1 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:08,920 "I love you more than any. 2 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:13,000 "You alone are my love and my longing." 3 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:17,680 The world of medieval men and women 4 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:21,920 was shaped by strong and powerful passions. 5 00:00:21,960 --> 00:00:24,720 "The name of wife may seem sacred, 6 00:00:24,760 --> 00:00:27,840 "but sweeter to me will always be the word whore." 7 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:33,200 In the medieval world, women are adored... 8 00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:39,320 ..but also prompt loathing and disgust. 9 00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:42,760 "Woman is but Satan's bait. 10 00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:45,160 "Poison for men's souls." 11 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:52,160 It's a world in which priests accuse their flocks of fornication... 12 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:57,280 ..where bishops grow rich on prostitution... 13 00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:01,840 ..and where virgins marry Christ. 14 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:07,320 "As I stood by the cross, I was filled with such fire, 15 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:11,640 "I took off my clothes and offered him all of myself." 16 00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:21,160 It's a world in which God threatens to destroy mankind 17 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:23,080 for the sin of lust. 18 00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:46,640 Sexual intercourse began in 1963. 19 00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:48,360 Or so, at least, 20 00:01:48,400 --> 00:01:50,800 wrote the poet Philip Larkin. 21 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:53,120 But that's not entirely true. 22 00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:54,920 Sexual activity in the Middle Ages 23 00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:58,440 was as vigorous and as varied as it is today. 24 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:02,520 Just how varied is made clear from the kinds of questions 25 00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:04,640 that medieval priests were instructed 26 00:02:04,680 --> 00:02:06,480 to ask their parishioners. 27 00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:12,920 "Have you committed fornication with a nun? 28 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:17,640 "Have you committed fornication with your step-mother, your sister-in-law, 29 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:19,720 "your son's fiancee, your mother? 30 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:24,240 "Have you made a tool or device in the shape of a penis 31 00:02:24,280 --> 00:02:28,800 "and tied it to your private parts and fornicated with other women?" 32 00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:37,560 Priests might even ask female members of their flock, 33 00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:41,360 "Have you done what some women do when they lie before an animal 34 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:44,960 "and encourage it to copulate by whatever means they can, 35 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:48,040 "and thus it copulates with you?" 36 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:52,840 Such questions suggest that sexual activity then was, shall we say, 37 00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:55,120 as diverse as it is today. 38 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:01,200 'But the world in which it took place 39 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:03,600 'was a very, very different world. 40 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:13,120 'The Middle Ages, between the 10th and the 15th centuries, 41 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:17,000 'stand on the far side of a great divide in human history. 42 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:21,960 'The experience of birth, life and death was different from now.' 43 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:30,040 Whereas people in Britain today can expect to live 44 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:31,280 to their late 70s, 45 00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:33,800 average life expectancy in the Middle Ages 46 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:36,000 would have been less than half that. 47 00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:40,880 And just about everybody would have experienced death at first hand. 48 00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:44,920 Most people would have seen a brother or sister die. 49 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:49,480 Most parents would have lost one or more of their children. 50 00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:54,840 In a medieval village of 100 houses, 51 00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:58,400 a funeral might take place every eight days. 52 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,280 Malnutrition, infection, disease - 53 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:07,120 life in the Middle Ages was precarious. 54 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:14,640 It's easy to imagine medieval life as just nasty, brutish and short, 55 00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:16,280 as the saying goes. 56 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:21,440 A basic struggle for survival, lacking in pleasure, passion or fun. 57 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:23,920 But is that really how it was? 58 00:04:26,040 --> 00:04:27,680 Far from it. 59 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:32,720 Medieval records suggest a world of intimacy and sensuality, 60 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:37,400 with a keen interest in love, sex and reproduction. 61 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:39,800 And some exotic ways of enhancing them. 62 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:52,760 This recipe for conception 63 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:56,280 comes from a popular 13th-century medical manual, 64 00:04:56,320 --> 00:04:57,880 The Secrets Of Women. 65 00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:00,880 "If someone should wish to help a woman 66 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:02,840 "so that she might become pregnant, 67 00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:05,960 "let him take the womb and intestines of a hare, 68 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:09,280 "dry them out and pulverize them." 69 00:05:10,640 --> 00:05:14,280 "And let the woman then drink this mixed with wine." 70 00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:21,880 "Then let her place a goat's hair in the milk of a female donkey, 71 00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:24,920 "and let her tie this around her at the navel 72 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:27,280 "while she has sex with her husband. 73 00:05:27,320 --> 00:05:29,080 "And she will conceive." 74 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:36,720 Medieval lovers who wanted sex but didn't want the consequences 75 00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:40,840 could turn to the experts for contraceptive advice. 76 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:45,440 A French priest called Pierre Clergue swore by a certain herb. 77 00:05:45,480 --> 00:05:49,280 He wrapped it in linen and tiedit around the neck of his partner, 78 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:52,960 so that it hung between her breasts, and then made love to her. 79 00:05:55,760 --> 00:06:00,520 The easiest way to avoid conception was to dampen sexual desire. 80 00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:06,360 The Secrets Of Women's proposal for putting out the flames of passion 81 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:10,280 was for a woman to drink a man's urine. 82 00:06:10,320 --> 00:06:14,160 You'd think that might have done it. 83 00:06:14,200 --> 00:06:17,680 And it has further comments on contraceptive measures. 84 00:06:17,720 --> 00:06:23,360 "If a woman eats sage that has been cooked for three days, she will not conceive for a year." 85 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:25,120 Or, more drastically, 86 00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:28,000 "If a woman swallows a bee, she will never conceive." 87 00:06:31,040 --> 00:06:32,040 Well, evidently, 88 00:06:32,080 --> 00:06:35,840 medieval understanding of sex and reproduction was pretty basic. 89 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:38,240 The science of anatomy was not very advanced, 90 00:06:38,280 --> 00:06:40,760 and dissection was rarely practised. 91 00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:43,720 But this didn't stop some of the greatest minds of the age 92 00:06:43,760 --> 00:06:46,280 trying to map the mysteries of sexuality. 93 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:53,200 In seats of learning all over medieval Europe, 94 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:55,640 scholars pondered the pressing question. 95 00:06:55,680 --> 00:07:00,240 'Just what was the difference between men and women?' 96 00:07:01,960 --> 00:07:06,320 'The consensus reached by these male writers, many of them clerics, 97 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:08,120 'was that women were the problem.' 