0:00:07 > 0:00:09"I love you more than any.
0:00:09 > 0:00:14"You alone are my love and my longing."
0:00:16 > 0:00:18The world of medieval men and women
0:00:18 > 0:00:22was shaped by strong and powerful passions.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25"The name of wife may seem sacred,
0:00:25 > 0:00:28"but sweeter to me will always be the word whore."
0:00:31 > 0:00:34In the medieval world, women are adored...
0:00:36 > 0:00:40..but also prompt loathing and disgust.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43"Woman is but Satan's bait.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46"Poison for men's souls."
0:00:47 > 0:00:53It's a world in which priests accuse their flocks of fornication...
0:00:54 > 0:00:58..where bishops grow rich on prostitution...
0:00:59 > 0:01:02..and where virgins marry Christ.
0:01:03 > 0:01:08"As I stood by the cross, I was filled with such fire,
0:01:08 > 0:01:12"I took off my clothes and offered him all of myself."
0:01:18 > 0:01:22It's a world in which God threatens to destroy mankind
0:01:22 > 0:01:24for the sin of lust.
0:01:45 > 0:01:47Sexual intercourse began in 1963.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49Or so, at least,
0:01:49 > 0:01:51wrote the poet Philip Larkin.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54But that's not entirely true.
0:01:54 > 0:01:55Sexual activity in the Middle Ages
0:01:55 > 0:01:59was as vigorous and as varied as it is today.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03Just how varied is made clear from the kinds of questions
0:02:03 > 0:02:05that medieval priests were instructed
0:02:05 > 0:02:07to ask their parishioners.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13"Have you committed fornication with a nun?
0:02:13 > 0:02:18"Have you committed fornication with your step-mother, your sister-in-law,
0:02:18 > 0:02:20"your son's fiancee, your mother?
0:02:20 > 0:02:25"Have you made a tool or device in the shape of a penis
0:02:25 > 0:02:29"and tied it to your private parts and fornicated with other women?"
0:02:35 > 0:02:38Priests might even ask female members of their flock,
0:02:38 > 0:02:42"Have you done what some women do when they lie before an animal
0:02:42 > 0:02:46"and encourage it to copulate by whatever means they can,
0:02:46 > 0:02:49"and thus it copulates with you?"
0:02:49 > 0:02:53Such questions suggest that sexual activity then was, shall we say,
0:02:53 > 0:02:56as diverse as it is today.
0:03:00 > 0:03:02But the world in which it took place
0:03:02 > 0:03:04was a very, very different world.
0:03:10 > 0:03:14The Middle Ages, between the 10th and the 15th centuries,
0:03:14 > 0:03:18stand on the far side of a great divide in human history.
0:03:18 > 0:03:23The experience of birth, life and death was different from now.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31Whereas people in Britain today can expect to live
0:03:31 > 0:03:32to their late 70s,
0:03:32 > 0:03:34average life expectancy in the Middle Ages
0:03:34 > 0:03:37would have been less than half that.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41And just about everybody would have experienced death at first-hand.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45Most people would have seen a brother or sister die.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50Most parents would have lost one or more of their children.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55In a medieval village of 100 houses,
0:03:55 > 0:03:59a funeral might take place every eight days.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04Malnutrition, infection, disease -
0:04:04 > 0:04:08life in the Middle Ages was precarious.
0:04:10 > 0:04:15It's easy to imagine medieval life as just nasty, brutish and short,
0:04:15 > 0:04:17as the saying goes.
0:04:17 > 0:04:22A basic struggle for survival, lacking in pleasure, passion or fun.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24But is that really how it was?
0:04:27 > 0:04:28Far from it.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33Medieval records suggest a world of intimacy and sensuality,
0:04:33 > 0:04:38with a keen interest in love, sex and reproduction,
0:04:38 > 0:04:40and some exotic ways of enhancing them.
0:04:52 > 0:04:53This recipe for conception
0:04:53 > 0:04:57comes from a popular 13th-century medical manual,
0:04:57 > 0:04:58The Secrets Of Women.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01"If someone should wish to help a woman
0:05:01 > 0:05:03"so that she might become pregnant,
0:05:03 > 0:05:07"let him take the womb and intestines of a hare,
0:05:07 > 0:05:10"dry them out and pulverize them.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15"And let the woman then drink this mixed with wine."
0:05:18 > 0:05:22"Then let her place a goat's hair in the milk of a female donkey,
0:05:22 > 0:05:25"and let her tie this around her at the navel
0:05:25 > 0:05:28"while she has sex with her husband.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30"And she will conceive."
0:05:31 > 0:05:37Medieval lovers who wanted sex but didn't want the consequences
0:05:37 > 0:05:41could turn to the experts for contraceptive advice.
