The Middle Ages is the historical period that takes place between the year 476 which is the end of the Roman Empire and the discovery of America in 1492.
Many historians define the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, as an era of recoil and cultural, social and economic withdrawal.While in other cultures such as the Muslim reached a great splendor including the Califal Córdoba.
The Middle Ages in Christian Europe is the time where feudalism develops, which shapes power and servitude relations between the lords and their vassals.In all these conceptions, the Christian doctrines that flood all areas of life are present.
The Church imposes a theocentric vision of the world, which leads to total control of everyday life.It marks a very retrograde time and consequently repressive of everything that means sexuality, hence it has very particular characteristics.Sexuality in the medievo looked like something sinful, reprehensible and dangerous;But also, as the most dream, meditated and, secretly, desired.
Christianity separated sex in two ways, the first in natural acts and the second in acts against nature.
MARRIAGE
The Church imposes on medieval society that sex is only possible within marriage and it must have an exclusively reproductive purpose.They use two terms: "Dialetio" which is honest and committed love in marriage and the second term "honest copulatio" which is the practice of sex with the chaste reason for reproduction.
Medieval thought is influenced as we see by the Church, which considers sexual desire as a kind of disease.Therefore, chastity is encouraged, because it provides intrinsic and transcendent value, which will guide us to save our souls.
Virginity was for the Church the ideal state to return to the prelapsary situation, that is, before the original sin, for which when I did not want sex or couple, it was because they had been grazed by God and had transcended their sinful nature.
On the contrary, fornication supposed the practice of sex out of marriage.To calm the sexual desire of men, they were proposed to have bloody in the surface veins of the thighs, and the women who were excited were recommended incense lavatives in the vagina.
The acts against nature cover for the Church all sexual actions that do not aim to reproduce, highlighting among the most disapproved, zoophilia, homosexuality and masturbation.Sex between thighs was also condemned, which was used as birth control.
It was thought that Coitus interruptus could cause the ulceration of the penis.It was believed that one of the possible penis diseases was to go to bed with a woman who has the dirty matrix, full of poison, that is, the rule.
If we follow the book "De Secretis Mulierum" ensures "that undue reproductive sexual acts are cause of birth defects, some monstrosity is caused by an irregular form of intercourse.Because if a man lies unusually when he is having sex with a woman, he creates a monster in nature. ”
Alberto Magno considered that the twins was the result of a woman who had enjoyed a lot in copulation.
The incest was considered serious, but was not considered against nature.The traditional sex performed when Menopause already had a woman was not considered a sin because she claimed that there was the possibility that she works the miracle of procreating.
Medieval women were educated to perform eminently passive roles: marriage, sexuality, gestation, childbirth and breastfeeding.The woman in marriage never sought the man and it was rare to begin the relationship with erotic games or that the woman responded actively.The medieval woman should only receive and accept.
Adultery was considered a crime, but it depended on the sex that caused it.He was considered a religious dishonor, since he threatened against the Holy Institution of marriage and altered the normal functioning of the social order when the bastard figure appeared.
Adultery was not the same if the man did as the woman, being worse seen in women.If the adulterous was the man, it was said that they had fallen into the orencebamiento, while if the woman were doing it, they were directly adulterers.
The husband was empowered at the beginning of the Middle Ages to kill the adulterers and to have their property as I would like.Subsequently, the figure of adultery would be regulated by ancient Spanish law.
If we continue to Botto de Worms (965-1025) and his work "Item of Fornication" allows us to know the penalties imposed by the sins committed.Let's see:
“Have you fornicated with a man against the hips, as certain men do, that is, you have placed the virile member among the hips of another, and therefore produced semen?If you have done it, do forty days of penance with bread and water.
Have you fornicated as certain men are in the habit of doing, that is, you have taken the penis of your hand and yours in yours, and therefore rubbed the other penis in your hands, and through this pleasure to project semen?If you have done it, thirty days of penance.
Have you fornicated how sodomites do, that is, you have inserted your penis into the buttocks and therefore had sex in the manner of sodomites?If you have a wife, and you did this once or twice, ten years of penance.If you have usually done twelve years of penance. ”
La Barranganía was a friendship and company contract between a single or cleric with a single woman and whose main characteristics was based on permanence and faithfulness.Barragana is called the friend or prostitute who lives with man at home.If we follow many chronicles, they indicate the existence of this figure in many cases of the clergy, which lived secretly in the same house.She was a figure similar to the one we will know as the cure love of the town.
Prostitution
Prostitution was a sin for the Church, since it meant fornication, but ended up being recognized by the Church and by other sectors as a necessary evil.It was argued that men were looking for sexual relations with prostitutes, served to protect women respectable from seduction or rape.
