ABSTRACT
For centuries historians have studied war and money, law and religion, art and power, the working out of some basic human instincts – but only recently have they turned to study in depth humankind’s primal instinct, the urge to reproduce itself and thereby perpetuate the race through sex. This intellectual taboo testifies powerfully to the legacy of Christian teaching and thinking upon western civilization. In the nineteenth century passages dealing with sexual matters in ancient texts were left in the ‘decent obscurity of a classical language’. That obscurity is now being dispelled as the searching lamps of historical investigation are trained on the darkness, lamps which have thus far shone brightest in the universities of France and America. Massive and authoritative studies pour regularly from the presses. These works survey the sources in depth, place them in context and seek to recreate for us something of the sexual experience and sensibilities of the Middle Ages: James A. Brundage’s Law, Sex and Christian Society, Jacques Rossiauďs Medieval Prostitution, John Boswell’s Christianity, Homosexuality and Social Tolerance , Pierre Payer’s Sex and the Penitentials are just a few of the key works in this area, joined most recently by Peter Brown’s dazzling The Body and Society , which concentrates on the Ancient World but highlights themes and preoccupations that continue into the Middle Ages.