0:05:41 > 0:05:46A French priest called Pierre Clergue swore by a certain herb.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50He wrapped it in linen and tied it around the neck of his partner,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54so that it hung between her breasts, and then made love to her.
0:05:56 > 0:06:01The easiest way to avoid conception was to dampen sexual desire.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07The Secrets Of Women's proposal for putting out the flames of passion
0:06:07 > 0:06:11was for a woman to drink a man's urine.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15You'd think that might have done it.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18And it has further comments on contraceptive measures.
0:06:18 > 0:06:24"If a woman eats sage that has been cooked for three days, she will not conceive for a year."
0:06:24 > 0:06:26Or, more drastically,
0:06:26 > 0:06:29"If a woman swallows a bee, she will never conceive."
0:06:32 > 0:06:33Well, evidently,
0:06:33 > 0:06:36medieval understanding of sex and reproduction was pretty basic.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39The science of anatomy was not very advanced,
0:06:39 > 0:06:41and dissection was rarely practised.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44But this didn't stop some of the greatest minds of the age
0:06:44 > 0:06:47trying to map the mysteries of sexuality.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54In seats of learning all over medieval Europe,
0:06:54 > 0:06:56scholars pondered the pressing question.
0:06:56 > 0:07:01Just what was the difference between men and women?
0:07:02 > 0:07:07The consensus reached by these male writers, many of them clerics,
0:07:07 > 0:07:09was that women were the problem.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13According to the classical theory of the four humours,
0:07:13 > 0:07:17men were thought to be hot and dry, which was good.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21Women were cold and moist, which was bad.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25This made them sexually voracious.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31"Woman has a greater desire for coitus than a man,
0:07:31 > 0:07:35"for something foul is drawn to something good."
0:07:40 > 0:07:44The real puzzle was just how the female anatomy worked.
0:07:44 > 0:07:50Here, at Merton College in Oxford, the 14th-century doctor John of Gaddesden
0:07:50 > 0:07:53expressed the standard medieval belief that menstrual blood
0:07:53 > 0:07:56was actually female seed.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03Evidently, women needed to purge themselves of this seed.
0:08:03 > 0:08:05That's what happened every month.
0:08:05 > 0:08:10Too great a build-up could lead to so called suffocation of the uterus,
0:08:10 > 0:08:12making it difficult for her to breathe
0:08:12 > 0:08:14and exposing her to convulsions and fainting fits.
0:08:14 > 0:08:16She might even go mad.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22No wonder women were predatory.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26They needed sex to get rid of all that menstrual blood.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33Worse, that blood was positively dangerous.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41"This blood is so detestable that, through contact with it,
0:08:41 > 0:08:46"fruits do not produce, wine turns sour,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49"trees lack fruit, the air darkens,
0:08:49 > 0:08:53"and dogs go wild with madness."
0:08:53 > 0:08:57HOWLING
0:08:59 > 0:09:02Medieval scientific thinking took it even further.
0:09:02 > 0:09:08The eye, it argued, receives menstrual fluid during a woman's period.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12The look of a menstruating woman, therefore,
0:09:12 > 0:09:14could in itself cause disease.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20Woman, in short, was literally poisonous.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25Medieval thinking was just as logical as ours,
0:09:25 > 0:09:28but it started from different assumptions.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31And those assumptions were often based on religious doctrine
0:09:31 > 0:09:33or ancient authority.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36And the governing idea behind female sexuality
0:09:36 > 0:09:40was the biblical story of the Garden of Eden.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48In the story of original sin,
0:09:48 > 0:09:51the Devil chooses to trick Eve rather than Adam,
0:09:51 > 0:09:55attacking human nature, it was said, where it seemed weaker.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07Eve was "Satan's bait, poison for men's souls,"
0:10:07 > 0:10:11wrote the 11th-century Italian cardinal Peter Damian.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24It was an act of betrayal that few churchmen could forgive.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28"The wickedness of women," wrote one 13th-century abbot,
0:10:28 > 0:10:32"is greater than all the other wickedness of the world."
0:10:35 > 0:10:38One early church father reminded women,
0:10:38 > 0:10:40"Do you not realise that Eve is YOU?
0:10:40 > 0:10:45"YOU desecrated the fateful tree, YOU disobeyed the law of God,
0:10:45 > 0:10:46"YOU persuaded the man
0:10:46 > 0:10:49"against whom the Devil could not prevail by force.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53"God's sentence passed upon your sex weighs still upon the world.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56"You are guilty, you must bear its hardships.
0:10:56 > 0:10:58"YOU are the Devil's gateway."
0:11:07 > 0:11:11With women held in such low esteem, it's hardly surprising
0:11:11 > 0:11:16that medieval courtship could be a rather unromantic affair.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20Marriage then was quite different from today's romantic ideal.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23It had very little, if anything, to do with love. That might come later.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26It was an alliance between families
0:11:26 > 0:11:30and an agreement involving the transfer of property.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33And the wife could be seen as part of that property.
