until the age of 30, especially if the guy was one of those who liked to watch the sexual intercourse of others from the side, or to have someone watch, how he does it - both are not available in the matrimonial bedroom. It was these men who, having become older, equipped their bedrooms with mirrors (which at that time were incredibly expensive), which could somehow make it possible to “look” at the sexual intercourse from the side or imagine that someone is watching you. For the same purpose, young servants were called into the bedroom, in the presence of which they had sex with spouses, maids or mistresses (whence the expression “hold a candle”, that is, see copulation). One must think that the young servant boys did not experience any particular disgust at the same time - after all, young people have always been interested in sex, and not only in our time, as some illiterate hypocrites believe. In addition, the walls of the premises were equipped with secret eyes, which made it possible to spy on the sex of young servants, and sometimes eminent guests.
In addition to men, the gang sometimes included girls who lured innocent victims into secluded corners, or were “on the hook” during ritual rapes to deflower innocent girls. They had immunity as long as they acted as future wives of gang members.
The groups acted openly, the local authorities were well aware of what was happening in the cities, because often the sons of these same officials and nobles were members of the gangs. The secular authorities and the church not only did not pay any attention to gang rapes, but, on the contrary, were interested in them. Sexual violence on the streets of the city acted as a kind of restraining force for obstinate young ladies and overly active prostitutes, and also gave guys a sexual and emotional outlet. As victims, the rapists chose mainly the wives and daughters of laborers, prostitutes, mistresses of priests, divorced women, or simply servants. Therefore, fathers protected their daughters, and husbands protected their wives. But the girls themselves were very careful: alone, they appeared on the street only during the day, and in the evening - only accompanied by someone, as a rule, armed and able to wield a sword or other melee weapons. If the girl was defiantly dressed and went out into the street without an escort, then in the event of her rape, only she herself was to blame. Therefore, many young women dressed very chastely and led a mostly domestic lifestyle.
Only in very rare cases were rapists punished, most often if a woman was seriously injured or died. Injuries from repeated sexual intercourse with several males in a row were not considered as evidence of damage to the health of a woman. In the late Middle Ages, only 14 percent of cases of sexual abuse were punished by two years in prison or severe flogging. Most of the cases brought to trial were punished either by fines or short prison sentences. The most severe punishments were received by offenders who encroached on the honor of the wives and daughters of the upper class and high-ranking officials. But this was also a great rarity, because such ladies did not appear on the streets of cities late at night without armed guards.
And suddenly, in a society that put women so low, there was a revolution that turned everything inside out. It began in southern France in the 12th century. Troubadours, itinerant poets and musicians began to talk about women and about love in a completely different way. They sang about deep, idealized sexual passion. Their poems reached the ears of one of the most powerful women that time, the daughter of King Louis VII of France, Marie de Champagne. Marie's court was a haven for singers, writers and poets. He soon became famous for the exciting ideas of the troubadours.
>> "When I lay down, all night and the next day
I keep thinking: how can I serve your grace.
My body rejoices and is full of joy because I think of you!
My heart belongs to you!”
The poets put the woman on a pedestal. She was worshiped as a distant and inaccessible object. They were her suffering lovers.
>> "I lost my will and stopped being myself
From the moment you let me look into your eyes!”
Thus the idea of falling in love was born.
Of course, people talked about love before that time. But it was more lustful love. The poetry that captured the imagination of the ladies of the court, such as Marie de Champagne, was something special. It was an idealized kind of sexual passion, and sex was, as it were, a reward for passionate desires and worship of the object of one's adoration. Sometimes this love is called courtly or courtly love. Her hot ideas spread from court to court throughout Europe. And new generations of writers and poets began to sing of new views on love.
One of the most famous is Etienne de Trois, the author of a story about passion and adultery. His famous love story between Lancelot and Jenivera, a great knight in the court of King Arthur and the Queen, is punctuated by thrilling events of true love. For his wealthy patron and ladies of the court, this was the standard by which to measure the behavior of men and form an idea of their own sexual worth. For courtly lovers, such feelings were exquisite love.
“If she does not heal me with a kiss, she will kill me and curse herself! Despite all the suffering, I do not refuse sweet love!
Lancelot tries to win the love of the queen, he exposes himself to untold dangers, including crossing a bridge made from a sword blade. Geneviere eventually relents and sets up a midnight date:
“Today, when everyone is asleep, you can come and talk to me at that window!”
It seems to Lancelot that the day drags on like a century. As soon as night falls, the queen appears in a purple cloak and furs. But iron bars separate them. Lancelot grabbed the bars, tensed up and pulled them out. Finally, there are all the possibilities for adultery. Now Lancelot had everything he wanted: he held his beloved in his arms. He held her in his arms. Their touches were so tender, sweet, that through kisses and hugs they experienced such joy and surprise, which they had never known before.
The influence of this bold, new literature was dramatic. Exquisite love, unrequited love, mutual love, tragic love, adultery. For the first time noble ladies were exposed to passionate love literature with sophisticated love fantasies about a devoted noble lover who needed not so much their naked bodies and the opportunity to copulate with them, but their appearance, their voice, their feelings, and most importantly, their love.
The new poets challenged the old dogmas. Can love exist in marriage? Or should it be free? Does love survive by becoming public? Is it true that a new love puts an old one to flight, or is it possible to love two women?
“He who is tormented by thoughts of love, whether for a man or a woman, sleeps and eats little.” These words belong to Chaplain Andrew, who is only known to have been at the court of the aforementioned Marie de Champagne. His treatise "On Love" was similar to modern tutorials on the seduction of ladies and love relationships. Writers like Chaplain Andrew were themselves pioneers of love, blazing trails in this new, bold, emotional world. Most surprisingly, such writers were able to move away from the far unromantic relationships that existed between medieval men and women.
Why did the cult of exquisite love gain such popularity? Was it a release valve for emotional pressure and sexual energy? Was this all a natural development of religious love, in which the aristocracy honed their sexual manners? Nobody can say for sure! But the main ideas of this love were assimilated by a wide medieval culture. And they have caused scandals, even violence. It was one thing to discuss codes of love in aristocratic circles, and another to live by them!
One of the most wonderful medieval stories- a passionate, dramatic and, it seems, true story about the love of Adelyard and Aloise.
The young scholar Peter Adelyard arrived in Paris in 1100, when exquisite love had already swept Europe. In Paris, he met the young and beautiful Alois. She lived with her uncle, a former canon at Notre Dame Cathedral.
“I burn with the fire of desires for this girl. And I decided: she will be the only one in my bed! ”, - wrote Peter Adelyard.
Peter Adelyard became a home teacher, a mentor to a very young girl, Aloisa.
“If the uncle of my passion had entrusted the lamb to a predatory wolf, I would be less surprised! Our books lay between us, but we had more words of love than reading. We had more kisses than teachings. My hands touched her breasts and her peach under dresses more often than the pages. Our desires have not left a single position and degree of love untested. I taught her to give herself to a man the way we both wanted. And not a single girl's cavity remained without innocence ... "
Soon, from this unbridled passion of a young insatiable teacher, the girl became pregnant. The young mentor's uncle was angry! And Abeler proposed to his beloved. However, she did not agree to marry her seducer for a long time. Aloisa had her own, rather unconventional ideas. According to her, only free-given love had meaning and the right to exist, and not what she called "the chains of marriage." And Peter wrote:
“The name of a wife seems to many more sacred and valuable, but for me the word mistress, or concubine, or harlot will always be sweeter.”
Aloisa used the thoughts of writers and troubadours about exquisite love, which said that true love can only exist outside of marriage. Such attitudes were contrary to the conditions that bound medieval society. In the end, her loved ones insisted and Aloisa agreed to a secret marriage. Peter Adelyard married his beauty. But a little later, the young woman suddenly retired to the nunnery. Her uncle and relatives suspected that Peter had deceived them by avoiding marriage by making her a nun. Their revenge was swift and brutal.
“One night I slept peacefully in the back room of my dwelling. They bribed one of my servants to let them in. And cruelly retaliated against me in such a terrible barbaric way that it shocked the whole world. They cut off a part of my body through which I committed the injustice they complained about."
After that, Adelyard retired to a monastery forever, and Aloisa actually became a nun. Their correspondence gives us an opportunity to look inside the medieval affairs of the heart.
Years later, Aloise, already an abbess, in her letter to Adelyard said that she still had a strong sexual attraction to her castrated husband:
“The pleasure we then shared was too sweet. It is unlikely that he can be expelled from my thoughts, awakening melancholy and fantasies. Even during mass, obscene visions of those pleasures overwhelm my unfortunate soul. And all my thoughts are in debauchery, and not in prayers.