98 00:07:09,320 --> 00:07:12,440 'According to the classical theory of the four humours, 99 00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:16,600 'men were thought to be hot and dry, which was good. 100 00:07:16,640 --> 00:07:20,720 'Women were cold and moist, which was bad. 101 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:24,280 'This made them sexually voracious.' 102 00:07:26,680 --> 00:07:30,400 "Woman has a greater desire for coitus than a man, 103 00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:34,200 "for something foul is drawn to something good." 104 00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:43,600 The real puzzle was just how the female anatomy worked. 105 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:49,040 'Here, at Merton College in Oxford, the 14th-century doctor John of Gaddesden 106 00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:52,760 'expressed the standard medieval belief that menstrual blood 107 00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:55,280 'was actually female seed.' 108 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:02,760 Evidently, women needed to purge themselves of this seed. 109 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:04,640 That's what happened every month. 110 00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:08,960 Too great a build-up could lead to so called suffocation of the uterus, 111 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:11,000 making it difficult for her to breathe 112 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:13,960 and exposing her to convulsions and fainting fits. 113 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:15,120 She might even go mad. 114 00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:21,000 No wonder women were predatory. 115 00:08:21,040 --> 00:08:25,160 They needed sex to get rid of all that menstrual blood. 116 00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:32,800 Worse, that blood was positively dangerous. 117 00:08:36,160 --> 00:08:40,880 "This blood is so detestable that, through contact with it, 118 00:08:40,920 --> 00:08:45,160 "fruits do not produce, wine turns sour, 119 00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:48,440 "trees lack fruit, the air darkens, 120 00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:52,920 "and dogs go wild with madness." 121 00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:56,600 HOWLING 122 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:01,800 Medieval scientific thinking took it even further. 123 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:07,160 The eye, it argued, receives menstrual fluid during a woman's period. 124 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:11,480 The look of a menstruating woman, therefore, 125 00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:13,720 could in itself cause disease. 126 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:19,760 Woman, in short, was literally poisonous. 127 00:09:21,520 --> 00:09:24,440 Medieval thinking was just as logical as ours, 128 00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:27,280 but it started from different assumptions. 129 00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:30,680 And those assumptions were often based on religious doctrine 130 00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:32,320 or ancient authority. 131 00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:35,560 And the governing idea behind female sexuality 132 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:39,400 was the biblical story of the Garden of Eden. 133 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:47,240 In the story of original sin, 134 00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:50,120 the Devil chooses to trick Eve rather than Adam, 135 00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:54,200 attacking human nature,it was said, where it seemed weaker. 136 00:10:02,040 --> 00:10:06,920 Eve was "Satan's bait, poison for men's souls," 137 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,560 wrote the 11th-century Italian cardinal Peter Damian. 138 00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:23,920 'It was an act of betrayal that few churchmen could forgive.' 139 00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:27,480 "The wickedness of women", wrote one 13th-century abbot, 140 00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:31,880 "is greater than all the other wickedness of the world." 141 00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:37,480 One early church father reminded women, 142 00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:39,520 "Do you not realise that Eve is YOU? 143 00:10:39,560 --> 00:10:44,160 "YOU desecrated the fateful tree, YOU disobeyed the law of God, 144 00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:45,480 "YOU persuaded the man 145 00:10:45,520 --> 00:10:48,600 "against whom the Devil could not prevail by force. 146 00:10:48,640 --> 00:10:52,840 "God's sentence passed upon your sex weighs still upon the world. 147 00:10:52,880 --> 00:10:55,600 "You are guilty, you must bear its hardships. 148 00:10:55,640 --> 00:10:57,760 "YOU are the Devil's gateway." 149 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:10,600 With women held in such low esteem, it's hardly surprising 150 00:11:10,640 --> 00:11:15,360 that medieval courtship could be a rather unromantic affair. 151 00:11:15,400 --> 00:11:19,160 Marriage then was quite different from today's romantic ideal. 152 00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:22,840 It had very little, if anything, to do with love. That might come later. 153 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:25,680 It was an alliance between families 154 00:11:25,720 --> 00:11:29,160 and an agreement involving the transfer of property. 155 00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:32,040 And the wife could be seen as part of that property. 156 00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:41,720 Like any piece of property, she needed close inspection before a deal could be done. 157 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:48,400 In 1319, Edward II sent the Bishop of Exeter to inspect 158 00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:51,760 Philippa of Hainault as prospective wife for his young son. 159 00:11:57,720 --> 00:12:01,040 The bishop's report reads like a property survey, 160 00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:03,040 which is pretty much what it is. 161 00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:09,760 "The lady has not uncomely hair, between blue-black and brown. 162 00:12:09,800 --> 00:12:12,880 "Her eyes are blackish brown and deep. 163 00:12:12,920 --> 00:12:15,120 "Her nose is fairly smooth and even, 164 00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:19,760 "yet it is no snub-nose, her mouth fairly wide. 165 00:12:19,800 --> 00:12:23,520 "Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip. 166 00:12:23,560 --> 00:12:27,400 "Her neck, shoulders, and all her body and lower limbs 167 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:29,000 "are reasonably well shapen. 168 00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:32,680 "All her limbs are well set and unmaimed." 169 00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:46,600 "And the damsel will be on St John's Day next of the age of nine years." 170 00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:52,240 The report went down well. 171 00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:54,160 A deal was struck. 172 00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:59,000 Nine years later, Philippa duly married Edward's son, Edward III. 173 00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:12,080 Rich brides came with land attached. 174 00:13:12,120 --> 00:13:16,680 Substantial parts of Europe changed hands with marriage contracts. 175 00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:19,680 Orkney and Shetland became part of Scotland 176 00:13:19,720 --> 00:13:22,480 when a Danish princess brought them as her dowry 177 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:25,120 on her marriage to the King of Scotland. 178 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:34,400 A peasant girl might bring something more modest as her dowry. 179 00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:37,120 A cow, or some geese or chickens. 180 00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:41,400 But in all marriages, the woman's goods became her husband's property. 181 00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:48,560 As, in a sense, did the woman herself. 182 00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:54,320 The law often permitted husbands to treat their wives much as they wanted. 183 00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:58,440 "It is legal for a man to beat his wife when she wrongs him, 184 00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:01,960 "provided he neither kills nor maims her." 185 00:14:04,960 --> 00:14:09,520 Condemned as the cause of original sin, feared for her sexuality, 186 00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:12,360 married in exchange for property or goods, 187 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:14,520 sometimes subject to violence - 188 00:14:14,560 --> 00:14:17,080 a woman's lot was not a happy one. 189 00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:21,240 And then, quite suddenly, into this society that held women so low, 190 00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:25,040 came a revolution that seemed to turn all this inside out. 191 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:37,960 It began in southern France in the 12th century. 192 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:41,040 Troubadours, wandering poets and musicians, 193 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:45,280 became to talk of women and love in a wholly new way. 194 00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:49,800 TROUBADOUR SINGS 195 00:14:52,400 --> 00:14:57,320 They sang of an intense, idealised, sexual passion. 