0:11:36 > 0:11:42Like any piece of property, she needed close inspection before a deal could be done.
0:11:43 > 0:11:49In 1319, Edward II sent the Bishop of Exeter to inspect
0:11:49 > 0:11:52Philippa of Hainault as prospective wife for his young son.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02The bishop's report reads like a property survey,
0:12:02 > 0:12:04which is pretty much what it is.
0:12:04 > 0:12:10"The lady has not uncomely hair, between blue-black and brown.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13"Her eyes are blackish brown and deep.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16"Her nose is fairly smooth and even,
0:12:16 > 0:12:20"yet it is no snub-nose, her mouth fairly wide.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24"Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28"Her neck, shoulders, and all her body and lower limbs
0:12:28 > 0:12:30"are reasonably well shapen.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33"All her limbs are well set and unmaimed.
0:12:42 > 0:12:47"And the damsel will be on St John's Day next of the age of nine years."
0:12:51 > 0:12:53The report went down well.
0:12:53 > 0:12:55A deal was struck.
0:12:55 > 0:13:00Nine years later, Philippa duly married Edward's son, Edward III.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13Rich brides came with land attached.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17Substantial parts of Europe changed hands with marriage contracts.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20Orkney and Shetland became part of Scotland
0:13:20 > 0:13:23when a Danish princess brought them as her dowry
0:13:23 > 0:13:26on her marriage to the King of Scotland.
0:13:32 > 0:13:35A peasant girl might bring something more modest as her dowry.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38A cow, or some geese or chickens.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42But in all marriages, the woman's goods became her husband's property.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49As, in a sense, did the woman herself.
0:13:49 > 0:13:55The law often permitted husbands to treat their wives much as they wanted.
0:13:55 > 0:13:59"It is legal for a man to beat his wife when she wrongs him,
0:13:59 > 0:14:03"provided he neither kills nor maims her."
0:14:05 > 0:14:10Condemned as the cause of original sin, feared for her sexuality,
0:14:10 > 0:14:13married in exchange for property or goods,
0:14:13 > 0:14:15sometimes subject to violence -
0:14:15 > 0:14:18a woman's lot was not a happy one.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22And then, quite suddenly, into this society that held women so low,
0:14:22 > 0:14:26came a revolution that seemed to turn all this inside out.
0:14:35 > 0:14:39It began in southern France in the 12th century.
0:14:39 > 0:14:42Troubadours, wandering poets and musicians,
0:14:42 > 0:14:46became to talk of women and love in a wholly new way.
0:14:46 > 0:14:50TROUBADOUR SINGS
0:14:53 > 0:14:58They sang of an intense, idealised, sexual passion.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02Their verses reached one of the most powerful women of her day,
0:15:02 > 0:15:06the daughter of King Louis VII of France, Marie de Champagne.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10Marie's court was home to singers, writers and poets.
0:15:10 > 0:15:14Soon it was alight with the exciting ideas of the troubadours.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20"When I lie down in the evening, all night and all day,
0:15:20 > 0:15:24"I consider how I might serve you to your pleasure.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27"My body leaps and bounds for joy,
0:15:27 > 0:15:29"so much is my heart set on you."
0:15:31 > 0:15:34The poets put women on a pedestal.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38She was worshipped as distant and hard to attain.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40He was her tormented lover.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43"I have never had power over myself, nor was I mine
0:15:43 > 0:15:47"from that moment when she let me look into her eyes."
0:15:47 > 0:15:50The idea of falling in love was born.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Of course, people spoke about love before 1100,
0:16:08 > 0:16:12but this was caritas, a spiritual love.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15The poetry that captured the imagination of noblewomen
0:16:15 > 0:16:18like Marie de Champagne was something quite different.
0:16:18 > 0:16:20An idealised kind of sexual passion.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23It's sometimes known as courtly love,
0:16:23 > 0:16:26and its heady ideals spread from court to court
0:16:26 > 0:16:29across the breadth of Europe.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38A new generation of writers and poets began to explore
0:16:38 > 0:16:41this new way of looking at love.
0:16:41 > 0:16:45One of the most famous is Chretien de Troyes,
0:16:45 > 0:16:49author of a revolutionary tale of adulterous passion.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57His celebrated love story of Lancelot and Guinevere,
0:16:57 > 0:17:00Arthur's greatest knight and Arthur's queen,
0:17:00 > 0:17:04follows the exciting path of true love.
0:17:04 > 0:17:06For his rich patron and the ladies of court,
0:17:06 > 0:17:08it provided a whole new standard
0:17:08 > 0:17:11by which to measure the behaviour of men
0:17:11 > 0:17:14and learn about their own sexual identity.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23The story begins when Lancelot falls in love,
0:17:23 > 0:17:26and is almost incapacitated by his obsession.