The ideas that began with the troubadours have transformed our culture. A language of romance, sexual longing, unrequited love and unbridled desire was born. The principles established in the Middle Ages persist to this day.
However, nothing could be more offensive to the medieval church than the idea of human sexual pleasure. In the 13th century in England there were about 40,000 clergy, 17,000 monks, 10,000 parish priests, and they had to interfere in the sexual life of believers. Of course, the views of the church on the carnal pleasures of the flock (and not their own) differed significantly from the views of the troubadours.
“The dirty embrace of the flesh gives off fumes and contaminates anyone who sticks to it. And no one escapes unscathed from the sting of pleasure."
The Church Fathers worked tirelessly to turn their flock away from the sensual pleasures they officially denied.
“This is a sinful act, an abominable act, bestial copulation, a shameless union. This is a dirty, stinking, dissolute business!”
An author in the twelfth century had a useful hint on how to control lustful desires for a woman:
“Try to imagine what her body looks like inside. Think about what is under the skin inside the body! What could be more disgusting to look at, more disgusting to touch, more stinking to breathe. And if that wasn't enough, try to imagine her dead body! What could be more terrible than a corpse, and what in the world could be more disgusting for her lover, who until recently was full of wild desire for this fetid flesh.
In the medieval world, people were in the middle between animals and angels. Unfortunately for the priests, the animal always won in sex.
Then the church put forward its own alternative to the immorality of sex.
“Virginity is the highest dignity, magnificent beauty, source of life, incomparable song, crown of faith, support for hope. A mirror of purity, closeness to angels, food and support for the most enduring love."
In the monasteries, virginity was a treasure to be dedicated only to the divine bridegroom. Here the young woman became the "bride of Christ." The virginity of these young ladies was a treasure to be dedicated to Jesus. Medieval texts often say that there is still something sensual in a woman's passionate devotion to Christ. Jacques Demitre in 1220 describes several nuns so weakened by the ecstasy of love for the son of God that they were already forced to rest from reading the Bible. They melted away from the astounding love of the god until they buckled under the burden of desire. For many years they did not get out of bed.
“Oh noble eagles and tender lamb! O burning flame, embrace me! How long can I stay dry? One hour is too hard for me! One day is like a thousand years!
At times the distinction between sensual and spiritual love disappears altogether.
A certain Angela of Folinia took the idea of being "the bride of Christ" quite literally:
“I stood in front of the crucifix and was overwhelmed with such fire that I took off all my clothes and offered all of me to Him. I promised Him, although I was afraid, to always maintain my chastity and not offend him with any of my members. My feeling is more transparent than glass, whiter than snow, brighter than the sun ... "
Cutting your hair is a symbol that you renounce your earthly beauty... And now you dedicate yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ... You will become Christ's bride, a servant of Christ... Christ will be your love, your bread, wine, your water. ..
(From the French artistic series "Borgia")
The cult of virginity dominated the minds of many women, sometimes giving rise to genuine tragedies.
Take the story of the Baptism of Marquiate. She was from a prosperous English family. A guy from her entourage, Veprod, wooed her and received the approval of her parents. But Christina agreed on one condition: she would remain a virgin for life. She had already sworn to that. Her parents laughed at her, did not allow her to go to church often, go to parties with her friends and gave her love potions. Finally, they agreed with Veprod that they would let him into the house at night. But Christina did not allow the guy to talk about love and take her to bed, but began to tell exemplary stories of chaste marriages. In the event of marriage, she promised to live with him in such a way that "so that other townspeople do not mock you that I refused you." But, nevertheless, she must remain a virgin.
These moralizing conversations were, apparently, so boring that the guy lost his desire. Veprod this time was left without sex.
Friends laughed at him and teased him. Therefore, he made another attempt to penetrate the house and take possession of it in order to deprive his love of these absurd ideas once and for all. Burning with lust, not without the help of relatives of the girl, the guy broke into the bedroom to rape his future wife. But she somehow miraculously hid from him in the depths of the house.
Christina's stubbornness and stupidity infuriated her parents. Her father threatened to kick her out of the house, and her mother grabbed the girl by the hair and beat her. Only visions of the Virgin Mary supported her in trials. To avoid the wrath of the family and sexual intercourse with the groom, Christina ran away from home and became a recluse. Two years later, Veprod gave in and freed her from marriage obligations, and soon married another girl who had a less absurd character.
Christina and the cult of virginity emerge victorious from this bitter family conflict. This girl founded a convent, where she received equally absurd fools and died a virgin, devoted in her "marriage" to Christ. (Lord, there are such stuffed fools!)
Most, of course, would rather marry a flesh-and-blood man or woman than a mythical god, even the most beautiful. People wanted marriage, sexual intercourse, the pleasures of it, and children. But the bedroom and sex were the territories that the church stubbornly wanted to subjugate and completely control. However, marriages in the early Middle Ages had little to do with the church. They were entered into very informally.
Here is a description of a peasant wedding given by a witness in court case in Yotta:
“At three o'clock after nine, John Big Shorney, sitting on a bench, called Margeret to him and said to her: “Will you be my wife?” And she answered: “Yes, I will, if you want!” And, taking the right hand of the said Margeret, John said: “Margeret, I take you as my wife! And in joy, and in sorrow, I will be with you until the end of my days!
Such an ordinary approach horrified the church authorities. In 1218 the charter for the Diocese of Salisbury was amended. It was legalized that marriages should be celebrated with reverence and honor, and not with laughter and jokes in a tavern or at public drinking parties. No one has the right to put a ring on a finger, made of reeds or other material, cheap or precious, on a girl’s hand in order to freely commit adultery with her, because he can later say that he was joking, although in fact he bound himself with marital duties. ” .
"Marriage," the church argued, "is not a contract, but a religious event."
Over time, it was declared a sacrament, like baptism or confession.
As far as sex was concerned, for the church, marriage did not excuse unlimited lovemaking. What Saint Augustine said became a proverb: “Passionate love for one’s own wife is adultery!” Procreation was the only legitimate reason for sexual intercourse. And it was a big responsibility. And no pleasure and thoughts about it!
Only the church, through its religious courts, dealt with what should or should not happen in the marriage bed.
John, a man from York, was accused by his wife of impotence. Various efforts were made to awaken him. This procedure has been documented in court records:
“The witness exposed her bare breasts, and with her hands, warmed by the fire, held and rubbed John's naked member and his testicles, hugging and kissing them often. She excited him before the court to show courage and potency, urging him to prove them to the judges and take her right here on the table in the courtroom. She pointed out to the court that all this time his penis remained barely 7 centimeters long, without any signs of enlargement and hardness ... "(6)
In 1215, in Rome, Pope Innocent III intervened sharply in the sexual affairs of believers. He issued a bull, according to which all Christians were required to confess their sins and sinful thoughts at least once a year. This decision was supposed to help the clergy root out depravity. To help priests take confession, decide what questions to ask, assess the seriousness of the sins they hear about, and understand what to do about them, encyclopedias known as the Confessor's Guide were widely circulated. The biggest chapter in this guide to sin was, of course, sex. The main idea for confessors: sexual relations can only be in marriage and only for the birth of heirs. Any other form of sexual activity, including sex for pleasure and not for conception, sex by rubbing the penis against the chest, buttocks, between the legs of the wife without inserting it inside the woman, and even more so self-satisfaction, ejaculation outside the woman's body, were considered a sin.
But even in marriage, sexual relations were not an easy issue. To avoid sin, the church had a checklist that a husband must first read before having his wife:
"Is your wife menstruating?"
"Is your wife pregnant?"
"Is your wife breastfeeding a child?"
"Now is the great post?"
"Now is the second coming of Christ?"
"Today is Sunday?"
"Is it a week since Trinity?"
"Easter week?"
"Is today Wednesday or Friday?"
“Is today a fast day? Holiday?"
"Are you naked?"
"Are you in church?"
"Did you wake up this morning with a stiff penis?"
If you answered “no” to all these questions, then the church, so be it, on this day allowed married couples to have sex once a week and never again! But only in a missionary position, in the dark, with eyes closed, without groans, even if you want to scream with pleasure and without showing your other half that you were pleased! Otherwise, God's disfavor and hell await you! After all, He is the all-seeing eye, he watches over all of us, and even such a bastard will not turn away when you enjoy with your beloved wife (option: with your beloved husband)! And, God forbid, not in the position that He prescribed to us through His prophets, or did not do it the way and not what He likes in the sexual acts of people! Fuck you! In that world, he will definitely punish!
Thus, the church regulated when, where, with whom, and in what way one could have sex. Those who broke these rules even in thought were to be punished. Punishment or penance included a complex system of hunger strikes and abstinences separately for each sin:
For adultery, even in thoughts - penance for two years!
