Medieval Desire

Courtly love, celebrated in numerous songs and poems, was the romantic ideal of westernEurope in the Middle Ages. Yet, human nature being what it is, the realities of sexualdesire and the complications it brings were never far away, says Julie Peakman.

Poise and Passion inthe Middle Ages

The tale of Guinevere and Lancelot is one ofthe best-known love stories ofthe MiddleAges. Lancelot, having strived to attain aposition at court, was knighted after

becoming one of King Arthur's most trusted allies. Asa courtier, initially at least, he had admired Arthur'squeen, Cîuinevere, but kept his passion at bay.However emotion got the better ofthe couple andwith it came disloyalty, dishonour and the destructionofthe Round Table. In the end, Lancelot's love for thequeen led to the fall of Gamelot.

Yet courtly love was thought to be a pure love, onewhich was not necessarily consummated. It was thelove from afar ofa handsome knight jousting for hishonoured lady, whose colours he wore. It was the loveof poetry and songs written by the troubadour for hislover admired at a distance. A man was supposed towoo his Lady by acting out noble and brave deeds inorder to impress and gain her favours. Often he wasobliged to run the gauntlet ofa series of tests in orderto prove his worthiness of her affections. Throughsongs and poems the noble admirer would prostratehimself before her and humble himself to her desires.By this route men from poor families might attaingreat wealth, becoming knights by inveigling them-selves into the favour ofa noble woman.

Such 'courtly love' was a phenomenon whicharose towards the end of the 11 th century and wasbased on a code of chivalry among nobles. It beganin Erance in the courts of Aquitaine, Provence,Ghampagne and ducal Burgundy. But the term wasactually coined much later by the scholar GastonParis (1839-1903), who was writing about Lancelotin 1883, and, as such, it is a fairly modern concept.Paris examined Lancelot, the Knight ofthe Cart,written in 1177 by Ghrétien de Troyes, and noticedhow courtly love was expressed by young nobles andknights towards their mistresses.

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The Bawdy Women', an illustration from De Claris Mulieribus (On Famous Women) by theFlorentine author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), French school, 15th century.

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Medieval Desire

Eleanor of Aquitaine ( 1122-1204) was the first tointroduce courtly love to the palaces of England,following her marriage to Henry II (r. 1154-89), thenDuke of Normandy and heir to the throne. Onbecoming queen of England in 1154, as patron of thearts she supported music and poems and encouragedthe troubadours, just as her father and grandfatherhad done before her. Through her efforts songs of thetroubadours became part of the wooing procedureand the codes of courtly love flourished. Travellingmusicians would visit courts singing balladsexpounding the virtues of chivalry and romance. Asthe style grew, knights and members of the aristocracywrote and sang courtly love songs. Poems such asthose by the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn(c. 1130-c. 1200) expressed devotion and sadness atseparation and unrequited love:

She has all my heart, and my soul.And herself and the whole world;And when she left, nothing remainedBut desire and a longing heart.

However the concept of courtly love was filteredthrough a prism of 19th-century Romanticism. Inreality there were examples of a much more real andearthy love in the Middle Ages.

Love and marriage 'Medieval lovers were often kept apart due to circum-stances beyond their control and had to live their dailylives pragmatically. Many feudal lords, nobles andgentry left their wives to run their estates while theythemselves went oft to fight in the Crusades or travelelsewhere. In 1440 newly-married lohn Paston left hisbride, Margaret, to return to his studies at Peterhouse,Cambridge. In her first letter to him she displays heraffection but also reveals the practical reasonspreventing his return:

/ commend myself to you with all my simple heart.This is to let you know that 1,100 Flemish landed atWaxham, of whom 800 were captured, killed ordrowned. If they had not been, you would have beenhome this Whitsuntide.

Such were the ravages of war that kept love at bay.Separated lovers gave each other tokens as a way ofproviding protection and a reminder of affection.Margaret Paston sent her ne\v spouse a ring imprintedwith the image of St Margaret as a memento tellinghim: 'You have left me such a keepsake as makes methink of you both day and night when I want to sleep.'

Marriage usually had little to do with love,particularly among the aristocracy, who had to wedtheir sons and daughters into powerful families.Noble status and wealth were the key to parents'decisions as to whom their children should bebetrothed. In 1372 one French knight, Geoffroy dela Tour Landry, wrote a book for his daughters onhow to catch a decent {and presumably rich)husband. His Book of the Knight of the Tower wasfull of tales of lecherous monks and unruly wives.

The image of Eleanor ofAquitaine on her tomb atFontevraud Abbey in theLoire Valley, France.

enveloped in the world of devils and miracles. Theunderlying morality of the book suggested thatwomen's uncontrolled desires needed to berestrained through marriage or religion. He warnedof maids 'yong and lusty' who possessed 'lyghtercourage' and had 'more feble' natures, susceptible tofalsehood and flattery. Good husbands were neededto temper them. The author was at pains to show'How the Good Lady ought to love and drede andalso be faithful to her Husband'. Her reward forchasteness was to have a loyal husband. Youngwomen deaf to this advice would be subject to allsorts of calamities from falling down a well to mobrape. In England the book was published byWilliam Caxton in 1484, but its target audience hadshifted: this time the book was aimed at women ofthe rising merchant class.

Yet love in the Middle Ages was not a simple affairand was often fraught with diftkulties. It involvedcomplicated transactions and it was not easy to marryby choice because of social restrictions. Often family,friends and even neighbours would have a say inwhom and when a person might marry. In aristocraticfamilies couples had no choice as to who their bride orbridegroom might be. Richard Neville (1428-71) wasonly six when he married Anne Beauchamp ( 1426-92)! daughter of Richard, Earl of Warwick (1382-1439), but it meant he succeeded to the earldomhimself in 1449 to become known as the 'Kingmaker'.Money and power had a huge influence on his choice.The uniting of families was a serious business withhuge dowries being demanded. Edward III (r. 1327-77) paid 5,000 marks to ensure the marriage of hisgrand-daughter Phillipa (1355-82) to EdmundMortimer, Earl of March ( 1352-81 ).

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Medieval Desire

In villages love further down the social scale wasmuch freer as young men and women courted eachother in public, in fields and behind milking sheds.Couples would meet at fairs, markets and festivals. Inall likelihood the girls or boys who came togetherwere from the same village. Although we know lessabout peasants and their relationships at this time,songs and ballads tell us about expectations. Womenwere wooed with gifts of food, money and clothesduring court.ship, which could lead directly toconsummation ofthat love, a process explained in adouble entendre in one bawdy ballad: 'In my box, heputt es hys offringe.' In another song a maiden tells ushow one encounter was 'the murgust nyt' (merriestnight); another on her lover,'Fayne wold I haue hembothe nyght and daye' (Fain would I have him bothnight and day). These were, however, expressions ofmale songwriters eager to stress the attractivenessand prowess of their sex.

Often men and women could not wait for theirwedding day; they had to pay fines for committing'fornication' before marrying. Although Matilda

Lancelot kisses Guineverefor the first time in anillustration on vellum fromLancelot du Lac, Frenchschool, 15th century.

Catte of Ingoldmells, Lincolnshire and Ralph Lambplanned to marry in March 1319 - and even thoughthey eventually did - a type of fine called 'leyrwite'was demanded of Matilda as she was an unmarriedbondwoman (a woman bound to serve withoutwages, in effect a slave), the fine being commonlysixpence. The fact that women were wooed withpromises of marriage was recognised andcondemned by the church authorities, but theypunished men as well as women. In manorial courtsonly women seem to have been penalised forsuccumbing to declarations of love and marriage-and poor women at that.

The sin of consummated love outside marriageplaced restrictions on desires. St Paul had suggestedthat if a person could not remain chaste it was betterthat they should marry. Of single people he remarked:'If they cannot exercise self-control, they shouldmarry. For it is better to marry than to burn.' Wiveswere instructed to defer to their husbands' wishes, tobe obedient and to heed the word of St Paul when hecommanded: 'Wives be subject to your husbands, as is

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Medieval Desire

fitting in the Lord' (Colossians 3: verses 18-22). Thiswas the standard view in the 12th century whenBartholomew, the Bishop of Exeter brought out apenitential dealing with the sin of'fornication', appli-cable to anyone outside of marriage. Limitations wereplaced on couples about when, where, how and withwhom they could make love; in other words, not inthe daytime or on special church days and only in bedin the 'tnissionary' position and then only with theperson to whom one was married. Nonetheless illicitaffairs could not be stemmed and were perhaps morecommon than courtly love ever was.

'Worthy of all my love'The great passion between Eloise and Abelard in 12th-century France rocked the Parisian world. Their affairwas one of the most uplifting, if sad, fales of love anddesire. It shows not the pure acceptable love of thecourtly kind but the consummated and fulfilling loveof passion and desire, love that was largely unaccept-able in their society. It was also a story of abuse oftrust. For, while she was his pupil, Peter Abelard(1079-1142) seduced Eloise d'Argentuil (c. 1101-64)under the nose of her guardian, her uncle.

Abelard was a well-known scholastic philosopherbefore he met Eloise. He had created a stir with hiswritings, some of which were considered heretical.Her uncle. Canon Fulbert, had agreed to let Abelardteach Eloise as she was bright and keen and Fulbertwanted to ensure his niece received the best education.

Eloise's intelligence and beauty stirred a strongdesire in Abelard. He wrote to his friend: 'It was thisyoung girl whom 1, after careful consideration ot allthose qualities which are wont to attract lovers,determined to unite with myself in the bonds oflove.' He managed to contrive to be alone with Eloisewhile teaching her. His desire became uncontrol-lable and he admitted: 'I thought of nothing butHeloise; everything brought her image to my mind. Iwas pensive and restless, and my passion was soviolent as to admit of no restraint.' He risked every-thing by carrying on the affair in the house of heruncle, admitting: 'In the dead of night, when Fulbertand his domestics were in a sound sleep, weimproved the time proper with the sweets of love;not contenting ourselves, like those unfortunatelovers, with giving insipid kisses to a wall, we madeuse of all the moments of our charming interviews.'

Inevitably Eloise became pregnant and her uncle,incensed by the affair, hired thugs to castrateAbelard. In a seemingly modern declaration of loveshe refused to marry Abelard asking: 'Will it not bemore agreeable to me to see myself your mistressthan your wife? And will not love have more powerthan marriage to keep our hearts firmly united?'Some time later, Eloise bore Abelard's child, whomshe named Astrolabe, and joined a convent. Abelardjoined a religious order, but despite their separationEloise and Abelard's love for each other remainedconstant. While in the cloister Eloise wrote to him: 'Icannot live if you will not tell me that you still loveme.' Under the circumstances the cloister servedEloise well and she rose to her duties to become

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'The Demon of Vanity and the Coquette^ a woodcut from a 1493 German version of The Book ofthe Knight of the Tower, originaily written in 1371 by Geoffroy de la Tour Landry for his daughters.

Eloise takes instruction from Abelard in an illustration on vellum from Le Roman de la Roseby Jean de Meung, c. 1370.

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Medieval Desire

abbess of the Oratory of theParaclete, the Benedictinecommunity founded by Abelardin north-central France.

As in the case of Lancelot andGuinevere, for the rest of theirlives Abelard and Eloise didpenance for their illicit relation-ship. In this love passions ranunleashed and desires werefulfilled. Those involved wereultimately punished andcommitted themselves to thecloistered life. Yet the cloisterswere not always the most pureplaces to live.

Love in the cloisterAfter the Norman Conquestscandals of love and passionbetween religious celibates beganto be seen as a serious problem. For some years thechurch authorities, as well as the churchgoers, hadbeen complaining about clerical marriages and thelack of chastity among the clergy. In responsebishops held meetings to figure out a method ofdealing with their errant clergy. Instructions weregiven in order to prevent priests from having contactwith women, clerical marriages were forbidden and

'Fornication and CrimeCommitted by a Priest;from Décrets de Gratien,French, 13th century.

A man pulls a woman into acopse, from The Fountain ofLife, a fresco by GiacomoJaquerio(fi. 1403-53).

celibacy strictly enforced. Love, itwould seem, was to be suppressed,at least among those alreadypromised to God.

Yet tales of monastery grave-yards full of the bones of deadchildren were widely whisperedoutside the guarded enclaves ofthe cloister. The infants weresupposedly those murdered atbirth after nuns had beenimpregnated by their confessors.The fact that religious houses formen and women were built in thesame grounds meant that thenuns and friars sometimes inter-mingled. Prior to the arrival ofthe Normans such doublemonasteries were popular andreligious men and women hadeasy access to each other, but the

church authorities were having second thoughtsabout their practicality. The ease of interminglingbetween the sexes is exemplified in one case whichcame to light in 1142 in reports about a nun atCatesby priory who 'did pass the night with theAustin friars at Northampton and did dance andplay the lute with them in the same place untilmidnight'. That such activities could lead to

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affections between the cloistered was not doubted,particularly when Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-67)revealed the story ofthe Nun of Watton in thelate 1150s.