0:17:26 > 0:17:28"As long as she remained in his sight,
0:17:28 > 0:17:32"he continued to gaze at her most attentively and with delight.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35"But when he could see her no longer,
0:17:35 > 0:17:37"he wanted to fling himself out of the window
0:17:37 > 0:17:40"and shatter his body on the ground below."
0:17:41 > 0:17:46For the courtly lover, love is an exquisite pain.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50"If she does not heal my suffering with a kiss,
0:17:50 > 0:17:53"she will murder me and damn herself.
0:17:53 > 0:17:58"Yet for all the suffering I endure, I do not renounce sweet love."
0:18:01 > 0:18:04Lancelot tries to win the queen's love.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08He subjects himself to untold dangers,
0:18:08 > 0:18:13including crawling over a bridge made from the blade of a sword.
0:18:16 > 0:18:21Guinevere is eventually won over and arranges a midnight rendezvous.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27"Tonight, when everyone is asleep, you can come speak with me
0:18:27 > 0:18:28"at that window."
0:18:30 > 0:18:34For Lancelot, the day seems to last a hundred years.
0:18:34 > 0:18:40As night falls, the queen appears in a cloak of scarlet and fur.
0:18:40 > 0:18:46But the iron bars across the window keep them apart.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49"Lancelot grasped the bars and strained and pulled
0:18:49 > 0:18:52"until he had freed them from their fittings."
0:18:54 > 0:18:59At last, the adulterous love affair can be consummated.
0:18:59 > 0:19:03"Now Lancelot had everything he desired. He held her in his arms.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07"Their blows were so gentle, so sweet,
0:19:07 > 0:19:09"that through their kisses and caresses,
0:19:09 > 0:19:15"they experienced a joy and wonder the equal of which has never been known."
0:19:15 > 0:19:19The impact of this daring new literature was dramatic.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23Courtly love, unrequited love, adulterous love.
0:19:23 > 0:19:28For the first time, noblewomen were exposed to passionate love literature
0:19:28 > 0:19:30with its fantasy of the devoted knightly lover.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36For a certain class of medieval society at least,
0:19:36 > 0:19:40the map of the heart was being redrawn.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43The new poets questioned the old certainties.
0:19:43 > 0:19:48Could real love exist at all within marriage?
0:19:48 > 0:19:50Or did love have to be freely given?
0:19:54 > 0:19:57"When made public, love rarely endures."
0:19:59 > 0:20:01"A new love puts an old one to flight."
0:20:08 > 0:20:13"He who is vexed by the thoughts of love sleeps and eats little."
0:20:13 > 0:20:18These rules were written by a man called Andrew the Chaplain.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21We know very little about him, except that, like Chretien de Troyes,
0:20:21 > 0:20:25he frequented the court of Marie de Champagne.
0:20:25 > 0:20:30His three-part treatise, De Amore, On Love,
0:20:30 > 0:20:34is the medieval equivalent of a modern-day self-help guide.
0:20:38 > 0:20:44Writers such as Andrew the Chaplain cast themselves as love's explorers,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48pointing the way through this brave new emotional world.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55What's extraordinary is how far they ventured
0:20:55 > 0:20:59from the decidedly unromantic arrangements usually made
0:20:59 > 0:21:01by medieval men and women.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09Why did the cult of courtly love inspire such devotion?
0:21:09 > 0:21:12Was it an emotional pressure valve,
0:21:12 > 0:21:16releasing some of the repressed sexual energy of the age?
0:21:16 > 0:21:19Was it a natural development from religious love,
0:21:19 > 0:21:23as the aristocracy refined their emotional manners?
0:21:23 > 0:21:25Nobody knows for sure.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28But the core ideas of courtly love
0:21:28 > 0:21:31infiltrated the wider medieval culture.
0:21:35 > 0:21:40And as they did, they caused scandal, even violence.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43It was one thing to debate the new codes of love
0:21:43 > 0:21:46in aristocratic courts.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48It was quite another to live by them.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01One of the most remarkable tales of the Middle Ages,
0:22:01 > 0:22:05a tale that is passionate, dramatic, tragic and true,
0:22:05 > 0:22:09is the love story of Abelard and Heloise.
0:22:13 > 0:22:18Peter Abelard was a scholar who came to Paris in about 1100,
0:22:18 > 0:22:23at the same time that courtly love was sweeping Europe.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29In Paris, he met the young and beautiful Heloise.
0:22:29 > 0:22:35She lived with her uncle, a canon at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40"I became on fire with desire for this girl
0:22:40 > 0:22:43"and decided she was the one to bring to my bed."
0:22:48 > 0:22:53Heloise's uncle employed the dashing Abelard as tutor to his niece.
0:22:53 > 0:22:58"If he had entrusted a tender lamb to a ravening wolf,
0:22:58 > 0:23:01"it would not have surprised me more."