For treason twice - five years!
For sex with an animal - seven years!
There were also special questions for women:
"Have you used your husband's sperm to ignite your passion?" - five years!
"Have you secretly added your menstrual blood to your husband's food to agitate him?" - ten years!
“Would you like your husband to bite or kiss your breasts?” - five years!
“Have you ever wanted your husband to kiss or lick between your legs?” - seven years!
"Would you like to take your husband's penis in the pharynx?" - six years!
"Did you want to swallow your husband's seed?" - seven years!
“Have you watched your husband ejaculate? - two years!
“Did you give yourself to your husband, throwing your legs over his shoulders?” - one year!
“The same, in the position, sitting on his lap?” - two years!
"The same if you're on top of a man?" - three years!
“Did you allow yourself to be mastered in a doggy position, on all fours?” - four years!
“Have you ever had a desire to give yourself to your husband in the anus?” - nine years.
The process of confessions and penances regulated every aspect of the believers' sexual life and systematized a sliding scale of punishments. And for those who chose to defy the rules, there was a completely different level of investigation and retribution.
Aside from the mystery of confession stood a religious court, one where the sins of the believers were to be exposed and publicly condemned. The creation of religious courts greatly expanded the church's control over people's behavior, including in bed. Confession was common. It was completely different! Because of a misunderstood phrase said in a tavern, anyone could be called to court on suspicion of his behavior and the assumption that in bed, even with his wife, he does something that is not approved by the church. The minds of church authorities were occupied with intimate relationships, and even with the sinful thoughts of man. Judges could impose harsh punishments, excommunications, fines, public penances, and executions by stake, hanging, or drowning.
Here are the records from the books with records of court cases that were obeyed by the ecclesiastical judicial authorities in the dioceses of some English cities in the 14th century:
“John Warren was accused of extramarital affairs with Helen Lanson. Both appeared and confessed their sin, and swore not to sin again under penalty of a fine of 40 pence. Both were ordered to be whipped publicly three times near the church.
“Thomas Thornton, clergyman, is believed to have had an extramarital affair with Aless, daughter of Robert Masner. As punishment for seducing a church official, she was sentenced to 12 lashes in the marketplace and 12 lashes outside the church, naked, wearing only one shirt.” (“The seduced” minister of the church, presumably, escaped with a slight fright.)
“Teenager Michael Smith, 13 years old, was convicted of sinful thoughts while singing in the church choir, because during the service his pants bulged when he saw the priest bending over the fallen gospel, turned his back to him. Sentenced to 10 lashes outside a church." (Apparently, the priest who dropped the book unknowingly gave away that pose that the teenager focused his attention on it!)
“Edwin Cairncros, a teenager of 14 years old, was convicted of masturbating with his pants down, lying on his side, while simultaneously sticking a saliva-moistened forefinger into his anus and lowering his sinful seed in front of him on the straw. Sentenced to 14 lashes in the marketplace."
“Alain Solostell, aged 15, the son of a fishmonger, repeatedly allowed his dog to lick his penis, testicles and anus, confessed to receiving sinful pleasure from this several times, while lowering his semen on his stomach or on his dog’s tongue. Sentenced to 18 lashes outside a church. The dog was hanged. Alain Solostell cried, asked to spare the animal, showed that it was his fault, accustoming the dog to sin. He asked the court to increase his punishment to 40 blows, just to save the life of the dog. The court remained adamant."
“Beatrice, daughter of William Ditis, is pregnant by no one knows. Appeared in the meeting room and confessed to sin. She was pardoned. I vowed not to sin again. Sentenced to 6 lashes outside a church on Sunday and holidays before the whole procession" (8).
Religious authorities relied heavily on fear and shame to maintain order among the congregation and keep them within the bounds of their permitted sexual relations. The church apparatus across the country has been enlisted to have access to the sexual activity of believers! For the church, sexual purity was the ideal. But physiologically, it was difficult for any healthy person to live up to the ideal, including priests and members of religious tribunals.
Take, for example, a book transcribed by the monks of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury around 1200. The first half of the book is harmless and rather boring. This is the history of the English bishops. But at the end there is a series of pornographic stories written by the monks with great sexual details and, obviously, they enjoyed. One of them concerns the story of a husband and wife who undertook a pilgrimage to the "holy land". One night they took refuge in the depths of a cave. But then nine Saracens enter the cave (9). They light torches, undress and begin to bathe, helping each other. From touch they are excited.
When the woman saw the powerful genitals of young guys, rearing members, she was so excited that she immediately forced her husband to repeatedly make love to her. (One must think that the Saracens do not hear anything and do not notice anything!) On the fourth time, the hubby could no longer and fell asleep. Then the woman offered herself to the Saracens. All nine...
What follows is quite detailed description group sex with her young lustful males. Nine guys had it in different positions and in all cavities, alternately changing each other, or even two at the same time. (It was the husband's turn to pretend that he was sleeping.) But the Saracens were simply exhausted during the night by this lustful female.
In the morning, all of them, sleepy (except for the husband), but satisfied (including the husband), parted, warmly saying goodbye. However, having visited the “holy land” and bowed to the “holy places”, this lady was cleansed of “filth” and sinful thoughts, became a respectable parishioner, did not allow intimacy, even with her husband ... (If this is so, it remains only to sympathize her spouse. Although, however ... I wonder if there is at least one person who believes in such an absurd religious end to this story? One might think that from a pilgrimage to the "holy land" the physiology of a woman in some miraculous way religion) has changed!.. But, most likely, without such an artificially created ending, this plot could not have been included in such a collection.)
Priests were supposed to be single, it was in the late Middle Ages that church authorities decided that they could no longer marry. However, you can put on a dignity, but what to do with your physiology? Therefore, most of them circumvented these prohibitions, in their youth living with mistresses, wives of other men, or finding joy with boys and young servants, skillfully corrupting them. Even then, the people understood perfectly well that priests are endowed with the same human and sexual desires as everyone else. Therefore, he willingly laughed at the servants of God, who put on a vow of celibacy. The clergy became the targets of satirical pamphlets and poems:
>> “What do priests do without their own wives?
They are forced to look for others.
They have no fear, they have no shame
When married women are taken to bed
Or beautiful boys...
The medieval clergy had other ways to satisfy their sexual desires, using methods even older than the church itself. Records from the Dijon brothel in France indicate that at least 20% of the clientele were churchmen. Elderly monks, itinerant monks, canons, parish priests - they all visited prostitutes in the city baths. Therefore, venereal diseases spread very quickly.
Medieval brothels could provide churchmen, in addition to sexual satisfaction, also with a good income. The Bishop of Ventchester was regularly paid from the brothels in Salsford's red-light district. That is why prostitutes from there were called "Venchester geese."
But what is due to Jupiter is not due to the bull. The behavior of the clergy and their participation in depraved sex did not prevent the clergy from punishing their flock for most types of sexual activity of believers.
However, there was one kind of sex that the church in other people condemned especially severely ... The sin of sodomy! It turns out that medieval churchmen understood male homosexuality quite well! And then there was someone to punish! It was a time when thousands of men lived together in communities and rarely saw women.
“My eyes long to see your face, the most beloved! My arms reach out for your embrace! My lips yearn for your kisses! So that there is no left for me in the world of desires, your company will make my soul full of joy in the future.
Such words sound erotic even to today's heterosexually oriented readers, if one imagines that they are written to a lady. But such language was very common among young men of that time and had a pronounced homosexual coloring. And the above lines are addressed specifically to a young man, as the story tells, a young man of rare physical beauty.
What lustful rabbit wrote them? Perverted aristocrat? An unbridled citizen? A peasant not afraid of God? No. These lines are written by the most zealous campaigner against homosexuality, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. According to Anselm, "this deadly vice spread throughout England." The bishop warned that the islanders would face the fate of the lustful inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah if they were subjected to this sin. However, the punishment for the sin of Sodom is waiting for someone else, the bishop himself does not shy away from such relations, apparently believing that closeness to God will protect him from divine punishments.
Fearing divine retribution, medieval society imposed horrendous punishments for any kind of sexual behavior that was considered unnatural. Castration was the punishment in Portugal and Castile, and hanging for a man's penis in Sieny. In 1288, in Polonia, homosexual contacts were punished by death by burning at the stake. But somehow, always, at all times, there was some indestructible group of people who experienced an irresistible sexual attraction to people of the same sex, no matter how terrible the punishment could be. For, as Nicholas Stoller states, "The real delight<…>we experience when we balance between danger and peace.”