196 00:14:57,360 --> 00:15:01,400 Their verses reached one of the most powerful women of her day, 197 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:05,440 the daughter of King Louis VII of France, Marie de Champagne. 198 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:09,640 Marie's court was home to singers, writers and poets. 199 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:13,640 Soon it was alight with the exciting ideas of the troubadours. 200 00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:19,720 "When I lie down in the evening, all night and all day, 201 00:15:19,760 --> 00:15:23,000 "I consider how I might serve you to your pleasure. 202 00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:26,120 "My body leaps and bounds for joy, 203 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:28,440 "so much is my heart set on you." 204 00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:33,800 'The poets put women on a pedestal.' 205 00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:37,200 She was worshipped as distant and hard to attain. 206 00:15:37,240 --> 00:15:39,600 He was her tormented lover. 207 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:42,640 "I have never had power over myself, nor was I mine 208 00:15:42,680 --> 00:15:46,000 "from that moment when she let me look into her eyes." 209 00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:49,880 The idea of falling in love was born. 210 00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:06,960 Of course, people spoke about love before 1100, 211 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:11,000 but this was caritas, a spiritual love. 212 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:14,000 The poetry that captured the imagination of noblewomen 213 00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:17,240 like Marie de Champagne was something quite different. 214 00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:19,840 An idealised kind of sexual passion. 215 00:16:19,880 --> 00:16:21,920 It's sometimes known as courtly love, 216 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:25,880 and its heady ideals spread from court to court 217 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:28,360 across the breadth of Europe. 218 00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:37,440 'A new generation of writers and poets began to explore 219 00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:40,800 'this new way of looking at love.' 220 00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:43,920 One of the most famous is Chretien de Troyes, 221 00:16:43,960 --> 00:16:48,440 author of a revolutionary tale of adulterous passion. 222 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:56,040 His celebrated love story of Lancelot and Guinevere, 223 00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:59,040 Arthur's greatest knight and Arthur's queen, 224 00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:03,200 follows the exciting path of true love. 225 00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:05,800 For his rich patron and the ladies of court, 226 00:17:05,840 --> 00:17:07,840 it provided a whole new standard 227 00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:10,560 by which to measure the behaviour of men 228 00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:13,680 and learn about their own sexual identity. 229 00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:22,160 'The story begins when Lancelot falls in love, 230 00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:25,520 'and is almost incapacitated by his obsession.' 231 00:17:25,560 --> 00:17:27,640 "As long as she remained in his sight, 232 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:31,800 "he continued to gaze at her most attentively and with delight. 233 00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:34,120 "But when he could see her no longer, 234 00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:36,600 "he wanted to fling himself out of the window 235 00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:39,120 "and shatter his body on the ground below." 236 00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:45,760 For the courtly lover, love is an exquisite pain. 237 00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:49,000 "If she does not heal my suffering with a kiss, 238 00:17:49,040 --> 00:17:52,280 "she will murder me and damn herself. 239 00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:56,920 "Yet for all the suffering I endure, I do not renounce sweet love." 240 00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:03,280 'Lancelot tries to win the queen's love.' 241 00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:07,000 He subjects himself to untold dangers, 242 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:12,400 including crawling over a bridge made from the blade of a sword. 243 00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:20,760 Guinevere is eventually won over and arranges a midnight rendezvous. 244 00:18:22,360 --> 00:18:26,080 "Tonight, when everyone is asleep, you can come speak with me 245 00:18:26,120 --> 00:18:27,600 "at that window." 246 00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:33,680 For Lancelot, the day seems to last a hundred years. 247 00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:39,360 As night falls, the queen appears in a cloak of scarlet and fur. 248 00:18:39,400 --> 00:18:45,120 But the iron bars across the window keep them apart. 249 00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:48,560 "Lancelot grasped the bars and strained and pulled 250 00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:51,120 "until he had freed them from their fittings." 251 00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:58,240 At last, the adulterous love affair can be consummated. 252 00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:02,400 "Now Lancelot had everything he desired. He held her in his arms. 253 00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:06,200 "Their blows were so gentle, so sweet, 254 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:08,760 "that through their kisses and caresses, 255 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:14,440 "they experienced a joy and wonder the equal of which has never been known." 256 00:19:14,480 --> 00:19:18,200 The impact of this daring new literature was dramatic. 257 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:22,360 Courtly love, unrequited love, adulterous love. 258 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:27,120 For the first time, noble women were exposed to passionate love literature 259 00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:29,720 with its fantasy of the devoted knightly lover. 260 00:19:33,120 --> 00:19:35,720 For a certain class of medieval society at least, 261 00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:39,720 the map of the heart was being redrawn. 262 00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:42,560 The new poets questioned the old certainties. 263 00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:47,000 Could real love exist at all within marriage? 264 00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:49,800 Or did love have to be freely given? 265 00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:56,080 "When made public, love rarely endures." 266 00:19:58,240 --> 00:20:00,640 "A new love puts an old one to flight." 267 00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:12,760 "He who is vexed by the thoughts of love sleeps and eats little." 268 00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,960 These rules were written by a man called Andrew the Chaplain. 269 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:20,800 We know very little about him, except that, like Chretien de Troyes, 270 00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:24,000 he frequented the court of Marie de Champagne. 271 00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:29,200 His three-part treatise, De Amore, "On Love," 272 00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:33,360 is the medieval equivalent of a modern-day self-help guide. 273 00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:43,400 Writers such as Andrew the Chaplain cast themselves as love's explorers, 274 00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:47,040 pointing the way through this brave new emotional world. 275 00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:54,520 What's extraordinary is how far they ventured 276 00:20:54,560 --> 00:20:58,680 from the decidedly unromantic arrangements usually made 277 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:00,360 by medieval men and women. 278 00:21:04,120 --> 00:21:08,560 Why did the cult of courtly love inspire such devotion? 279 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:10,960 Was it an emotional pressure valve, 280 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:15,520 releasing some of the repressed sexual energy of the age? 281 00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:18,240 Was it a natural development from religious love, 282 00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:22,760 as the aristocracy refined their emotional manners? 283 00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:24,840 Nobody knows for sure. 284 00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:30,320 But the core ideas of courtly love infiltrated the wider medieval culture. 285 00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:39,800 And as they did, they caused scandal, even violence. 286 00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:42,560 It was one thing to debate the new codes of love 287 00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:44,920 in aristocratic courts. 