What Was Sex Like In Medieval Times?

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

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What happened when medieval monks were told by the church that they had to be celibate? And how did their wives react?

On today's episode, we're joined by Katherine Harvey, historian and author of The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages, to take us back to the middle ages and answer the question: what was sex like in medieval times?

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

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Between To Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal and Society from History Hit.
0:05.6	To listen to all of our episodes, add free and watch hundreds of history documentaries,
0:10.6	download the History Hit app or go to History Hit.com forward slash
0:15.6	subscribe. And if you're an Apple listener you can subscribe for new ad-free
0:20.4	episodes within the app. Hello my lovely betwixters, it's me Kailister.
0:28.0	I am here as I always will be with your fair dues warning.
0:32.0	Here it is. This is an adult podcast book. I always will be with your fair dues warning.
0:32.6	Here it is.
0:33.4	This is an adult podcast,
0:34.7	spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things
0:36.8	in an adult way, covering a range of adult subjects
0:39.2	and you should be an adult too.
0:41.8	Who, well, I don't know about you, but I certainly feel less triggered after that.
0:46.0	I hope you do too, on Twixters. It is a beautiful day here in medieval England just perfect for a jousting competition wouldn't you say
1:06.7	Go and grab yourself a gobble of mead and let's start a mingling because this is the place where you could meet a partner back in the day.
1:16.0	Some 800 years before we were all on dating apps, swiping left and right.
1:22.0	What a time to be alive. There's lots of men in armour clunking around,
1:27.0	trying not to get knocked off their horses, getting into scrapes, and trying to impress the
1:31.6	on-looking swooning damsels.
1:34.6	To be fair, I have seen similar knights out in Leeds.
1:37.8	Hang on, here they come, here they come.
1:40.0	Holy! Well, holy fuck balls, they're not in any fit state to be out dating anytime soon, are they?
	...

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