According to the church, afterlife homosexuals were no better off. Some depictions of late medieval Italy show sodomites burning in eternal hell. One of the images shows a sodomite who is pierced through the anus to the mouth with a skewer and the devil roasts him over a hot fire. The other end of the skewer coming out of the sinner's mouth enters the mouth of another naked guy sitting next to him. There is a clear allusion here, where the punishment for homosexuals is a mirror image of their methods of obtaining sexual release. We see the allusion to anal sex by piercing the anus. And the pierced mouth is an allusion to oral sex.
At the end of the 14th century in Perugia, an Italian drama about the last judgment enumerates God's punishments to which sinners will undergo in hell. At the very climax of the drama, Christ describes the punishments for sodomites:
“You stinking sodomites tormented me day and night! Get out immediately to hell, and stay there in torment! Immediately send them to the fire, as they sinned against nature! You damned sodomites, roast like pigs!”
And then Satan tells one of the devils to turn this homosexual roast well. It's a very clear allusion to the roasting sodomite...
In general, Christian Europe, the entire flock (acre, of course, God's servants who sinned with their lovers in the same way - humanity did not invent anything new in sex) was waiting for such a terrible punishment for such unbridled sexual deviation.
A religious court could consider any ejaculation of a man outside a woman's vagina as a "sodomic sin": between her breasts, thighs, or buttocks, in her arm, on a woman's face, on her back, or on her stomach. Any man could be called a sodomite if he had a Jewess, or a Jew if he slept with a non-Jewish woman. And this in Spain, Portugal or France could end in burning at the stake. So, the draconian Nuremberg Laws were not an invention of German Nazism!
At the same time, many of the most holy popes of Rome did not hesitate to deal with the “sin of Sodom”, despite the outwardly negative attitude towards it of the Roman Catholic Church and the “holy” scripture.
Of the popes, they became famous for their homosexuality: Vigilius (among other things, he loved young boys. And once he killed with a rod the unfortunate 12-year-old teenager who dared to resist him. This led to a rebellion. The rebellious people dragged the pope out of the palace and dragged him through the streets on a rope Rome, subjecting him to scourging. However, everything ended there. The publicly flogged pope returned to the palace in the evening and continued to rule the Catholics as if nothing had happened until he was poisoned by his successor.), Martin I and bestiality), Sergius I (even issued a bull, according to which everything is permitted, as long as it was covered), Nicholas I, John VIII (fell in love with a handsome married man, whom he ordered to be kidnapped and with whom he later cohabited, while in revenge was not poisoned by his lover's wife), Adrian III, Benedict IV (under which, as stated in a letter from his contemporary priest, the houses of the Church Fathers "turn into a haven of harlots and sodomites"), Boniface VII, Boniface IX, Sylvester III, John XII , Gregory VII, Innocent II, John XII (ascended the papal throne at the age of 18), Benedict IX (received papal power at the age of 15), Paul II (known for collecting antiquities and ancient art, the obligatory attribute of which was a naked beautiful male nature, seduced the beautiful monks who served him), Sixtus IV (who shamelessly raised his lovers to the dignity of a cardinal), Calist III (who corrupted his own son and cohabited with him without a twinge of conscience), Innocent X (introduced his lover Astalli to the college of cardinals - young man, whom he passionately fell in love with), Alexander VI Borgia, Alexander VII (whom subordinates called “the child of Sodom” behind their backs), Julius II (cohabited with illegitimate sons, nephews, cardinals), Leo X (was the lover of Julius II), Paul III, Julius III, Sixtus V, Innocent X, Adrian VII, Pius VI...
Oh, yes, how many of them were there - Sodom and Gomorrah! ..
Yes, dads! Saint Augustine himself, the founder of Catholic asceticism (to which he apparently came after he became impotent) in his "Confession" repented that in his youth he indulged in this "shameful love."
The founder of the Order of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, who loved young novices, was also a homosexual! Loved very young boys and young guys and the founder of the Franciscan order, Francis of Assia! What do they all care about biblical prohibitions when it comes to their own sexuality, personal physiology and their own pleasures! Prohibitions are for others, for the flock, for these sheep who sincerely believe in everything that is written in the Bible! schools")
... I must say, the "prophets" in general often foreshadowed death. (Otherwise, who will listen to them!?) They soon demanded terrible protection.
In 1348 William of Edandon, Bishop of Winchester, wrote to all the clergy of his diocese:
“It is with regret that we report the news that has reached our ears. A cruel plague began to attack the coastal regions of England. Although the Lord punishes us for our frequent sins, it is not in human power to understand the divine plan. One must be afraid of human sensuality, whose fire flared up as a result of original sin, which established even greater depths of evil, producing various sins that caused divine wrath and its revenge.
« Black Death killed half the population of Europe. The infected were swollen with boils the size of an egg or an apple. They vomited black and green liquid and coughed up blood. This resulted in a quick and painful death. Relations fell apart.
“Brother left brother, uncle left nephew, sister left brother and wife left husband,” lamented Boccaccio.
For Bishop of Rocher Thomas Brinton, the onset of the plague was God's punishment for the sins of his contemporaries:
“There is so much debauchery and adultery on all sides that only a few men are satisfied with their own wives. But every man covets his neighbor's wife, keeps a stinking mistress, or makes nightly pleasures with a boy. This is behavior that deserves a terrible and miserable death,” he wrote.
The Black Death was the apocalypse of the 14th century. But so it was! It was a payment for non-observance of elementary hygiene, about which even doctors then had a vague idea. Non-compliance with hygiene, not God's punishment for "sins"! As soon as people began to wash more often, wash their hands before eating, regularly change bedding and "God's punishments" immediately stopped. Although the physiology and sexual desires of a person remained at the same level!
The medieval world was much less secure than ours today. A complex world of passions and romance, misogyny and eternal love for your beloved, for whom you are not afraid to die, infant mortality and adult cruelty, piety and poetry, human stupidity and the search for truth. In that world there were girls who were seduced by men, and boys who attracted mature husbands with their youth, virgins devoted to Christ, and priests who indulged in all the pleasures of the flesh. It was a life that, it must be said, became difficult for some, short for others. But just as sexually intense and not entirely cruel, if a person and his love knew how to keep the secrets of his sexuality from society, his confessors and the state ...
» After:
>> My sexuality is only my sexuality. It belongs to no one: not to my country, not to my religion, not to society, not to my brother, not to my sister, not to my family. No one!
Ashraf ZANATI
__________________________
(1) Author's note: So, maybe this is the norm of human existence and relationships, if the majority seeks to have fun on the side? And those few who are "satisfied with their own wives" are some kind of aberration? After all, adultery (sexual betrayal) is characteristic of the entire animal world. Zoologists have established: only two species remain faithful once and for all to their chosen partner - leeches and shrimps. But this is not because they are so "moral", intelligent and God-fearing, but because this is due to their physiological being. Like this! All! The rest seek to diversify their sensations! Therefore, the norm is where the majority is! And the sexual relations of a human being are no exception here ...
(2) Author's note: God has nothing else to do - first give a person sexual pleasure, and then forbid him to use it, prescribing what and how to do, and what and how not! And follow, follow everyone, literally everyone, in order to be sure to punish them later! Not a god, but some kind of sadist!
(3) Guido Ruggiero "The Limits of Eros".
(4) In other words, these young men were from wealthy families, did not need funds, and at night they walked around the city not for robbery, but were looking for adventure for their penis and testicles! It is curious about what “method condemned by the church” - who else could condemn in those centuries? Society, huh? says this young scoundrel? The Church already then condemned any ejaculation of a man outside the female vagina.
(5) And this is closer to bi- or even to homosexuality. In these lines, completely different feelings of the author of the letter to his friend can be clearly traced. This is more than friendship! Yes, and according to Freud, through the intercourse of a group with the same woman, the guys in this way, deep down, have sex with each other. This is especially true if they are excited to watch the sexual acts of their friends, buddies and comrades. Or for someone to see their sexual intercourse.
(6) C. Perugio “Psychoanalysis of youthful eroticism. What letters from the past can tell, Rome, 1959
(7) It turns out that the parents of the guys are aware of the nightly fun of their underage!
(8) Record of the Religious Court, York, 1233.
(9) Saracens (literally from Greek - "eastern people") - a people mentioned by the ancient Roman historian of the 4th century Ammianus Marcellinus and the Greek scientist of the 1st-2nd centuries. AD Ptolemy. Nomadic bandit tribe, Bedouins, who lived along the borders of Syria. From the time of the Crusades, European authors began to refer to all Muslims as Saracens, often using the term "Moors" as a synonym.