288 00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:47,240 It was quite another to live by them. 289 00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:00,520 One of the most remarkable tales of the Middle Ages, 290 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:04,880 a tale that is passionate, dramatic, tragic and true, 291 00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:08,160 is the love story of Abelard and Heloise. 292 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:17,360 Peter Abelard was a scholar who came to Paris in about 1100, 293 00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:22,160 at the same time that courtly love was sweeping Europe. 294 00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:28,160 In Paris, he met the young and beautiful Heloise. 295 00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:34,040 She lived with her uncle, a canon at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. 296 00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:39,400 "I became on fire with desire for this girl 297 00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:42,680 "and decided she was the one to bring to my bed." 298 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:52,520 Heloise's uncle employed the dashing Abelard as tutor to his niece. 299 00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:56,960 "If he had entrusted a tender lamb to a ravening wolf, 300 00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,000 "it would not have surprised me more." 301 00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:04,760 "With our books before us, 302 00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:08,640 "more words of love than of our reading passed between us, 303 00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,080 "and more kissing than teaching." 304 00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:16,360 "My hands oftener strayed to her bosom than to the pages. 305 00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,360 "Our desires left no stage of lovemaking untried." 306 00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:29,120 Heloise became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy. 307 00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:30,880 Her uncle was furious. 308 00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:34,560 But when Abelard offered to marry her and placate the family, 309 00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:37,440 he encountered an unexpected obstacle. 310 00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:41,880 Heloise had her own rather unconventional views on the subject. 311 00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:50,400 In her words, only "love freely given" 312 00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:56,080 mattered to her, not what she called "the chains of wedlock." 313 00:23:56,120 --> 00:23:59,520 "The name of wife may seem more sacred or more worthy, 314 00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,760 "but sweeter to me will always be the word lover, 315 00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,840 "or that of concubine or whore." 316 00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:12,520 Heloise was using the arguments of the troubadours 317 00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:14,840 and writers of the courtly love tradition, 318 00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:18,440 that true love could only exist outside of marriage. 319 00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:25,320 Such notions strained at the conventions 320 00:24:25,360 --> 00:24:27,800 that bound medieval society together. 321 00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:34,720 Eventually, Heloise agreed to a secret marriage. 322 00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:39,480 Soon after, she took refuge in a nunnery. 323 00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:43,040 Her uncle and his relatives presumed that they'd been tricked, 324 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,040 and that Abelard had backed out of his marriage to Heloise 325 00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:48,600 by making her a nun. 326 00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:52,240 Their revenge was swift and violent. 327 00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:01,920 "One night, as I slept peacefully in an inner room in my lodgings, 328 00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,520 "they bribed one of my servants to admit them 329 00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:07,840 "and there took cruel vengeance on me 330 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,600 "of such appalling barbarity as to shock the whole world. 331 00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:16,680 "They cut off the part of my body whereby I had committed the wrong of which they complained." 332 00:25:30,120 --> 00:25:32,040 Abelard joined a monastery, 333 00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:35,840 and Heloise this time truly became a nun. 334 00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,040 The letters of the two lovers give us an amazing insight 335 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,320 into the workings of the medieval heart. 336 00:25:41,360 --> 00:25:45,520 Years later, Heloise recounts how, though now an abbess, 337 00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:49,800 she is still moved by strong erotic desire for Abelard. 338 00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,520 "The pleasures we shared have been too sweet, 339 00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:00,520 "and can scarcely be banished from my thoughts, 340 00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,560 "bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies." 341 00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:06,600 UNACCOMPANIED SINGING 342 00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:21,840 "Even during the celebration of the Mass, 343 00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:24,160 "lewd visions of those pleasures 344 00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,880 "take such a hold upon my unhappy soul, 345 00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:31,600 "that my thoughts are on their wantonness instead of on prayers." 346 00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:42,040 The ideas that started with the troubadours transformed our culture. 347 00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:45,400 The language of romance, of sexual longing, 348 00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,680 unrequited love and desire was born. 349 00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:52,720 And the codes created in the Middle Ages last to this day. 350 00:26:55,160 --> 00:27:00,560 But while the ideas of courtly love seduced aristocrats and intellectuals, 351 00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:06,000 the lives of most medieval people were guided by a more austere creed. 352 00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:19,840 For the medieval Church, 353 00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:25,120 nothing could be more offensive than the idea of sexual pleasure. 354 00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:32,760 In 13th-century England, there were 40,000 clergy. 355 00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:39,800 17,000 monks and friars. 10,000 parish priests. 356 00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,000 And they were to become increasingly intrusive 357 00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,040 in the sex lives of the faithful. 358 00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,200 The Church's views on the pleasures of the flesh 359 00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,280 were rather different from those of the troubadours. 360 00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:02,120 "The foul embrace of the flesh exhales fumes 361 00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,480 "and contaminates anyone who cleaves to it, 362 00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,240 "nor does anyone escape unharmed from the bite of pleasure." 363 00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:12,000 Celibate priests worked tirelessly to warn their flocks 364 00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:15,720 against the dangers of carnal pleasures denied to them. 365 00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:18,760 "That sinful act, that disgusting act, 366 00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:21,600 "that bestial coupling, that shameless union, 367 00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,680 "that foul, stinking, wayward deed." 368 00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,200 One 12th-century religious writer had a useful tip 369 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:33,560 for controlling lustful desires for a woman. 370 00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:37,400 Try imagining what the inside of her body would look like. 371 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:43,200 "If you consider what is within the skin and inside the body, 372 00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:45,960 "what is more hideous to see, more disgusting to touch, 373 00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:48,880 "more foul to smell?" 374 00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,200 And if this wasn't enough, try thinking of her dead body. 375 00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,480 "What is more horrible than a corpse, 376 00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,880 "and what in the world would be more abhorrent to her lover, 377 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:05,000 "just recently so full of wild desire for that stinking flesh?" 