The Great Council of Venice, in 1358, declared that prostitution was absolutely essential for the world, despite the fact that the Church described it as a morally wrong practice.If we follow St. Augustine we find the surprise when he says that "if the prostitution of society is expelled, everything is disrupting because of the passions."
It was usual, that brothels and mancebías were located in the extramuros of the cities.The authorities controlled them completely and tried to visit a prostitutes every eight days, in order to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and they were never recommended that they were never with more than three men on the same day.In those historical moments, there was a lot of fear of the extension of pandemics.
Some medieval cities regulated that the prostitutes were dressed in a badge that differentiate them from other women, with clothes such as short mantillas, purple skirts, red ribbons in their heads ... in Florence they were forced to wear gloves and bells in bells in bells in bells inYour hats.
Valencia had the largest brothel in Europe in the Middle Ages.It was the second largest city in the Iberian Peninsula after the Nasrid Granada.He then had 75,000 inhabitants.It was King Jaume II in the year 1321 who ordered this neighborhood to be in the outside the city and near the Morería.
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Valencia was a city at that time, which was distinguished by its powerful trade and the coexistence of different cultures was given, the fifteenth century being known as the Golden Age of Valencia.It was one of the main ports of the Mediterranean and was part of the kingdom of Aragon that was a state, which was distinguished by its federalism.He was in the process of expansion through the Mediterranean both military and commercially.
A neighborhood was constituted, in 1325, to settle in all the prostitution of the city.This neighborhood was known as "La Pobla de Bernat de Villa", it was also called as "La Pobla de les femmes pecadrius" and were all kinds of brothels, taverns, hostels and shops.
Valencia obtained fame for his prostitutes, which were the most expensive of the Iberian Peninsula, and gained authentic fortunes and in many cases caused the envies of the ladies of the Valencian high society.
The neighborhood consists of houses, which were rented to prostitutes next to taverns and hostels.They were single -floor houses and their exteriors were adorned with flowers and colored lanterns.They usually had a patio inside and was the place where the most uploaded parties were held.Prostitutes waited and well dressed and made up of their customers.
In this double moral that the Church developed, it changed in Holy Week where all prostitutes were locked in the so -called convent of the repentant and were tried to convince them to leave the profession with obvious little success.
The jury of the city were responsible for complying with the health ordinance that was tried by all means to prevent contagious diseases from arising.Sigismund Caval who was an ambassador of Venice recounts the following: “The city pays four doctors… and every Saturday they should visit them all and worry about the health of each one and if he finds any with something bad, they put it in a certain place apart separatelyand take care of it with great diligence. ”
Fernando the Catholic, in 1488, dictates an ordinance that says “that women who live in shameful profits cannot remain or live anywhere in the city, except in the lupanar.And that no officer can give them or grant them a license under the penalties imposed here. ”
Despite this, the life of prostitutes was not simple and were totally exposed.If in the Middle Ages the average life of the population was around thirty -five years, that of prostitutes was much lower.
Let's see three texts that described the Lupanar de Valencia.The first is from the German H Munzer “it is also his custom to walk through the streets, until the night, men and women in such a quantity that looks like a fair.And yet no one is offended by another.If I had not seen it with my own colleagues and in the company of the illustrious merchants of Revenburg, I would hardly believe it.Also, groceries are open until midnight, so that at any time you can buy everything. ”
The second text is from Antoine de Laling, who was the chronicler of Felipe el HermosSmall and closed all around with walls and a single door ... .. In this site there are three or four streets full of small houses in each of which there are very richly dressed girls dressed in velvet and silk and there will be two hundred to three hundred women.They have their houses adorned and provided with good clothes.There are taverns and food houses.By heat you can't see there and make the night day: because they are sitting in their entries with a beautiful lamp hanging on top of them to see them more easily. ”
Following Antoine de Laling he says “and in front of the gate to the neighborhood there is a gallows for the evildoers that could enter inside.At the door there is a man in charge of them removes the canes of those who are going to enter and tells them if they want to give their money, if they have it, that they will be returned to their exit, without any loss.By chance, if having it do not deliver it and steal it during the night, the goalkeeper is not responsible for it. ”
THE HOMOSEXUALITY
Santo Tomás de Aquino considered that the only sexual act that was not sodomy was the vaginal intercourse.Homosexuality could be punished with death and other consequences could cause mutilations, burn at the stake.If homosexuality occurred in the priesthood and were discovered at the time, they were hung from a suspended cage and made them die by hunger.
Homosexuality had some tolerance in the 10th to twelfth centuries, but the situation changed radically from the beginning of the thirteenth century.
