ABSTRACT
Sex may be universal, but the Middle Ages are not really known for its sexual foreplay. In the popular consciousness, this was an age dominated by the Church, with its strictures against sexual pleasure, or "fornication". This chapter explores all the aspects of medieval sexuality. Medieval attitudes towards sexuality were derived from a number of sources that included: medical treatises and works of natural philosophy; "popular" works of literature, such as the fabliaux; and legal and religious texts. Homosexuals in the Middle Ages present a conundrum: how to refer to them when the term, and arguably the sexual identity of, "homosexual," is itself a modern invention, a product of the nineteenth century, along with more terms, such as "gay" and "queer," that are commonly used in historical studies of the subject. Discussion of homosexuality in the Middle Ages is overshadowed by the seminal work of the Yale historian, John Boswell, who published his Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality in 1980.