Reviews
God, dear Author, you approached the writing of the article so seriously! Could you advise me the authors who write about the history of Europe, starting from the fifteenth century? I am especially concerned about France, Italy, Burgundy and Spain... And I am also interested in a more detailed study of the life of people living in the Renaissance. In addition, it haunts what the legislative system was like ...
What a blessing that we live in modern world, where there is adequate medicine and high technologies that allow you to live in comfort. With enviable constancy, manufacturers release new gadgets, and doctors are tirelessly looking for cures for all sorts of diseases, but our distant ancestors were not as lucky as you and I. Ancient people relieved themselves in public toilets, which could explode at any moment, and also panicked when they noticed a pimple on their face, which was then often mistaken for leprosy.
Great Need
Every person, for sure, once went to a terribly neglected public toilet, which seemed to him just the embodiment of all nightmares. However, this is nothing compared to ancient public toilets. Toilets in ancient Rome were a real test of courage. They were ordinary stone benches with an irregularly cut hole that led to the city's primitive sewer system. Such a direct connection to the sewers meant that all sorts of vile creatures that live in the sewers could sink their teeth into the unfortunate toilet visitor's bare buttocks.
To make matters worse, the constant accumulation of methane levels led to the fact that often the toilets simply exploded. In order to simply survive when visiting the toilet, the Romans applied images of the goddess of fortune Fortuna and conspiracies to ward off evil spirits on the walls of the toilets.
Job search
In England in the 1500s it was illegal to be unemployed. The government treated the unemployed as second-class citizens, and punished them for crimes much harsher. Also, unemployed people should not have traveled, because if they were caught, they were branded as vagrants, beaten and sent back.
Problem skin
Skin conditions such as acne or psoriasis can certainly seem like a nightmare to many. However, thanks to hundreds of creams and tablets, today it is possible, if not cured, then at least to stop exacerbations. But this was not at all the case in the Middle Ages, when a large pimple could mean panic and expectation of imminent death. Because of the rampant paranoia associated with leprosy, many less serious skin conditions, such as psoriasis, were often mistaken for signs of a terrible disease.
As a result, people with psoriasis or dermatitis were often evicted to the leper colony as if they had leprosy. And if they lived among "ordinary" people, they were forced to wear special clothes and a bell to warn healthy people about their approach. And in France in the 14th century, many psoriasis patients were mistakenly burned at the stake.
Going to the theater
Today, going to the theater or cinema is considered a completely cultural and safe way to spend your leisure time. But a couple of hundred years ago it was a deadly occupation. The theater houses and music halls of the 1800s were notorious for being built haphazardly, constantly overcrowded, and highly flammable. Therefore, even if it was lucky that there was no fire with many deaths, there were often crushes at the exit caused by false alarms.
In England alone, more than 80 people have died in theaters in just two decades. And the worst theatrical tragedy in history happened at the Chicago Iroquois Theater in 1903 - the flames claimed the lives of more than 600 people.
Fighting
While fights don't happen every day, in the Middle Ages, any minor skirmish could quickly turn into a deadly fight. For example, Oxford University in the 14th century was far from being as refined as it is now. In February 1355, a group of drunken students at a local tavern insulted the quality of the wine they were served.
The irritated innkeeper did not hesitate to answer. This eventually led to the epic slaughter that became known as Saint Scholastica's Day. 62 students were killed.
Vote
Today, voting at worst can be met with annoyingly long lines and the slow realization that the vote cast has little to no impact. However, in the 19th century, only the most die-hard supporters of democracy were brave enough to take to the streets on election day. Everyone else barricaded themselves in their houses so they wouldn't be kidnapped.
So-called "cooping" was a common practice in which street gangs, bribed by political parties, kidnapped people off the street and forced them to vote for their candidate. Victims were kept in a dark basement or back room, threatened with torture, and forcibly drugged for several days to make them more compliant before being taken to the polling station.
Working with the police
While admittedly no one likes talking to the police today, that's nothing compared to what happened a couple of centuries ago. The inhabitants of 18th century London had significant cause for concern when they encountered a policeman on their way. Many of these police officers were impostors who used the trust of the masses for their own nefarious purposes.
Some just used a fake cop badge to squeeze some easy money out of people, but the real thugs went much further. These false officers caught young women at night under the pretense of "suspicious activity". This led to the fact that the townspeople avoided real policemen by any means, which only made them easy prey for criminals.
Buying spices
In the Middle Ages, many spices were considered medicines or even hard currency. Moreover, they even regularly killed for spices. For example, nutmeg was once found only in the outlying Banda Islands. Over the course of several centuries, the spice wars virtually wiped out the indigenous population as various European powers sought to seize control of these islands. More than 6,000 people died.
Hospital trip
They had no education, and newspapers were full of advertisements for the recruitment of medical staff "without work experience." This crazy practice has led to more than one tragic incident in hospitals.
Walk around the city
Apparently, people in the Middle Ages couldn't even walk quietly around the city without something outrageous. For example, public nudity was quite fashionable during the 17th and 18th centuries. Ironically, most of the followers of this liberal new trend were religious.
Representatives of such movements as the Ranters and Quakers argued that God is in everything, so nothing can be considered evil or inappropriate. They reveled in sex and drugs and walked naked through the streets. It turns out that the hippies of the 20th century were quite modest.
Popular paintings of the Middle Ages rarely delve deeply into the details of life. ordinary people. However, it is these often overlooked points that can be extraordinary. It seems that modern scientists are beginning to understand that when it comes to the inhabitants of the cities of the Middle Ages, nothing can be taken for granted.
Long finished with a primitive rural life, people during the Middle Ages had their own rituals and customs and were distinguished by rather complex relationships. It is possible that it is precisely the small everyday details that can most of all strike the imagination of a modern person. Simple things could drive society into a deadly frenzy, and the approach to marriage and parenting had little to do with what we have now.
10. Disturbed graves
About 40 percent of the burials of medieval Europe have traces of significant damage. Previously, unscrupulous robbers were accused of this, but recent excavations at two cemeteries have shown that this could also be the work of respectable residents. The Austrian cemetery of Brunn am Gebirge contained 42 graves of the Lombards, a sixth-century Germanic tribe. All the graves, except one, were damaged, and the nature of the damage was the same everywhere.
Most of the graves were missing skulls. At the same time, two skulls were noted in two graves. Many bones were mixed with some kind of tool. The motive for these actions is not clear, but it is possible that the inhabitants were trying in this way to prevent the revival of the undead. In addition, there is a version that the Lombards, relatives of the deceased, left the skulls for themselves as a reminder of their loved ones.
In the English cemetery of Wynnall II (seventh and eighth centuries), the skeletons were bound and decapitated, their legs bent or twisted; in addition, the graves contained "extra" human bones. Initially, it was believed that this was part of some unusual funeral rite, but much evidence has been found that all manipulations were carried out much later than the funeral. It is likely that they were all performed for the same purpose - to calm down the restless dead.
9 Marriage Was Hard To Prove
Getting married in medieval England was easier than tripping over a log. All that was required for marriage was the presence of a man, a woman and their verbal consent to conclude an alliance. If the girl was already 12 years old and the boy was 14, then no consent from the family was required. And not a single church and not a single priest participated in this process.
People often entered into a marriage union anywhere, whether in a local pub or a bed. (Engagement in sexual relations was automatically considered marriage.) The Church warned against the dangers of such a hasty marriage. She warned young men that they should not abuse the trust of girls for the sake of having sex with them. As a rule, if it came to litigation related to marital relations, it was necessary to prove that the wedding really took place.
If the couple had no witnesses, it was difficult to prove a voluntary union, and it was for this reason that the presence of a priest was encouraged. Divorce could take place, first of all, for the reason that the union was never legal. In addition, the reason for the divorce could be the clarification of the fact that one of the spouses was already married, that the spouses turned out to be relatives (distant family ties were often simply invented), or that one of the spouses was not a Christian.
8 Men Were Treated For Infertility
IN ancient world in the absence of children in the family, the wife was usually blamed. It was assumed that this was also the case in medieval England, but researchers have found evidence to the contrary. Starting from the 13th century, it was believed that men could also be the culprits of infertility, and the problems of male reproduction are discussed in medical books of that time.
The pages of the books contain very peculiar recommendations for determining the infertile partner and how to treat him. In particular, both spouses had to urinate into separate containers of bran, seal them for nine days, and then check them for worms. If it turned out that the husband needed treatment, then several options for curing him from the “inappropriate seed” were assumed. For example, one of the recipes suggested drying pig testicles in the ground, after which three days drink them with wine.
Although doctors were sympathetic to male infertility, medieval courts were less lenient. A wife could divorce her husband if he was impotent.