378 00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:12,280 In medieval thinking, human beings occupied a position 379 00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,920 halfway between the animals and the angels. 380 00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:19,480 In sex, it saw the animal triumphant. 381 00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:29,480 Against the filth of sex, the Church promoted its alternative. 382 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:39,200 "Virginity is the highest virtue, a glorious beauty, 383 00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:43,600 "the source of life, a matchless song. 384 00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,880 "The crown of faith, the prop of hope, 385 00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,840 "the mirror of purity, kindred of the angels, 386 00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:56,080 "the nourishment and support of most enduring love." 387 00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:09,560 This is Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, founded in 1232. 388 00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:14,000 It was one of about 150 nunneries in medieval England. 389 00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:15,600 Until the 16th century, nuns, 390 00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,720 mostly ladies of good family, lived and worshipped here, 391 00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,400 undertaking a life of reflection and celibacy. 392 00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:27,160 Here a young woman became a bride of Christ. 393 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,840 Virginity was a treasure to be dedicated to Christ, 394 00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,240 the divine bridegroom. 395 00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:51,560 There is something undeniably sensual 396 00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:54,520 in the way a woman's passionate devotion to Christ 397 00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,200 is often described in medieval texts. 398 00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:03,680 Jacques de Vitry in 1220 399 00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:08,440 describes some nuns so weakened by ecstasy of love for Christ 400 00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,400 that they were confined to rest. 401 00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,480 "They melted altogether in wondrous love for God, 402 00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,560 "until they bowed under the burden of desire, 403 00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,360 "and for many years, they did not leave their beds." 404 00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:26,440 At times, the distinction between sensual and spiritual love 405 00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:29,440 dissolves completely. 406 00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:31,520 "Oh noble eagle, 407 00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:36,280 "oh tender lamb, oh burning flame, embrace me. 408 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,280 "How long shall I remain arid? 409 00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:44,560 "An hour is too heavy for me, and a day is as a thousand years." 410 00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:54,200 The mystic Angela of Foligno took the idea of being a bride of Christ quite literally. 411 00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:02,480 "As I stood by the cross, I was filled with such fire 412 00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:07,800 "that I removed all my clothes and offered him all of myself. 413 00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:12,840 "I promised him, though afeared, to maintain my chastity always 414 00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,400 "and not to offend him by one of my limbs." 415 00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:27,880 "Purer than glass, whiter than snow, more brilliant than the sun." 416 00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:36,960 The cult of virginity exerted a powerful grip 417 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,840 on the minds of many medieval women, 418 00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,400 sometimes threatening to tear families apart. 419 00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,360 Take of the story of Christina of Markyate. 420 00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:55,440 Christina was from a prosperous English family in Huntingdon. 421 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:59,360 A young man of her own class, Burthred, sought her in marriage 422 00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:01,560 and gained her parents' consent. 423 00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:04,520 Christina agreed on one condition - 424 00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:07,400 that she remain a virgin all her life, 425 00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,360 for this is what she had already vowed to do. 426 00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:12,720 Her family were appalled. 427 00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:15,760 They ridiculed her and tried to break her resolve 428 00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:17,560 by stopping her going to church, 429 00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,840 taking her out to parties, giving her love potions. 430 00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,160 Finally, they did a deal with Burthred. 431 00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,520 They agreed to let him in at night. 432 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,160 But Christina stayed up, 433 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,760 telling him exemplary stories of chaste marriages. 434 00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,720 She promised to live with him, as she put it, 435 00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:48,720 "so that other townsmen will not taunt you for having been rejected by me." 436 00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:53,080 But still, it would have to be as a virgin. 437 00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,160 Burthred left without having had sex. 438 00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:08,960 His friends teased him, so he tried again. 439 00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:13,880 He burst into her bedroom, determined to have her. 440 00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:21,240 But she hid from him, 441 00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,520 and miraculously, she managed to avoid detection. 442 00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:30,440 Christina's stubbornness infuriated her parents. 443 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,280 Her father threatened to throw her out of the house, 444 00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,600 while her mother grabbed her by the hair and beat her. 445 00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:42,920 Only visions of the Virgin Mary 446 00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,640 sustained Christina through her ordeal. 447 00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:54,360 To avoid the fury of her family 448 00:34:54,400 --> 00:35:00,200 and sex with her husband, Christina fled to live the life of a hermit. 449 00:35:00,240 --> 00:35:02,920 After two years, Burthred gave up 450 00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,520 and released her from her marital obligations. 451 00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,320 Christina, and the cult of virginity, 452 00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,960 emerged the victor from this bitter family conflict. 453 00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:18,000 She founded a convent of nuns and died a virgin, 454 00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:21,960 faithful in her marriage to Christ. 455 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:28,520 Most people, of course, preferred a wedding to a flesh and blood man or woman than to Christ. 456 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,200 They wanted marriage, sex, and children. 457 00:35:32,240 --> 00:35:36,160 It was an area the medieval Church was keen to colonise, 458 00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,440 right into the bedroom. 459 00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:44,880 Early medieval marriage had little to do with the Church 460 00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:48,240 and could be entered into quite casually. 461 00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,240 This description of a peasant marriage 462 00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:54,680 was given by a witness in a court case held in York. 463 00:35:56,680 --> 00:36:00,400 About the third hour past the ninth, John Beke, saddler, 464 00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:05,400 sitting down on a bench, called Marjory to him and said to her, 465 00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,240 "Marjory, do you wish to be my wife?" 466 00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,480 And she replied, "I will, if you wish." 467 00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:15,600 And taking at once the said Marjory's right hand, John said, 468 00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:18,560 "Marjory, here I take you as my wife, 469 00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:22,560 "for better or worse, to have and to hold until the end of my life." 470 00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:29,480 This casual approach horrified the Church authorities. 