‘Behaviour Which Merits a Horrible and Wretched Death’: Sex, Sin and the Black Death in Medieval England

By Katherine Harvey March 12, 2020 Medieval 1 comment

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

By Katherine Harvey July 20, 2018 Medieval 1 comment

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

By Katherine Harvey February 13, 2018 Author Interviews, Early Modern, United Kingdom 0 comments

Sexual behaviour was strictly regulated in late medieval and Tudor England.

Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome

By Katherine Harvey January 19, 2017 Author Interviews, Early Modern, LGBTQ 0 comments

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

By Katherine Harvey November 11, 2016 Medieval 0 comments

Three historians explore the legacy of John Boswell’s landmark text.

From Shame to Sin: Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity

By Katherine Harvey September 1, 2016 Ancient World, Author Interviews, Religion and Sexuality 0 comments

With the new religion came new attitudes to sexual behaviour and morality

The Pustulent Penis: Searching for STDs in the Centuries before Syphilis

By Katherine Harvey June 2, 2016 Medieval 0 comments

John of Gaunt ‘died of putrefaction of his genitals and body’.