7. Pupilized Teenagers Caused a Lot of Trouble
In Northern Europe, it was the custom for parents to give their grown children as apprentices, usually training lasted for ten years. Thus, the family got rid of the extra mouth, and the master received cheap labor.
The letters of the students of those times that have survived to this day show that their life was quite harsh. Some historians believe that the most disobedient were given as students, as parents hoped that the training would have a positive effect. It is possible that the masters knew about this, so many of them signed a contract on how the student should behave. However, apprentices have gained a bad reputation. Being away from their families, they resented their working life and, having contacted the same dissatisfied, strayed into youth gangs.
Most often they gambled and visited brothels. In Germany, France, and Switzerland, they buzzed on holidays, disrupted the order, and once even staged a city-wide pogrom. On the streets of London there were whole battles between various guilds, and in 1517 they sacked the city. It is likely that all this came from disappointment. Many understood that, despite many years of training, they had no guarantees of future work.
6. The real life of old people in the Middle Ages
In England at the beginning of the Middle Ages, a person at the age of 50 was already considered old. British scientists have described this era as the "golden age" of the elderly. It was believed that society revered them for their wisdom and experience. In reality, this was not entirely true. Obviously, there was no concept of letting someone retire in peace, older people had to prove their worth. Society expected them that in exchange for respect, older members would continue to contribute, especially warriors, pious people, and established authorities. The soldiers continued to fight, and the workers continued to work.
Medieval authors express conflicting opinions about old age. Some agree that the elderly were spiritual leaders, while others refer to them as "centennial children". Actually, old age does not deserve good poetry. The lyrics characterize it as "a foretaste of hell". Another misconception is that everyone died before reaching old age. Some people continued to live normally even in their eighty or ninety years.
5. Everyday mortality
In the Middle Ages, not everyone died from social violence and constant wars. People also died from domestic violence, accidents and too much "active recreation". In 2015 the records of the medieval coroners of Warwickshire, London and Bedfordshire were examined. The results provided a completely new way of looking at everyday life in these areas.
There were real deaths from the teeth of pigs. In 1322, two-month-old Johanna de Ireland died in her crib from being bitten on the head by a pig. Another pig killed a man in 1394. Several people died because of the cows. But, according to the records of coroners, drowned people dominated among the accidental deaths. People drowned in ditches, wells and rivers.
There were also murders. One of the stories details how, in 1276, Joana Clarice cut her husband's throat and literally gutted his brain. Several people died during fights, but not less people died as a result of falls. People fell from trees, rooftops, and just off their feet when they got too drunk. One woman fell from the chair she stood on while trying to reach for a candle. In 1366, John Cook decided to jokingly wrestle with his friend, but the next day he died from his injuries.
4. London was considered one of the worst places
Speaking of violence, suffice it to say that no one wanted to bring their families to London. It was the most cruel city in England. Archaeologists have long pondered over 399 skulls dating from 1050 to 1550. They belonged to representatives of different social classes and were collected from six different London cemeteries. Almost seven percent of them were with suspicious physical injuries. Most of them belonged to people aged 26 to 35 from the poorest sections of society. The cemeteries showed that there was twice as much violence as in any other region, with working-class men often being victims of the most extreme form of aggression.
The coroners' notes gave some ideas about the life of that time. Unreal a large number of the murders took place on Sunday evenings, when most of the poorer classes were in taverns. It is likely that drunken arguments often led to fatal results. In addition, only the upper classes could afford lawyers or participate in duels where both sides had the opportunity to defend themselves. The rest had to settle differences or take revenge through informal methods.
3. Predilections of readers of the Middle Ages
In the XV-XVI centuries, all spheres of people's lives were permeated by religion. Prayer books were especially popular. Using a technique that calculates the number of impressions on the surface of pages, art historians have realized that the dirtier the page, the large quantity readers were attracted by its content.
To understand what were the preferences of that time, as well as possible reasons of this, several prayer books were viewed. The most soiled pages showed that medieval Europeans were not so different from each other. One manuscript contained a prayer dedicated to Saint Sebastian, which was said to save from the plague. This prayer was recited many times, apparently by those who feared illness. A lot of attention was also paid to various prayers for personal salvation - much more than prayers for the salvation of others.
These prayer books were kept in many homes and read daily. However, there is one funny detail. The most frayed of all the books were only the first pages. Obviously, reading them was enough for people to begin to fall asleep.
2. Cats were skinned in the Middle Ages
A study conducted in 2017 showed that the dressing of cat skins was quite common in Spain. This applies to both wild and domestic cats.
1000 years ago, El Bordelle was a peasant village. Among its many medieval finds are pits believed to have been used to store crops. But animal bones were found in some of them, and an unexpectedly large number of them, about 900 skeletons, belonged to cats. They were all in the same hole. Analysis of the bones showed that they belonged to individuals between the ages of nine and twenty months - this is the best age for obtaining a large and intact skin. Another evidence of skinning cats were marks on the bones. They are characteristic of the tools with which skins were usually torn off.
This may make pet lovers cringe, but in Northern Europe, too, cats were killed for the sake of making clothes from their skins. However, researchers believe that in El Bordell, cats may have been killed as part of a religious ritual. In the pit with cat skeletons, a horse skull, a chicken egg and a goat horn were also found. All these items were often used in magical medieval rites.
1. They could have killed you for striped clothes.
Stripes come into fashion again and again every few years, but at that time such an elegant costume could lead to death. In 1310, a French shoemaker decided to walk around in striped clothes during the day and was sentenced to death penalty for this decision. This man did not quite understand that the stripes meant belonging to the devil, and he became a victim of the city's clergy.
Respectable citizens were to avoid lanes at all costs. The evidence base in the documents of the XII and XIII centuries shows that the authorities strictly adhered to this position. Striped clothes were to be worn by the most degraded prostitutes, executioners, lepers, heretics and, for certain reasons, jesters. Even disabled people, illegitimate children, Jews and Africans were exempted from wearing stripes.
Where this hatred for stripes comes from remains a mystery. Why not spots or a cage? No theory can adequately explain the connection between Satan and stripes. One of the rather forced explanations refers to a line from the Bible: "You will not wear a piece of clothing that consists of two." It is possible that someone's medieval brain took this passage as a reference to the stripes. But whatever the reason, XVIII century this intolerance has passed.
(768×1024)
IN THE MIDDLE AGES, contraception was not practiced, so women usually had many children. But the high birth rate was accompanied by high mortality - both for women and children: medicine and hygiene were at the most primitive level. As a result, families turned out to be small: usually with two or three members of the next generation. It was a brutal struggle for survival, with one in two children dying before the age of seven. And although the medieval world was full of children - more than half the population was under 14 years old - few lucky ones lived to adulthood. Life expectancy in medieval Europe in those days was about 30 years in more successful periods, and even then not everywhere, but in unsuccessful ones, when there were epidemics and wars, it was only 20.
The demographic curve of the Middle Ages in the middle of the XIV century cuts the abyss. Until that time, despite the high mortality rate, the population had been slowly but steadily growing. In place of cut down forests and drained marshes, new villages appeared; the size and total number of cities increased. But then came the "Black Death" - an epidemic of bubonic plague and similar diseases that raged in 1347-1350 and claimed the lives of from a third to a half of the entire population of Europe. The plague regularly returned in subsequent times, until the end of the 17th century, it became part of the life of Europeans, but the scope of the epidemics gradually weakened. Dirty, overcrowded cities - the death traps of the Middle Ages - suffered the most. As a result, there were noticeably fewer Europeans in 1500 compared to 1300, and the former life expectancy was also reduced.
Women married before men. In Tuscany of the XIII-XIV centuries, the bride was usually about 19 years old, and the groom was almost ten years older, although the difference could be much larger and, conversely, insignificant. The poet Dante, born in Florence in 1265, married by the age of 20, which was probably more typical. Due to the high mortality rate, one of the spouses could quickly become a widow and remarry. Therefore, the relationship of a child with a stepfather, stepmother, half-brothers and half-sisters was an important component in the life of a medieval family, reflected, in particular, in the plot schemes of fairy tales.
Women who did not die during childbirth could achieve the most independent position, become rich widows. They often had to remarry (noble widows in England often paid the king a lot of money for the right not to remarry). And if they managed to avoid marriage, then they gained independence, in the usual way unattainable for a woman in any stratum of society. The poets of the 12th century, who created the ideal of courtly love, extolled the "lady" who was addressed as "my lady", but in real life the woman almost always submitted to the authority of her husband or male relatives.
