Medieval people feared that the Black Death was a punishment for sin, and hoped that abstaining from sex could save them.
Author: Katherine Harvey
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.
From Shame to Sin: Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity
With the new religion came new attitudes to sexual behaviour and morality
The Pustulent Penis: Searching for STDs in the Centuries before Syphilis
John of Gaunt ‘died of putrefaction of his genitals and body’.
Recent Posts
Of Polymaths and Pederasts: Reflections on Rachel Hope Cleves’s <i>Unspeakable</i>
Raúl Luis Suarez’s Smile and The Ruthless Archive
The Shapes of Fancy: Reading for Queer Desire in Early Modern Literature
Queer as Cop: Gay Patrol Units and the White Fantasy of Safety
Campaigning for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ireland, 1981-1993