Law Sex And Christian Society In Medieval Europe

This monumental study of medieval law and sexual conduct explores the origin and develpment of the Christian church's sex law and the systems of belief upon which that law rested. Focusing on the Church's own legal system of canon law, James A. Brundage offers a comprehensive history of legal doctrines–covering the millennium from A.D. 500 to 1500–concerning a wide variety of sexual behavior, including marital sex, adultery, homosexuality, concubinage, prostitution, masturbation, and incest. His survey makes strikingly clear how the system of sexual control in a world we have half-forgotten has shaped the world in which we live today. The regulation of marriage and divorce as we know it today, together with the outlawing of bigamy and polygamy and the imposition of criminal sanctions on such activities as sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, and bestiality, are all based in large measure upon ideas and beliefs about sexual morality that became law in Christian Europe in the Middle Ages. "Brundage's book is consistently learned, enormously useful, and frequently entertaining. It is the best we have on the relationships between theological norms, legal principles, and sexual practice."—Peter Iver Kaufman, Church History

It is impossible to understand how the medieval church functioned and, in turn, influenced the lay world within its care without understanding "canon law". This book examines its development from its beginnings to the end of the Middle Ages, updating its findings in light of recent scholarly trends. This second edition has been fully revised and updated by Melodie H. Eichbauer to include additional material on the early Middle Ages; the significance of the discovery of earlier versions of Gratian’s Decretum; and the new research into law emanating from secular authorities, councils, episcopal acta, and juridical commentary to rethink our understanding of the sources of law and canon law's place in medieval society. Separate chapters examine canon law in intellectual spaces; the canonical courts and their procedures; and, using the case studies of deviation from orthodoxy and marriage, canon law in the lives of people. The main body of the book concludes with the influence of canon law in Western society, but has been reworked by integrating sections cut from the first edition chapters on canon law in private and public life to highlight the importance of this field of research. Throughout the work and found in the bibliography are references to current literature and resources in order to make researching in the field more accessible. The first appendix provides examples of how canonical texts are cited while the second offers biographical notes on canonists featured in the work. The end result is a second edition that is significantly rewritten and updated but retains the spirit of Brundage’s original text. Covering all aspects of medieval canon law and its influence on medieval politics, society, and culture, this book provides students of medieval history with an accessible overview of this foundational aspect of medieval history.

This volume brings together papers by a group of scholars, distinguished in their own right, in honour of James Brundage. The essays are organised into four sections, each corresponding to an important focus of Brundage's scholarly work. The first section explores the connection between the development of medieval legal and constitutional thought. Thomas Izbicki, Kenneth Pennington, and Charles Reid, Jr. explore various aspects of the jurisprudence of the Ius commune, while James Powell, Michael Gervers and Nicole Hamonic, Olivia Robinson, and Elizabeth Makowski examine how that jurisprudence was applied to various medieval institutions. Brian Tierney and James Muldoon conclude this section by demonstrating two important points: modern ideas of consent in the political sphere and fundamental principles of international law attributed to sixteenth century jurists like Hugo Grotius have deep roots in medieval jurisprudential thought. Patrick Zutshi, R. H. Helmholz, Peter Landau, Marjorie Chibnall, and Edward Peters have written essays that augment Brundage's work on the growth of the legal profession and how traces of a legal education began to emerge in many diverse arenas. The influence of legal thinking on marriage and sexuality was another aspect of Brundage's broad interests. In the third section Richard Kay, Charles Donahue, Jr., and Glenn Olsen explore the intersection of law and marriage and the interplay of legal thought on a central institution of Christian society. The contributions of Jonathan Riley-Smith and Robert Somerville in the fourth section round-out the volume and are devoted to Brundage's path-breaking work on medieval law and the crusading movement. The volume also includes a comprehensive bibliography of Brundage's work.

A collection of essays by Michael Sheehan, whose work and interpretation on medieval property, marriage, family, sexuality, and law has insprired scholars for 40 years.

Like specialists in other fields in humanities and social sciences, medievalists have begun to investigate and write about sex and related topics such as courtship, concubinage, divorce, marriage, prostitution, and child rearing. The scholarship in this significant volume asserts that sexual conduct formed a crucial role in the lives, thoughts, hopes and fears both of individuals and of the institutions that they created in the middle ages. The absorbing subject of sexuality in the Middle Ages is examined in 19 original articles written specifically for this "Handbook" by the major authorities in their scholarly specialties. The study of medieval sexuality poses problems for the researcher: indices in standard sources rarely refer to sexual topics, and standard secondary sources often ignore the material or say little about it. Yet a vast amount of research is available, and the information is accessible to the student who knows where to look and what to look for. This volume is a valuable guide to the material and an indicator of what subjects are likely to yield fresh scholarly rewards.

Now in its fourth edition, Sexuality in Medieval Europe provides a lively account of a society whose attitudes toward sexuality both were ancestral to, and differed from, contemporary ones. The volume is structured not by types of sexual interactions or deviance, but to reflect the difference in gendered experiences when sex is seen as an act one person does to another. Sexual activity, within and outside of marriage, as well as sexual inactivity, had different meanings based on gender, social status, religious affiliation, and more. This book considers these iterations of medieval sexuality in its effort to show there was no single medieval attitude towards sexuality. With an emphasis on Christian Western Europe over the entire course of the Middle Ages, it also includes comparative material on neighboring cultures at the time. Alongside being reworked for further clarity and readability, the fourth edition offers substantial new material on trans scholarship and methodological attempts to recoup a trans past; changes in the treatment of sex work and its terminology; and new material on Byzantine and Muslim culture. Sexuality in Medieval Europe is an essential resource for all those who study medieval history, medieval culture, and the history of sexuality in Europe.

The book analyzes Christian assumptions about sexuality, chronicles the early institutionalization of these assumptions, and explores the theological debate about the meaning of marriage and the role of sex in marriage. The theological conception of sex, including issues such as rape, seduction, impotence, and prostitution, is then examined as it came to be developed by canon lawyers and justified by medical and scientific writers. The book concludes with an overview of late medieval sex practices as seen in the literature of the period and in demographic studies.

Carnal delight, marriage, concubinage, coital position, rape, impotence and frigidity as grounds for annulment, the status of women both within and outside of marriage, intermarriage between Christians and Jews, prostitution, and sodomy are among the topics discussed in 17 essays reproduced from their original publication, 1975-91. Much attention is paid to Canon Law and church policy. Distributed in the US by Ashgate. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR