What Happened On A Medieval Wedding Night?

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We've been tying the knot for thousands of years in one way or another, but what did a medieval wedding look like?

The church had very strict ideas around monogamy and sex in this period, which affected the rituals of a wedding day, AND night.

What happened in the bed chambers of the newlyweds? Why was pleasure so important? And why were divorce courts so humiliating?

Joining Kate today is author and historian Jacqueline Murray, to take us back to the Middle Ages.

This episode was edited by Tom Delargy. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

You can take part in our listener survey here.

All music from Epidemic Sounds.

Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm your host, Kate Lister.
0:02.4	If you would like betwixt the sheets, add free and get early access, sign up to History Hit.
0:08.7	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of original documentaries with top history presenters.
0:16.0	And enjoy a new release every single week.
0:19.8	Sign up now by visiting history hit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:24.6	Hello, my lovely betwixters.
0:26.3	It's me, Kate Lister.
0:27.7	I am me, you are you and you are listening to Bertwixter sheets.
0:31.2	And we are all very, very relieved that you are doing so.
0:34.2	But before we can go any further together, I do have to tell you,
0:37.5	this is an adult podcast, Pokemon, by adults, to other adults, adulty things in an
0:40.3	adulty way, covering on age adults, subjects, and you should be an adult too. We call that
0:43.3	the fair do's warning, because if you listen to that and then you keep listening to something
0:46.7	upset to you, well, fair do's, we did warn you. Right, on with the show.
0:57.2	Don't you just love a wedding?
1:00.2	All the traditions playing out the family bust-ups, the maid of honor crying into the cake.
1:06.8	It's such a beautiful sight.
1:09.0	Here at a medieval wedding, though, we have got other things going on.
1:13.8	Everybody has made their way into the couple's bedchamber and are now having a right old
1:18.8	song and dance about the happy couple getting down to do it.
1:22.5	There are people throwing stockings at the bride, a priest chucking grain on the bed.
1:27.0	I'm telling you, it's all kicking
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 7 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.