0:23:04 > 0:23:05"With our books before us,
0:23:05 > 0:23:09"more words of love than of our reading passed between us,
0:23:09 > 0:23:12"and more kissing than teaching."
0:23:13 > 0:23:17"My hands oftener strayed to her bosom than to the pages.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20"Our desires left no stage of lovemaking untried."
0:23:26 > 0:23:30Heloise became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy.
0:23:30 > 0:23:31Her uncle was furious.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35But when Abelard offered to marry her and placate the family,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38he encountered an unexpected obstacle.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42Heloise had her own rather unconventional views on the subject.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51In her words, only "love freely given"
0:23:51 > 0:23:57mattered to her, not what she called "the chains of wedlock".
0:23:57 > 0:24:00"The name of wife may seem more sacred or more worthy,
0:24:00 > 0:24:03"but sweeter to me will always be the word lover,
0:24:03 > 0:24:06"or that of concubine or whore."
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Heloise was using the arguments of the troubadours
0:24:13 > 0:24:15and writers of the courtly love tradition,
0:24:15 > 0:24:19that true love could only exist outside of marriage.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26Such notions strained at the conventions
0:24:26 > 0:24:28that bound medieval society together.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35Eventually, Heloise agreed to a secret marriage.
0:24:35 > 0:24:40Soon after, she took refuge in a nunnery.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44Her uncle and his relatives presumed that they'd been tricked,
0:24:44 > 0:24:47and that Abelard had backed out of his marriage to Heloise
0:24:47 > 0:24:49by making her a nun.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53Their revenge was swift and violent.
0:24:57 > 0:25:03"One night, as I slept peacefully in an inner room in my lodgings,
0:25:03 > 0:25:05"they bribed one of my servants to admit them
0:25:05 > 0:25:08"and there took cruel vengeance on me
0:25:08 > 0:25:12"of such appalling barbarity as to shock the whole world.
0:25:12 > 0:25:17"They cut off the part of my body whereby I had committed the wrong of which they complained."
0:25:31 > 0:25:33Abelard joined a monastery,
0:25:33 > 0:25:36and Heloise this time truly became a nun.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40The letters of the two lovers give us an amazing insight
0:25:40 > 0:25:42into the workings of the medieval heart.
0:25:42 > 0:25:46Years later, Heloise recounts how, though now an abbess,
0:25:46 > 0:25:50she is still moved by strong erotic desire for Abelard.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58"The pleasures we shared have been too sweet,
0:25:58 > 0:26:01"and can scarcely be banished from my thoughts,
0:26:01 > 0:26:04"bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies."
0:26:04 > 0:26:07UNACCOMPANIED SINGING
0:26:20 > 0:26:22"Even during the celebration of the Mass,
0:26:22 > 0:26:25"lewd visions of those pleasures
0:26:25 > 0:26:27"take such a hold upon my unhappy soul,
0:26:27 > 0:26:32"that my thoughts are on their wantonness instead of on prayers."
0:26:39 > 0:26:43The ideas that started with the troubadours transformed our culture.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46The language of romance, of sexual longing,
0:26:46 > 0:26:49unrequited love and desire was born.
0:26:49 > 0:26:53And the codes created in the Middle Ages last to this day.
0:26:56 > 0:27:01But while the ideas of courtly love seduced aristocrats and intellectuals,
0:27:01 > 0:27:07the lives of most medieval people were guided by a more austere creed.
0:27:18 > 0:27:20For the medieval Church,
0:27:20 > 0:27:26nothing could be more offensive than the idea of sexual pleasure.
0:27:29 > 0:27:33In 13th-century England, there were 40,000 clergy.
0:27:33 > 0:27:4017,000 monks and friars. 10,000 parish priests.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44And they were to become increasingly intrusive
0:27:44 > 0:27:46in the sex lives of the faithful.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56The Church's views on the pleasures of the flesh
0:27:56 > 0:27:59were rather different from those of the troubadours.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03"The foul embrace of the flesh exhales fumes
0:28:03 > 0:28:05"and contaminates anyone who cleaves to it,
0:28:05 > 0:28:09"nor does anyone escape unharmed from the bite of pleasure."
0:28:09 > 0:28:13Celibate priests worked tirelessly to warn their flocks
0:28:13 > 0:28:16against the dangers of carnal pleasures denied to them.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19"That sinful act, that disgusting act,
0:28:19 > 0:28:22"that bestial coupling, that shameless union,
0:28:22 > 0:28:25"that foul, stinking, wayward deed."
0:28:28 > 0:28:31One 12th-century religious writer had a useful tip
0:28:31 > 0:28:34for controlling lustful desires for a woman.
0:28:34 > 0:28:38Try imagining what the inside of her body would look like.