471 00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:34,640 In 1218, the statutes of the Diocese of Salisbury make this clear. 472 00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:37,480 They ruled that marriages should be celebrated 473 00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:41,320 "with reverence and with honour and not with laughing and joking, 474 00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:45,720 "in taverns or at public feasts or drinking parties. 475 00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:49,720 "Nor should anyone put a ring made of rushes or some other material, 476 00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:53,240 "cheap or precious, on some girl's hand for fun, 477 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,120 "to be able to fornicate with her more freely. 478 00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:58,040 "For he may find that, 479 00:36:58,080 --> 00:36:59,800 "although he thinks he is joking, 480 00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:04,080 "he has in fact bound himself to the obligations of matrimony." 481 00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:07,440 CHURCH BELLS PEAL 482 00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,880 Marriage, the Church argued, was not a mere contract. 483 00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:19,840 It was a religious event. 484 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,680 In time, it was pronounced a sacrament, 485 00:37:22,720 --> 00:37:26,240 like baptism or confession. 486 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:31,040 As for sex, the act of marriage did not excuse unrestricted lovemaking. 487 00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,360 A saying of the great St Augustine became proverbial. 488 00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:38,320 "Passionate love of one's own wife is adultery." 489 00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:42,120 The only legitimate cause for sex within marriage was reproduction, 490 00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:44,800 and that was a serious duty. 491 00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,200 Failure to consummate a marriage was grounds for annulment, 492 00:37:51,240 --> 00:37:54,000 something only the Church had authority to do. 493 00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:55,160 In religious courts, 494 00:37:55,200 --> 00:38:02,240 the Church probed just what had or had not happened in the marital bed. 495 00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:13,920 John, a man from York, was accused by his wife of impotence. 496 00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,440 Every effort was made to arouse him, 497 00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,040 and the procedure was documented in court records. 498 00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,240 "The witness exposed her bare breasts, 499 00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:28,680 "and with her hands, warmed at the fire, 500 00:38:28,720 --> 00:38:32,280 "she held and rubbed John's penis and his testicles, 501 00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:35,720 "embracing and frequently kissing him. 502 00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:40,240 "And she stirred him up to demonstrate his virility and potency, 503 00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:45,000 "admonishing him to prove and render himself a man then and there." 504 00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:49,480 "She says that the whole time, 505 00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,520 "the said penis was scarcely three inches long, 506 00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,160 "remaining without any increase." 507 00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,840 The Church also set about regulating when, where 508 00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,000 and with whom sex could take place. 509 00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:07,720 Those who broke the rules, 510 00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:10,120 even in thought, were to be punished. 511 00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:26,800 In Rome in 1215, Pope Innocent III made a dramatic intervention 512 00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:28,520 in sexual affairs. 513 00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,560 All Christians were to confess their sins to a priest 514 00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:37,960 at least once a year. 515 00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:48,760 It was a move designed to help the clergy to root out depravity. 516 00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:56,120 To help priests hearing confessions to decide what questions to ask, 517 00:39:56,160 --> 00:40:00,760 the seriousness of the sins they heard, and how to deal with them, 518 00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:05,680 encyclopaedic guidebooks known as confessors' manuals 519 00:40:05,720 --> 00:40:07,480 were widely circulated. 520 00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:19,160 The biggest single category in these compendia of sin was sex. 521 00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:25,880 The message of the confessors' manuals - 522 00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,840 sex should only take place within marriage. 523 00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:32,400 Any other form of sexual activity was considered a sin. 524 00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:36,200 But even within marriage, sex was no easy matter. 525 00:40:36,240 --> 00:40:39,440 To avoid sinning, the Church had a checklist 526 00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:41,760 that a husband should run through first. 527 00:40:43,720 --> 00:40:47,520 "Is your wife menstruating? Is your wife pregnant? 528 00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,080 "Is your wife nursing a child? 529 00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:51,920 "Is it Lent? 530 00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:53,440 "Is it Advent? 531 00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:54,960 "Is it Sunday? 532 00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:56,120 "Is it Whitsun week? 533 00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:57,200 "Is it Easter week? 534 00:40:57,240 --> 00:40:58,280 "Is it Wednesday? 535 00:40:58,320 --> 00:40:59,360 "Is it Friday? 536 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:00,920 "Is it a fast day? 537 00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:02,440 "Is it Saturday? 538 00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:04,000 "Is it a feast day? 539 00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:05,280 "Is it daylight? 540 00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:06,960 "Are you naked? 541 00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:08,880 "Are you in church?" 542 00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:15,600 If you answered no to all these questions, then sex was permissible. 543 00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:20,640 But only once, and only in what is now called the missionary position. 544 00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:24,760 Taking everything into account, the Church's sexual policing 545 00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:29,680 permitted married couples to have sex, on average, just once a week. 546 00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:36,400 Punishments, or penances, 547 00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:40,640 involved a complex system of fasting and abstinence. 548 00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:45,360 The manuals calibrated penance to fit each sin. 549 00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,480 For adultery once, two years' penance. 550 00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:52,080 For adultery twice, five years. 551 00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:55,080 For sex with an animal, seven years. 552 00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:59,320 There were special questions for women. 553 00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:01,560 Had they consumed their husband's semen 554 00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:05,360 in order to inflame their lust? Seven years. 555 00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:08,360 Or put their menstrual blood in their husband's food 556 00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:11,560 in order to excite him? Five years. 557 00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:16,680 This process of confession and penance 558 00:42:16,720 --> 00:42:19,520 mapped out every aspect of human sexuality 559 00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,160 and codified a sliding scale of punishments. 560 00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,720 And for those who chose to flout the rules, 561 00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:30,840 the Church had a whole other level of investigation and retribution. 562 00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:46,680 Away from the privacy of the confessional 563 00:42:46,720 --> 00:42:48,880 was a more public court. 564 00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,920 One where the sins of the faithful could be held up 565 00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:53,920 and publicly condemned. 566 00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,040 In the Diocese of Lincoln, suspects were brought here, 567 00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:05,880 to the great cathedral. 