If we follow Elredo de Rieval (1110-1167) condemnation of homosexuals and says “it is a crime to hate, for which a man goes crazy for another man, or a woman for another woman;He must judge himself more harmful than all other vices.
He was sentenced to die in 1477 to Katherina Hetzeldorfer in the Rin River as he passed through the city of Espira for being declared a lesbian.
Masturbation
It has always been classified as one of the most serious sins and is considered as anti nature because they thought the procreative seed was wasted.In the book of Ancrene Wissse of the thirteenth century compares masturbation with the lasciviousness "with another or without another" and "touching him in his sweet place, or me."
There is also female masturbation, but this seeks to be hidden and text translators omitted the passages that referred to it.Despite this, there was a certain morbidity in knowing lesbian relationships in convents.Monastic women were written tips between them, although they were never published because they were not considered of literary or theological value.
Missionary's position
The power of the Church was such in the Middle Ages that he imposed on his parishioners as they should practice sex.The only natural position for sex was that of the missionary, in which the man was on top of the woman.The other sexual positions such as the woman was placed above the man or the so -called intercourse to Tergo, where the man stands behind the woman, was not allowed, because according to them the role of the couple is altered.
Of course, anal intercourse and oral sex were sins because their only purpose was pleasure and not reproduction.
Condoms and comforters
They were linen or intestines and vexigas of animals to which they tied with a string and could be used many times.Its purpose was not so much to avoid pregnancies but as a form of protection against sexual diseases, fundamentally syphilis, which wreaked havoc at that time.
As can be seen in the photo, it was frequent to use comforters for female use, and was even used by men when they lacked sexual response in their relationship with their wives.
The women, who used comforters in the form of a virile member, would have a penance of one year to bread and water.If it was the man who used an instrument for masturbation he was sentenced to forty days of penance.
Chastity belt
IMPOTENCE
When a man could not fulfill his marriage obligations, a group of doctors examined his penis to evaluate it and determine if he will be able to procreate.If the report was negative for being a defect and consequently could not consummate the marriage, the couple could legally separate.
The chastity belt
It was a kind of iron panties, which was closed.It was placed to women to avoid falling into temptations of infidelity.Sometimes they were also used by parents to keep their daughters virgins before marrying, because when the lock was closed it was impossible for man to perform the sexual act.
It is said that the chastity belt had two keys, one had the father or husband and the second one priest, just in case something happened to the husband or father, the priest would open it.We must say that there are great legends about the chastity belt but it was an instrument that prevented a normal life, because it prevented walking and could not sit.In addition, metals produced deep injuries in the epidermis of women that caused vaginal and anal infections, which could cause septicemia.
In addition, from the hygienic point of view it was very complicated.It is thought that sometimes they were used as a defense of women so that they could not be raped.
THE RIGHT OF PERNADA
The right of pernada is the right of the lords to take their servants the day they married.The validity, of this unwritten law, was present in Spain during the Middle Ages.It was a practice that was not collected in any legal code, but was socially admitted, being a way of imposing their power on families that were dependent on them.Although its origin is unknown, various studies estimate that the right of pernada is a tradition of Germanic origin, where the Lord reserved the girlfriend.
In the Iberian Peninsula the "cousin note" has its origin in the God's time, becoming usual at the time of the reconquest.Alfonso II included a law in him, for which he stipulated that the servants were out of the Lord's right.Alfonso X also approved a fine of 500 salaries and the deprivation of charges to whom he dared to deflate the bride before marriage.
There are theories, which indicate that the right of pernada was something symbolic, but what cannot be denied is that sexual abuse about women of lower scales in society was common.This abuse was not only given on the wedding night, but could be continued abuse, before which the subjects looked the other way due to the superiority of the Lord and fear towards it.There were cases in which parents or husbands made their lord available to their wife or daughter, with the aim of achieving something in return.
In other cases, the servants had no way to denounce abuse and the woman had to live with dishonor.The situation degraded to the point, in which the soldiers of the strengths, supported by the power of their position and the representation of the Lord who held, violated women with total impunity.
One of the factors that caused the legal ambiguity of the right of pernada was that the union between servants was not recognized until the twelfth century, based on those unions in the conformity of the parents and of society.
The importance of marriage is that he is blessed by God, becoming aware of his meaning, the servants, while a halo of dignity was born in them.That dignity made those who abused them gradually oppose.Some of these peasant rebellions were of great importance, such as that of the semesters of Drums in Catalonia in the fifteenth century or in Castile in the fourteenth.
As we see, the role of the Church has been totally repressive with sexuality, being a form of social control by fear of God and in passing, serve well to the ruling elites, fundamentally kings and nobility, giving a perfect symbiosis between power andChurch.