0:28:38 > 0:28:44"If you consider what is within the skin and inside the body,
0:28:44 > 0:28:49"what is more hideous to see, more disgusting to touch, more foul to smell?"
0:28:51 > 0:28:55And if this wasn't enough, try thinking of her dead body.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58"What is more horrible than a corpse,
0:28:58 > 0:29:01"and what in the world would be more abhorrent to her lover,
0:29:01 > 0:29:06"just recently so full of wild desire for that stinking flesh?"
0:29:10 > 0:29:13In medieval thinking, human beings occupied a position
0:29:13 > 0:29:17halfway between the animals and the angels.
0:29:17 > 0:29:20In sex, it saw the animal triumphant.
0:29:26 > 0:29:30Against the filth of sex, the Church promoted its alternative.
0:29:35 > 0:29:40"Virginity is the highest virtue, a glorious beauty,
0:29:40 > 0:29:44"the source of life, a matchless song.
0:29:44 > 0:29:48"The crown of faith, the prop of hope,
0:29:48 > 0:29:52"the mirror of purity, kindred of the angels,
0:29:52 > 0:29:57"the nourishment and support of most enduring love."
0:30:05 > 0:30:10This is Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, founded in 1232.
0:30:10 > 0:30:15It was one of about 150 nunneries in medieval England.
0:30:15 > 0:30:16Until the 16th century, nuns,
0:30:16 > 0:30:20mostly ladies of good family, lived and worshipped here,
0:30:20 > 0:30:24undertaking a life of reflection and celibacy.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28Here, a young woman became a bride of Christ.
0:30:33 > 0:30:36Virginity was a treasure to be dedicated to Christ,
0:30:36 > 0:30:39the divine bridegroom.
0:30:50 > 0:30:52There is something undeniably sensual
0:30:52 > 0:30:55in the way a woman's passionate devotion to Christ
0:30:55 > 0:30:58is often described in medieval texts.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04Jacques de Vitry, in 1220,
0:31:04 > 0:31:09describes some nuns so weakened by ecstasy of love for Christ
0:31:09 > 0:31:12that they were confined to rest.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15"They melted altogether in wondrous love for God,
0:31:15 > 0:31:18"until they bowed under the burden of desire,
0:31:18 > 0:31:21"and for many years, they did not leave their beds."
0:31:23 > 0:31:27At times, the distinction between sensual and spiritual love
0:31:27 > 0:31:30dissolves completely.
0:31:30 > 0:31:32"Oh noble eagle,
0:31:32 > 0:31:37"oh tender lamb, oh burning flame, embrace me.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40"How long shall I remain arid?
0:31:40 > 0:31:45"An hour is too heavy for me, and a day is as a thousand years."
0:31:47 > 0:31:55The mystic Angela of Foligno took the idea of being a bride of Christ quite literally.
0:31:58 > 0:32:03"As I stood by the cross, I was filled with such fire
0:32:03 > 0:32:08"that I removed all my clothes and offered him all of myself.
0:32:08 > 0:32:13"I promised him, though afeared, to maintain my chastity always
0:32:13 > 0:32:17"and not to offend him by one of my limbs.
0:32:22 > 0:32:28"Purer than glass, whiter than snow, more brilliant than the sun."
0:32:33 > 0:32:38The cult of virginity exerted a powerful grip
0:32:38 > 0:32:40on the minds of many medieval women,
0:32:40 > 0:32:44sometimes threatening to tear families apart.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49Take of the story of Christina of Markyate.
0:32:52 > 0:32:56Christina was from a prosperous English family in Huntingdon.
0:32:56 > 0:33:00A young man of her own class, Burthred, sought her in marriage
0:33:00 > 0:33:02and gained her parents' consent.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05Christina agreed on one condition -
0:33:05 > 0:33:08that she remain a virgin all her life,
0:33:08 > 0:33:11for this is what she had already vowed to do.
0:33:11 > 0:33:13Her family were appalled.
0:33:13 > 0:33:16They ridiculed her and tried to break her resolve
0:33:16 > 0:33:18by stopping her going to church,
0:33:18 > 0:33:21taking her out to parties, giving her love potions.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29Finally, they did a deal with Burthred.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32They agreed to let him in at night.
0:33:35 > 0:33:37But Christina stayed up,
0:33:37 > 0:33:41telling him exemplary stories of chaste marriages.
0:33:41 > 0:33:44She promised to live with him, as she put it,
0:33:44 > 0:33:49"So that other townsmen will not taunt you for having been rejected by me."
0:33:49 > 0:33:54But still, it would have to be as a virgin.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57Burthred left without having had sex.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10His friends teased him, so he tried again.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14He burst into her bedroom, determined to have her.
0:34:20 > 0:34:22But she hid from him,
0:34:22 > 0:34:25and miraculously, she managed to avoid detection.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31Christina's stubbornness infuriated her parents.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34Her father threatened to throw her out of the house,
0:34:34 > 0:34:37while her mother grabbed her by the hair and beat her.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Only visions of the Virgin Mary
0:34:44 > 0:34:46sustained Christina through her ordeal.
0:34:53 > 0:34:55To avoid the fury of her family
0:34:55 > 0:35:01and sex with her husband, Christina fled to live the life of a hermit.
0:35:01 > 0:35:04After two years, Burthred gave up
0:35:04 > 0:35:06and released her from her marital obligations.
0:35:08 > 0:35:11Christina, and the cult of virginity,
0:35:11 > 0:35:15emerged the victor from this bitter family conflict.
0:35:15 > 0:35:19She founded a convent of nuns and died a virgin,
0:35:19 > 0:35:23faithful in her marriage to Christ.
0:35:23 > 0:35:29Most people, of course, preferred a wedding to a flesh and blood man or woman than to Christ.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33They wanted marriage, sex, and children.
0:35:33 > 0:35:37It was an area the medieval Church was keen to colonise,
0:35:37 > 0:35:38right into the bedroom.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45Early medieval marriage had little to do with the Church
0:35:45 > 0:35:49and could be entered into quite casually.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52This description of a peasant marriage
0:35:52 > 0:35:55was given by a witness in a court case held in York.
0:35:57 > 0:36:01About the third hour past the ninth, John Beke, saddler,
0:36:01 > 0:36:06sitting down on a bench, called Marjory to him and said to her,
0:36:06 > 0:36:09"Marjory, do you wish to be my wife?"
0:36:09 > 0:36:11And she replied, "I will, if you wish."
0:36:11 > 0:36:16And taking at once the said Marjory's right hand, John said,
0:36:16 > 0:36:19"Marjory, here I take you as my wife,
0:36:19 > 0:36:23"for better or worse, to have and to hold until the end of my life."
0:36:26 > 0:36:30This casual approach horrified the Church authorities.
0:36:30 > 0:36:35In 1218, the statutes of the Diocese of Salisbury make this clear.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38They ruled that marriages should be celebrated,
0:36:38 > 0:36:42"With reverence and with honour and not with laughing and joking,
0:36:42 > 0:36:46"in taverns or at public feasts or drinking parties.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50"Nor should anyone put a ring made of rushes or some other material,
0:36:50 > 0:36:54"cheap or precious, on some girl's hand for fun,
0:36:54 > 0:36:57"to be able to fornicate with her more freely.
0:36:57 > 0:36:59"For he may find that,
0:36:59 > 0:37:00"although he thinks he is joking,
0:37:00 > 0:37:05"he has in fact bound himself to the obligations of matrimony."
0:37:05 > 0:37:08CHURCH BELLS PEAL
0:37:15 > 0:37:18Marriage, the Church argued, was not a mere contract.
0:37:18 > 0:37:20It was a religious event.
0:37:20 > 0:37:23In time, it was pronounced a sacrament,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27like baptism or confession.
0:37:27 > 0:37:32As for sex, the act of marriage did not excuse unrestricted lovemaking.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35A saying of the great St Augustine became proverbial.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39"Passionate love of one's own wife is adultery."
0:37:39 > 0:37:43The only legitimate cause for sex within marriage was reproduction,
0:37:43 > 0:37:45and that was a serious duty.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52Failure to consummate a marriage was grounds for annulment,
0:37:52 > 0:37:55something only the Church had authority to do.
0:37:55 > 0:37:56In religious courts,
0:37:56 > 0:38:03the Church probed just what had or had not happened in the marital bed.
0:38:10 > 0:38:15John, a man from York, was accused by his wife of impotence.
0:38:15 > 0:38:18Every effort was made to arouse him,
0:38:18 > 0:38:22and the procedure was documented in court records.
0:38:24 > 0:38:27"The witness exposed her bare breasts,
0:38:27 > 0:38:29"and with her hands, warmed at the fire,
0:38:29 > 0:38:33"she held and rubbed John's penis and his testicles,
0:38:33 > 0:38:36"embracing and frequently kissing him.
0:38:36 > 0:38:41"And she stirred him up to demonstrate his virility and potency,
0:38:41 > 0:38:46"admonishing him to prove and render himself a man then and there.
0:38:49 > 0:38:50"She says that the whole time,
0:38:50 > 0:38:53"the said penis was scarcely three inches long,
0:38:53 > 0:38:56"remaining without any increase."
0:39:00 > 0:39:03The Church also set about regulating when, where
0:39:03 > 0:39:07and with whom sex could take place.
0:39:07 > 0:39:08Those who broke the rules,
0:39:08 > 0:39:11even in thought, were to be punished.
0:39:23 > 0:39:27In Rome in 1215, Pope Innocent III made a dramatic intervention
0:39:27 > 0:39:29in sexual affairs.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37All Christians were to confess their sins to a priest
0:39:37 > 0:39:39at least once a year.