568 00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:14,040 'Inside, clerics sat in judgement over the accused, 569 00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:16,160 'here in the chapter house.' 570 00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:20,040 The creation of church courts was an extraordinary extension 571 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:22,800 of the Church's control over people's behaviour. 572 00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,200 Confession was a private matter. 573 00:43:25,240 --> 00:43:27,480 This was something completely different. 574 00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:29,520 You could be summoned before the court 575 00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:31,200 on suspicion of your behaviour. 576 00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:35,760 And again, it was sex 577 00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:38,600 that preoccupied the minds of the authorities. 578 00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,400 The judges who sat here could impose stern penalties - 579 00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:51,720 excommunication, fines and very public penance. 580 00:44:01,240 --> 00:44:03,880 This book contains the records of the court cases 581 00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:05,640 heard in this chapter house 582 00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,720 and in the parish churches of the Diocese of Lincoln. 583 00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,040 "On Monday the 16th of November 1338, 584 00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,240 "the court met and heard certain cases. 585 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,920 "John Warren, accused of fornication with Ellen Lanser. 586 00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:24,000 "Both appear and confess the sin and swear not to sin again, 587 00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,680 "under penalty of 40 pence. 588 00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:29,720 "Ordered to be beaten three times around the church." 589 00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:33,560 "Thomas of Thornton, priest, 590 00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:38,560 "reputed to have committed fornication with Alice, daughter of Robert Master. 591 00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:40,400 "She is ordered, as a penance, 592 00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:42,880 "to be beaten 12 times around the market square 593 00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:48,240 "and 12 times around the church, naked except for her chemise. 594 00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:52,160 "Beatrice, daughter of William Duty, pregnant. It is not known by whom. 595 00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:56,160 "Appeared in the chapter house at Lincoln and confessed the sin 596 00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:59,520 "and was absolved. Swore not to sin again. 597 00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,280 "Ordered to be beaten six times around the church 598 00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:06,240 "on Sundays and feast days in front of all the procession." 599 00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,840 Religious authorities relied heavily on fear and shame 600 00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:17,720 to police their flock. 601 00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:24,600 All over the country, 602 00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:30,240 the full machinery of the Church was brought to bear upon the sexual activities of the faithful. 603 00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:38,320 For the Church, sexual purity was an ideal, 604 00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,280 but it was an ideal that was difficult to live up to, 605 00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:43,960 even for members of the Church. 606 00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:45,960 Take this book for example, 607 00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,360 copied out by the monks of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury 608 00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:51,920 around the year 1200. 609 00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:57,240 The first half is fairly innocuous, a history of English bishops. 610 00:45:57,280 --> 00:46:00,760 But at the end is a series of pornographic stories, 611 00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,880 copied out and presumably enjoyed by the monks. 612 00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:07,080 One of them concerns a man and wife 613 00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,280 who went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 614 00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:12,440 One evening, they took refuge in the back of a cave. 615 00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,520 Nine Saracens come in, light a fire and strip off. 616 00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:22,320 The woman sees their virilia, their virile members, 617 00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:23,840 and becomes so excited 618 00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:26,920 that she insists her husband make love to her. 619 00:46:28,720 --> 00:46:30,400 After he's done so three times, 620 00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,120 he can't manage a fourth and falls asleep. 621 00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,840 And the woman then offers herself to the Saracens. 622 00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:38,240 All nine of them. 623 00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:55,240 'Priests were supposed to be celibate, 624 00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,280 'at least in the later Middle Ages, 625 00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:00,480 'when the Church decided they could no longer marry. 626 00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:05,160 'But some lived with mistresses or had affairs with other men's wives.' 627 00:47:08,240 --> 00:47:12,520 'They were the target of the occasional satirical poem.' 628 00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,960 "What do priests do with no woman of their own? 629 00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,200 "They force themselves on others. 630 00:47:19,240 --> 00:47:21,800 "They have no fear, they feel no shame. 631 00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,440 "Take married women as their lovers." 632 00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:33,240 'Medieval clergy had other ways to satisfy their sexual desires - 633 00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:38,440 'by making use of an institution even older than their own. 634 00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:41,560 'The records of the brothels of Dijon in France 635 00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:47,920 'reveal that at least 20% of the clientele were churchmen. 636 00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:53,160 'Aged monks, mendicant friars, canons, priests - 637 00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:57,440 'all of them visiting prostitutes in the city's bathhouses.' 638 00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,520 A medieval brothel could provide a healthy income 639 00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,840 as well as a sexual outlet for church dignitaries. 640 00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:11,520 The Bishop of Winchester received a regular rent from the brothels 641 00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:13,680 in the red light district of Southwark, 642 00:48:13,720 --> 00:48:15,920 which is why the prostitutes from the area 643 00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,240 were referred to as Winchester geese. 644 00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,600 Regardless of the behaviour of its own clergy, 645 00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:30,280 the medieval church vigorously condemned and punished 646 00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:31,920 most kinds of sexual activity. 647 00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:35,920 But there was one sexual practice for which medieval society reserved 648 00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:38,400 its most savage condemnation. 649 00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,840 The sin of sodomy. 650 00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:49,240 Male homosexuality was something medieval clerics knew about. 651 00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:52,720 This was a time when thousands of men lived together 652 00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:55,720 in communities, rarely seeing a woman. 653 00:48:55,760 --> 00:49:00,400 These are the words of a medieval abbot writing to a young monk. 654 00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:04,920 "My eyes long to see your face, most beloved. 655 00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:08,160 "My arms stretch out to your embraces. 656 00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:11,440 "My lips long for your kisses. 657 00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:13,520 "Whatever remains of me of life 658 00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:18,480 "desires your company to make my soul's joy complete for the future." 659 00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:23,000 Such words sound erotic to the modern ear. 660 00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:26,080 Yet such language was not uncommon between men at the time. 661 00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:29,680 It didn't even imply a physical relationship. 