ABSTRACT
Love, sex, and marriage were topics much discussed in medieval writings of all sorts: in literary works and theological discussions, in medical textbooks and private letters, in chronicles and legal manuals, in penitential guides and conduct books. Literature might seem to offer the reader a sort of counterbalance to the suspicion of sex found in ecclesiastical texts. The Middle Ages has a wide range of different terms for love, and they carry a broad range of meanings. Studying historical sexual behaviour immediately forces the reader to scrutinise own thinking about sexuality and its categorisations. The study of sexuality does not equal the study of same-sex couples, and in fact medieval moralists devote far more attention to what the people would term heterosexual behaviour than they do to same-sex relations. Possible tensions between Christian teachings on marriage and survivals of pre-Christian practices in the early medieval period have already been discussed.