Despite the general growth in the number and size of cities, the bulk of the population in the Middle Ages continued to live in villages. Even in urban-rich lands, such as Italy, the number of townspeople never exceeded a quarter of the total population. In the rest of Europe, the share of the urban population was even less - about 10 percent. Most of the people were small peasants who lived and worked on the land. Their position was determined by the size of the allotment and the conditions under which he owned it, that is, the degree of dependence on the feudal lord. Landless peasants and those who had only a kitchen garden made up the rural poor, working for others.
Wealthy peasants, on the other hand, could hire workers for themselves and, increasing production, sell their surplus crops on the market. The degree of dependency also played an important role. Most of the peasants had their own master, sometimes just a landowner, to whom they paid dues, but there could also be a master who completely disposed of them. In the most severe form of dependence, the peasants did not have the right to leave their village, they were obliged to work half a week on the land of the owner, providing him with food and money, asking his permission even for marriage and seeking court only from him or his entourage. It is not surprising that during times of economic or political crises, peasant uprisings often broke out, sometimes developing into real wars, such as the French Jacquerie (1358), Wat Tyler's uprising in England (1381), the performances of the Remens peasants in Catalonia, which resulted in the abolition of serfdom (1486).
The windmill is one of the most useful inventions Middle Ages. But the peasants had to pay a constant fee for using the landowner's mill. Miniature. England, XIV century.
The image of the peasants: a rare plot for stained glass painting. Cathedral in Ely. OK. 1340-1349.
The rural population was engaged in hard labor all year round - whether in the clay fields of Central England, where barley was grown for bread and beer, or in the olive and vineyards of Tuscany. Food and climate may differ from each other, but the endless toil to sustain life was the same everywhere. Technicians in agriculture almost none: the only mechanism - a mill for grinding grain - used the power of water or wind. Water mills in Europe were still under the Romans, and windmills became the most important technical invention of the Middle Ages. They first appeared in the 12th century in England and France, and then quickly spread throughout Europe. However, people had to plow, sow, weed, thresh and harvest by hand or with the help of oxen, which were gradually replaced by working horses. In the Middle Ages, the fate of society directly depended on the vagaries of nature - crop failure meant hunger and death. Several lean years in a row, like the Great Famine of 1315-1317, could drastically reduce the population.
Medieval cities, by modern standards, were small. In a medium-sized city, the population was only a few thousand people, and even in the largest ones, such as Venice, Florence, Milan and Paris, the number of inhabitants did not exceed 100 thousand. Despite this, the medieval city could not be called a "large village": it usually had a certain legal status and performed special functions. Cities were centers of trade and manufacturing. Blacksmiths lived in villages (hence came the most common surname in Europe Smith / Schmidt / Lefebvre and its derivatives), and the workshops of artisans who produced the things necessary for everyday life - shoes, clothes, furniture, dishes and leather goods - were almost always located in cities . People of intellectual labor also lived there: lawyers, doctors, teachers, as well as bankers and merchants. Although there were markets in many villages, a weekly trade fair was held in the city. For her, a special place was certainly assigned to the outskirts, which then became the center public life cities. Merchants and artisans united in guilds - organizations not only economic, but also social. Members of the guild feasted together, prayed together, and provided a dignified funeral for deceased colleagues. The rules of the guilds stipulated who and how should conduct trade.
The rapid development of means of transportation gradually established strong links between cities. Traveled usually by water - it was much cheaper. Italian merchants in the south and the Hanseatic League in the north established maritime trade routes from Egypt and the Black Sea to England and northern Russia. In 1277-1278, the Genoese for the first time undertook a journey directly to Northern Europe, and from 1325 caravans of ships began to depart annually from Venice to Flanders and England. Even though there was less travel on the land, the roads were not empty. On them one could meet merchants, pilgrims going to Santiago, and those who moved to Rome and back on judicial or diplomatic business. During the Middle Ages, communication improved: new bridges and inns eased the hardships of travel, but the speed of movement remained still low.
The first thing that would strike a modern person, if he got into the Middle Ages, is probably the silence and the abundance of natural smells. It was a world of natural materials and non-standard forms. Both wooden, thatched houses, and stone buildings, erected where there was a lot of stone, organically fit into environment. Medieval cities and villages did not seem to be foreign bodies, but natural extensions of nature. Instead of man-made noise, we would hear the voices of people and animals, and the absence of sewerage and waste disposal systems would immediately remind us of ourselves with specific smells. In small medieval dwellings, where peasants often lived with cattle, there was no “personal” space left.
This is what Cologne looked like in the Middle Ages. The majestic choir of the unfinished cathedral rises above the city. To the left of it is visible the southwestern tower, half built, over which hangs a wooden crane.
Jacques Ker - a successful French merchant and banker - was engaged in mining, paper production and manufactory. In 1451, his vast fortune aroused the envy of Charles VII. An excuse was found to deprive a subject of his possessions. The luxurious house of Jacques Coeur in Bourges, where the royal court was then located, has been preserved. Its architecture is full of interesting curiosities like those decorative figurines above the fireplace, as if looking out of the windows.
In the Middle Ages, death was a natural part of Everyday life. In a large village with a hundred houses, funerals took place on average every 18 days. Christians who went to another world did not even take clothes with them - only bishops were buried in full vestments, and priests with a chalice in their hands. The dead were buried in coffins or in the same shrouds. Cemeteries were located interspersed with residential buildings (as opposed to ancient and Islamic customs). It was important for the deceased, who was buried naked in the church cemetery, to help in the afterlife journey, which was served by funeral masses that made it easier for the dead to stay in purgatory. The rich could afford tombstones, but the monuments were more symbols of death and frailty of the flesh than the earthly power of the deceased. For many commoners, only bare earth or a crypt was available. The main thing that death gave after 20-30 years of hard life was "the beginning of peace, the end of labor."
Giotto. Fragment of the painting of the Scrovegni Chapel. 1303-1305 years Wikimedia Commons
Medieval man is first and foremost a believing Christian. In a broad sense, it can be a resident of Ancient Rus', and a Byzantine, and a Greek, and a Coptic, and a Syrian. In a narrow sense, this is a resident Western Europe for which Faith speaks Latin.
When he lived
According to textbooks, the Middle Ages begins with the fall of the Roman Empire. But this does not mean that the first medieval man was born in 476. The process of restructuring the thinking and imaginative world stretched out for centuries - starting, I think, with Christ. To some extent, a medieval person is a convention: there are characters in whom a new European type of consciousness is already manifested within medieval civilization. For example, Peter Abelard, who lived in the 12th century, is somewhat closer to us than to his contemporaries, and in Pico della Mirandola Giovanni Pico della Mirandola(1463-1494) - Italian humanist philosopher, author of "Speech on the Dignity of Man", the treatise "On Being and the One", "900 theses on dialectics, morality, physics, mathematics for public discussion" and so on., who is considered the ideal Renaissance philosopher, is very much medieval. Pictures of the world and era, replacing each other, are simultaneously intertwined. In the same way, in the mind of a medieval person, ideas are intertwined that unite him with us and with his predecessors, and at the same time, these ideas are largely specific.
Search for God
First of all, in the mind of a medieval person, the most important place is occupied by Holy Bible. For the entire Middle Ages, the Bible was the book in which one could find answers to all questions, but these answers were never final. One often hears that the people of the Middle Ages lived according to predetermined truths. This is only partly true: the truth is indeed predetermined, but it is inaccessible and incomprehensible. Unlike Old Testament where there are legislative books, the New Testament does not give clear answers to a single question, and the whole meaning of human life lies in seeking these answers for oneself.
Of course, we are talking primarily about a thinking person, about, for example, someone who writes poetry, treatises, frescoes. Because it is on these artifacts that we restore their picture of the world. And we know they're looking for the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is not of this world, it's out there. But what it is, no one knows. Christ does not say: do so and so. He tells a parable, and then think for yourself. This is the guarantee of a certain freedom of medieval consciousness, a constant creative search.
Saint Denis and Saint Piat. Miniature from the code "Le livre d" images de madame Marie ". France, around 1280-1290 human life
The people of the Middle Ages almost did not know how to take care of themselves. Pregnant wife of Philip III Philip III the Bold(1245-1285) - son of Saint Louis IX, was proclaimed king in Tunisia during the Eighth Crusade, after his father died of the plague., King of France, died after falling from a horse. Who guessed to put her pregnant on a horse?! The son of King Henry I of England Henry I(1068-1135) - younger son of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and King of England William Ætheling, the sole heir, with a drunken crew went out on the night of November 25, 1120 on the best ship of the royal fleet in the English Channel and drowned, breaking on the rocks. The country plunged into turmoil for thirty years, and my father, as a consolation, received a beautiful letter written in stoic tones by Childebert of Lavarden Childebert of Lavarden(1056-1133) - poet, theologian and preacher.: they say do not worry, owning the country, be able to cope with your grief. A dubious consolation for a politician.