662 00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:36,560 'In fact, these are the words 663 00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:40,800 'of perhaps the most virulent campaigner against the sin of sodomy - 664 00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,920 'Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury.' 665 00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:55,000 According to Anselm, 666 00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:59,160 this deadly vice was spreading throughout England. 667 00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:01,960 The country, he warned, was threatened with the fate 668 00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:06,080 of the lustful inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. 669 00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:17,840 'Few historians have studied this dark chapter of medieval repression.' 670 00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:26,680 'One who has is Bob Mills.' 671 00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:33,080 The Bible account in Genesis 672 00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:38,200 tells of how, because of the sins of the inhabitants of these cities, 673 00:50:38,240 --> 00:50:42,560 God rains down brimstone and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah 674 00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:46,040 and destroys all of the city's inhabitants. 675 00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:54,640 The penalties in medieval society are meant, in some ways, to reflect 676 00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:58,600 the penalties imposed by God on the original Sodomites. 677 00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:05,600 Fearing divine retribution, medieval society inflicted 678 00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:12,440 savage punishments on any kind of sexual behaviour deemed "unnatural". 679 00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:18,480 In Portugal and Castile, castration is imposed as a penalty. 680 00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:23,480 In Siena, the penalty is to be hanged by one's virile members. 681 00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:29,280 In 1288 in Bologna, the penalty is death by burning. 682 00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:40,200 Sodomites in the afterlife fared no better. 683 00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:48,640 There are certain images in late medieval Italy 684 00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:54,000 which show sodomites actually being burned eternally in hell. 685 00:51:59,720 --> 00:52:05,000 And one of these images shows a sodomite being penetrated 686 00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:09,640 from the anus through to the mouth and in a sense being spit-roasted 687 00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:12,600 by a devil, who's sort of turning the spit. 688 00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:22,360 The other end of the rod then comes out of his mouth 689 00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:26,200 and into the mouth of another figure who's sitting beside him. 690 00:52:26,240 --> 00:52:28,200 So there's a clear allusion here 691 00:52:28,240 --> 00:52:32,200 to the ways in which the penalties for sodomy 692 00:52:32,240 --> 00:52:34,680 mirror the sexual practices of the sodomites. 693 00:52:34,720 --> 00:52:38,160 So we've got an allusion to anal sex and the penetration of the anus 694 00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:42,480 and then the penetration of the mouth alludes to oral sex. 695 00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:48,280 In late 14th-century Perugia, 696 00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:51,200 there's an Italian Last Judgement play 697 00:52:51,240 --> 00:52:53,840 which describes the various penalties 698 00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:56,440 that are going to be inflicted on sinners in hell. 699 00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:04,720 At the very climax of this play, Christ describes the punishments for the sodomites. 700 00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:12,840 "You, stinking sodomite, have crucified me night and day. 701 00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:19,560 "Go quickly to hell to stay a while amid those punishments. 702 00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:23,720 "Put him quickly in that great heat, since he has sinned against nature." 703 00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:27,280 "You cursed sodomites, 704 00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:31,040 "roast like little piggies." 705 00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:38,400 Then Satan tells one of the devils to give the roast a good turning. 706 00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:44,600 So a very explicit illusion to the idea of the spit-roasted sodomite. 707 00:53:46,720 --> 00:53:53,360 Punishment for such unbridled sexual aberration awaited Christian Europe. 708 00:53:57,320 --> 00:53:59,960 So claimed the prophets of doom. 709 00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:03,760 And they would soon claim a terrible vindication. 710 00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:18,560 In 1348, William of Edendon, Bishop of Winchester, wrote to all the clergy in his diocese. 711 00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:23,800 "We report with anguish the news which has come to our ears, 712 00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:26,720 "that a cruel plague has begun a savage attack 713 00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:29,360 "on the coastal areas of England." 714 00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:36,120 "Although God often strikes us to justly punish our sins, 715 00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:41,920 "it is not within the power of man to understand the divine plan. 716 00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:45,360 "But it is to be feared that human sensuality, 717 00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:49,720 "that fire which blazed up as a result of Adam's sin, 718 00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:52,680 "has now plumbed greater depths of evil, 719 00:54:52,720 --> 00:54:54,760 "producing a multitude of sins 720 00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:59,200 "which have provoked the divine anger to this revenge." 721 00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:19,040 The Black Death killed half the population of Europe. 722 00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:23,800 Those infected swelled up with boils the size of eggs or apples. 723 00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:27,360 They vomited black and green fluid, they coughed up blood, 724 00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:30,560 and it condemned them to a quick and painful death. 725 00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:33,000 Relationships fell apart. 726 00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:37,680 "Brother forsook brother, uncle nephew, sister brother, 727 00:55:37,720 --> 00:55:40,240 "and often times wife husband," 728 00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:42,000 lamented the poet Boccaccio. 729 00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:50,240 For the Bishop of Rochester, Thomas Brinton, the onset of plague 730 00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:54,240 was due punishment for the sins of his contemporaries. 731 00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:59,320 "There is on every side so much lechery and adultery 732 00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:02,720 "that few men are contented with their own wives, 733 00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:06,120 "but each man lusts after the wife of his neighbour 734 00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:08,840 "or keeps a stinking concubine - 735 00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:13,920 "behaviour which merits a horrible and wretched death." 736 00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:28,040 The Black Death was a 14th-century apocalypse. 737 00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:31,720 But it was, tragically, of a piece with so much of life 738 00:56:31,760 --> 00:56:35,000 as it was lived on the other side of that great divide 739 00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:39,160 which separates the modern world from a more dangerous past. 740 00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:54,840 The medieval world existed far more precariously than our own. 741 00:56:54,880 --> 00:57:00,240 A complex world of passion and romance. 742 00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:03,640 Misogyny and cruelty. 743 00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:09,160 Infant death and everlasting love. 744 00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:12,920 Piety and poetry. 745 00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:17,040 Virgins wedded to Christ, 746 00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:21,080 and priests wedded to the pleasures of the flesh. 747 00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:27,840 A life that was, it must be said, 748 00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:30,320 nasty for some, 749 00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:33,000 short for many. 750 00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:38,080 But brutish, not at all. 751 00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:11,920 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd