By exploring their sex lives, The Fires of Lust brings ordinary medieval people to life.
Author: Katherine Harvey
‘Longer than a big man’s thigh’: The Perfect Penis in Medieval Europe
What did medieval people think about penises?
‘Behaviour Which Merits a Horrible and Wretched Death’: Sex, Sin and the Black Death in Medieval England
Medieval people feared that the Black Death was a punishment for sin, and hoped that abstaining from sex could save them.
Like a Virgin? The Medieval Origins of a Modern Debate
A recent Vatican ruling on consecrated virgins has caused controversy, but there are medieval precedents for the new approach.
Carnal Knowledge: Regulating Sex in England, 1470-1600
Sexual behaviour was strictly regulated in late medieval and Tudor England.
Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome
Same-sex couples in the early modern period claimed marriage in their own particular ways.
The Boswell Legacy: Revisiting John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality
Three historians explore the legacy of John Boswell’s landmark text.
Recent Posts
Reproduction in Transition: Fertility Technology in the Lives of Sexual and Gender Minorities
The ‘Chosen Family’ Dinner: A non-normative insight into queer homemaking
“Homosexual Hearers” and Queer Musicality in Xavier Mayne’s The Intersexes (1909)
Squirming in the Dark: Playful Occupations for Sex Workers in the 1870 Census
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