Earthly life in those days was not valued, because other life was valued. The vast majority of medieval people do not know the date of birth: why write it down if you die tomorrow?
In the Middle Ages, there was only one ideal of a person - a saint, and only a person who has already passed away can become a saint. This is very important concept, uniting eternity and running time. Until recently, the saint was among us, we could see him, and now he is at the throne of the King. You, here and now, can venerate the relics, look at them, pray to them day and night. Eternity is literally at hand, visible and palpable. Therefore, the relics of the saints were hunted, they were stolen and sawn up - in literally words. One of the associates of Louis IX Louis IX Saint(1214-1270) - King of France, leader of the Seventh and Eighth Crusades. Jean Joinville Jean Joinville(1223-1317) - French historian, biographer of Saint Louis., when the king died and was canonized, he ensured that for him personally a finger was cut off from the royal remains.
Bishop Hugh of Lincoln Hugo Lincoln(circa 1135-1200) - French Carthusian monk, bishop of the diocese of Lincoln, the largest in England. traveled to different monasteries, and the monks showed him their main shrines. When in one monastery they brought the hand of Mary Magdalene to him, the bishop took and bit off two pieces from the bone. The abbot and the monks were dumbfounded at first, then screamed, but the holy man, apparently, was not embarrassed: he de “showed deep respect for the saint, because he also takes the Body of the Lord inside with his teeth and lips.” Then he made himself a bracelet in which he kept the relics of twelve different saints. With this bracelet, his hand was no longer just a hand, but a powerful weapon. Later, he himself was canonized as a saint.
face and name
From the 4th to the 12th centuries, a person seems to have no face. Of course, people distinguished each other by facial features, but everyone knew that the judgment of God is impartial, at the Last Judgment it is not the appearance that is judged, but the actions, the soul of a person. Therefore, there was no individual portrait in the Middle Ages. Somewhere in the XII century, the eyes opened: people became interested in every blade of grass, and after the blade of grass, the whole picture of the world changed. This revival, of course, was reflected in art: in the XII-XIII centuries, sculpture acquired three-dimensionality, emotions began to appear on faces. In the middle of the 13th century, portrait resemblance began to appear in sculptures made for the tombstones of high church hierarchs. Picturesque and sculptural portraits of former sovereigns, not to mention less significant persons, are mainly a tribute to conventions and canons. Nevertheless, one of Giotto's customers, the merchant Scrovegni Enrico Scrovegni- a wealthy Padua merchant, on whose order a house church painted by Giotto was built at the beginning of the 14th century - the Scrovegni Chapel., is already known to us from quite realistic, individualized images, both in his famous Padua chapel and in the tombstone: comparing fresco and sculpture, we see how he has aged!
We know that Dante did not wear a beard, although in " Divine Comedy"His appearance is not described, we know about the heaviness and slowness of Thomas Aquinas, nicknamed the Sicilian Bull by classmates. Behind this nickname there is already attention to the external appearance of a person. We also know that Barbarossa has Frederick I Barbarossa(1122-1190) - Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, one of the leaders of the Third Crusade. there was not only a red beard, but also beautiful hands - someone mentioned this.
The individual voice of a person, sometimes considered to belong to the culture of the New Age, is also heard in the Middle Ages, but for a long time it is heard without a name. There is a voice, but no name. A work of medieval art - a fresco, a miniature, an icon, even a mosaic, the most expensive and prestigious art for many centuries - is almost always anonymous. It is strange for us that the great master does not want to leave his name, but for them the work itself served as a signature. After all, even when all the plots are set, the artist remains an artist: everyone knew how to depict the Annunciation, but a good master always brought his feelings into the image. People knew the names of good masters, but it never occurred to anyone to write them down. And suddenly, somewhere in the XIII-XIV centuries, they acquired names.
Merlin's conception. Miniature from the Codex Français 96. France, circa 1450-1455 Bibliothèque nationale de France Attitude towards sin
In the Middle Ages, of course, there were things that were forbidden and punishable by law. But for the Church, the main thing was not punishment, but repentance.
Medieval man, like us, sinned. Everyone sinned and everyone confessed. If you are a church person, you cannot be sinless. If you have nothing to say in confession, then something is wrong with you. Saint Francis considered himself the last of the sinners. This is the insoluble conflict of a Christian: on the one hand, you should not sin, but on the other hand, if you suddenly decided that you are sinless, then you have become proud. You must imitate the sinless Christ, but in this imitation of yours you cannot cross a certain line. You cannot say: I am Christ. Or: I am an apostle. This is heresy.
The system of sins (which are forgiven, which are unforgivable, which are mortal, which are not) was constantly changing, because they did not stop thinking about it. By the twelfth century, such a science as theology appeared, with its own tools and with its own faculties; one of the tasks of this science was precisely the development of clear guidelines in ethics.
Wealth
For a medieval person, wealth was a means, not an end, because wealth is not in money, but in having people around you - and in order for them to be around you, you must distribute and spend your wealth. Feudalism is primarily a system of human relationships. If you are higher in the hierarchy, you must be a "father" to your vassals. If you are a vassal, you must love your master in fact the same way you love your father or the King of Heaven.
Love
Paradoxically, much in the Middle Ages was done by calculation (not necessarily arithmetic), including marriages. love marriages, known to historians, is a rarity. Most likely, this was not only among the nobility, but also among the peasants, but we know much less about the lower classes: it was not customary to write down who married whom. But if the nobility calculated the profit when they gave away their children, then the poor, who counted every penny, even more so.
Miniature from the Lutrell Psalter. England, circa 1325-1340 british library Peter of Lombard, a 12th-century theologian, wrote that a husband who passionately loves his wife commits adultery. It's not even about the physical component: it's just that if you give yourself too much to your feelings in marriage, you commit adultery, because the point of marriage is not to become attached to any earthly relationship. Of course, this point of view can be considered extreme, but it turned out to be influential. If you look at it from the inside, then it is the reverse side of courtly love: let me remind you that love in marriage is never courtly, moreover, it is always an object of dreaming about possession, but not possession itself.
Symbolism
In any book about the Middle Ages, you will read that this culture is very symbolic. In my opinion, this can be said about any culture. But medieval symbolism was always unidirectional: it somehow correlates with Christian dogma or Christian history that formed this dogma. I mean Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, that is, the history of the saints. And even if some medieval person wants to build his own world inside medieval world like Guillaume of Aquitaine Guillaume IX(1071-1126) - Count of Poitiers, Duke of Aquitaine, the first known troubadour., the creator of a new type of poetry, the world of courtly love and the cult of the Beautiful Lady - this world is still being built, correlating with the system of values of the Church, imitating it in some ways, rejecting it in some ways or even parodying it.
Medieval man generally has a very peculiar way of looking at the world. His gaze is directed through things, behind which he seeks to see a certain world order. Therefore, sometimes it may seem that he did not see the world around him, and if he did, then sub specie aeternitatis - from the point of view of eternity, as a reflection of the divine plan, which appears both in the beauty of Beatrice passing by you, and in a frog falling from the sky (sometimes it was believed that they were born from the rain). good example history serves this, as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux(1091-1153) - French theologian, mystic, led the order of the Cistercians. he rode for a long time along the shores of Lake Geneva, but was so immersed in thought that he did not see him and later asked his companions in surprise what kind of lake they were talking about.
Antiquity and the Middle Ages
It is believed that barbarian invasion swept away all the achievements of previous civilizations from the face of the earth, but this is not entirely true. Western European civilization inherited from Antiquity both the Christian faith and a number of values and ideas about Antiquity, alien and hostile to Christianity, pagan. Moreover, the Middle Ages spoke the same language with Antiquity. Of course, much was destroyed and forgotten (schools, political institutions, artistic techniques in art and literature), but the figurative world of medieval Christianity is directly connected with the ancient heritage thanks to various kinds of encyclopedias (codes of ancient knowledge about the world - such as, for example, "Etymologies" St. Isidore of Seville Isidore of Seville(560-636) - Archbishop of Seville. His "Etymologies" is an encyclopedia of knowledge from various fields, gleaned including from ancient writings. He is considered the founder of medieval encyclopedia and the patron saint of the Internet.) and allegorical treatises and poems like Marriage of Philology and Mercury by Marcianus Capella Marcian Capella(1st half of the 5th century) - an ancient writer, author of the encyclopedia "The Marriage of Philology and Mercury", dedicated to an overview of the seven free arts and written on the basis of ancient writings.. Now few people read such texts, very few of those who love them, but then, for many centuries, they were read. The old gods were saved by this kind of literature and the tastes of the reading public behind it.