She had been deposited in a nunnery oftheGilbertine order when she was only four years old andhad spent most of her childhood and adolescenceenclosed in the convent. But she grew into a head-strong and licentious young woman, resistant to allforms of correction. She was eventually caught withher young lover by the other nuns at the convent andsubjected to much degradation by them. They tore theveil from her head and chained her up in a cell whilerestricting her to a diet of bread and water. Aelredbewailed; 'Oh close your ears, virgins of Ghrist, coveryour eyes ... She went out a virgin of Ghrist, and shesoon returned an adtilteress.' Proof of her indiscretioncame with her pregnancy and her lover was dulycastrated. In this case it was recorded that, after avision, miraculously her fetters fell from her, the babywas spirited away and the nun returned to her fold.The abbess ofthe Benedictine convent of Amesburyin Wiltshire was not so lucky. Her convent wasdissolved in 1189 after she was rumoured to havegiven birth three times.

A meeting to decide on such matters was held atthe Third Lateran Gouncil of 1179, where the lesserclergy came under direct attack when priests wereexpressly forbidden to have women in their houses.Bishops complained that priests were living withtheir housekeepers and siring a progeny of childrenby them. Despite many edicts being issued with theaim of keeping their clergy celibate, priestscontinued to indulge in the sins ofthe fiesh.

Luxury and debaucheryThe 13th century, the supposed 'golden age ofmonasticism', was a time of cloistered debauchery.Nuns' passions for ltixurious clothes and goldjewellery fed the complaints about their loose living.In 1397 a bishop complained about Margaret Fairfaxof Nunmonkton, a woman of high birth who hadjoined the convent but nonetheless continued toindulge her fondness for wearing silken veils andfrequently kept company with lohn Munkton andinvited him to feasts in her rooms'. That nuns weremeeting and eating with men gave reason forconcern; with good reason as shown by the Bishopof Alnwick's letter, written in 1440, to St Michael'sGhurch in Stamford, Lincolnshire informing therecipient that 'one Agnes, a nun of that place, hasgone away in apostasy cleaving to a harp player'.

The fact that women were often cloistered

A nun and a monk instocks, a detail from theSmithfield Decretals,English, c. 1340.

through no choice of their own did not helpmatters. Families placed unmarried daughters inconvents either to save money on marriages, to prayfor the family's soul or simply because they could nolonger afford to keep them. Between 1275 and 1535nunneries increasingly acted as a receptacle forsurplus women of the upper and middle classes whocould not afford the extortionate 'dowries'demanded of them. Although some women mayhave chosen a life of asceticism and prayer, not all ofthem had the choice. Little surprise then that theyfell in love with the men nearest to them.

Ecclesiastical scandals did nothing to help thereputation ofthe Gatholic Ghurch. If anything itproved the point ofthe reformers who bewailed itsstate. Once the reform movement took hold, reli-gious houses declined in Protestant countries andmarriage became the preferred lifestyle choice. Afterpinning his 95 Theses to the door of the church inWittenberg in 1517, Martin Luther ( 1483-1546) washimself an exemplar of married love. Unable to keephis desires in check he changed tack from devotinghis life to celibacy to promoting Protestantism, withits more satisfying fulfilment of love withinmarriage. He proved his point by helping a nun,Katherine von Bora ( 1499-1552 ), to escape from theconfines of her convent in Saxony and marrying her.Sadly his love seems to have been without thepassion that existed between some of the earliercloistered Gatholics as he declared; 'I feel neitherpassionate love nor burning for my spouse, but Icherish her.' 'The first love is drunken,' he admitted.'When the intoxication wears off, then comes thereal marriage love.'

Julie Peakman teaches at Birkbeck, University of London. Her booksinclude Lascivious Bodies: A Sexuai History of the 18th Century (Atlantic,2005) and Mighty Lewd Books: The Development of Pornography in/ßth-centuryfng/ond (Palgrave Macmillan. 2003).

Further reading Ruth B/ans, A Cuiturai History of Sexuality inthe Middle Ages (Berg, 2010); Katherine Heinrichs, TheMythsof Love: Classical Lovers in Medieval Literature (PennsylvaniaState University Press, 2008); John Cherry (ed.). Medieval LovePoetry (Paul Getty Museum, 2006); C.S. Lewis, The Allegory ofLove: A Study in Medieval Tradition (Clarendon Press, 1936);Vern Bullough and James Brundage (eds.), Handbooi<ofMedieval Sexuality (Garland, 2000); Derek Baker (ed.).Medieval Women (Ecclesiastical History Society, 1989);Lynda L. Coon, Katherine J. Haldane and Elizabeth W.Sommer (eds.). That Gentle Strength: Historical Perspectiveson Women in Christianity (University of Virginia, 1990).

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