0:39:44 > 0:39:49It was a move designed to help the clergy to root out depravity.
0:39:53 > 0:39:57To help priests hearing confessions to decide what questions to ask,
0:39:57 > 0:40:01the seriousness of the sins they heard, and how to deal with them,
0:40:01 > 0:40:06encyclopaedic guidebooks known as confessors' manuals
0:40:06 > 0:40:08were widely circulated.
0:40:14 > 0:40:20The biggest single category in these compendia of sin was sex.
0:40:24 > 0:40:26The message of the confessors' manuals -
0:40:26 > 0:40:29sex should only take place within marriage.
0:40:29 > 0:40:33Any other form of sexual activity was considered a sin.
0:40:33 > 0:40:37But even within marriage, sex was no easy matter.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40To avoid sinning, the Church had a checklist
0:40:40 > 0:40:42that a husband should run through first.
0:40:44 > 0:40:48Is your wife menstruating? Is your wife pregnant?
0:40:48 > 0:40:51Is your wife nursing a child?
0:40:51 > 0:40:53Is it Lent?
0:40:53 > 0:40:54Is it Advent?
0:40:54 > 0:40:57Is it Sunday? Is it Whitsun week?
0:40:57 > 0:40:59Is it Easter week? Is it Wednesday?
0:40:59 > 0:41:02Is it Friday? Is it a fast day?
0:41:02 > 0:41:03Is it Saturday?
0:41:03 > 0:41:05Is it a feast day?
0:41:05 > 0:41:06Is it daylight?
0:41:06 > 0:41:08Are you naked?
0:41:08 > 0:41:09Are you in church?
0:41:11 > 0:41:16If you answered no to all these questions, then sex was permissible.
0:41:16 > 0:41:21But only once, and only in what is now called the missionary position.
0:41:21 > 0:41:25Taking everything into account, the Church's sexual policing
0:41:25 > 0:41:30permitted married couples to have sex, on average, just once a week.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37Punishments, or penances,
0:41:37 > 0:41:41involved a complex system of fasting and abstinence.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46The manuals calibrated penance to fit each sin.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49For adultery once, two years' penance.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53For adultery twice, five years.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56For sex with an animal, seven years.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00There were special questions for women.
0:42:00 > 0:42:02Had they consumed their husband's semen
0:42:02 > 0:42:06in order to inflame their lust? Seven years.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09Or put their menstrual blood in their husband's food
0:42:09 > 0:42:12in order to excite him? Five years.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17This process of confession and penance
0:42:17 > 0:42:20mapped out every aspect of human sexuality
0:42:20 > 0:42:24and codified a sliding scale of punishments.
0:42:24 > 0:42:26And for those who chose to flout the rules,
0:42:26 > 0:42:31the Church had a whole other level of investigation and retribution.
0:42:44 > 0:42:47Away from the privacy of the confessional
0:42:47 > 0:42:49was a more public court.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53One where the sins of the faithful could be held up
0:42:53 > 0:42:55and publicly condemned.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05In the Diocese of Lincoln, suspects were brought here,
0:43:05 > 0:43:07to the great cathedral.
0:43:10 > 0:43:15Inside, clerics sat in judgement over the accused,
0:43:15 > 0:43:17here in the chapterhouse.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21The creation of church courts was an extraordinary extension
0:43:21 > 0:43:23of the Church's control over people's behaviour.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26Confession was a private matter.
0:43:26 > 0:43:28This was something completely different.
0:43:28 > 0:43:30You could be summoned before the court
0:43:30 > 0:43:32on suspicion of your behaviour.
0:43:35 > 0:43:36And again, it was sex
0:43:36 > 0:43:39that preoccupied the minds of the authorities.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47The judges who sat here could impose stern penalties -
0:43:47 > 0:43:52excommunication, fines and very public penance.
0:44:02 > 0:44:05This book contains the records of the court cases
0:44:05 > 0:44:06heard in this chapter house
0:44:06 > 0:44:09and in the parish churches of the Diocese of Lincoln.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13"On Monday the 16th of November 1338,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16"the court met and heard certain cases.
0:44:16 > 0:44:20"John Warren, accused of fornication with Ellen Lanser.
0:44:20 > 0:44:25"Both appear and confess the sin and swear not to sin again,
0:44:25 > 0:44:27"under penalty of 40 pence.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30"Ordered to be beaten three times around the church."
0:44:32 > 0:44:34"Thomas of Thornton, priest,
0:44:34 > 0:44:39"reputed to have committed fornication with Alice, daughter of Robert Master.
0:44:39 > 0:44:41"She is ordered, as a penance,
0:44:41 > 0:44:44"to be beaten 12 times around the market square
0:44:44 > 0:44:49"and 12 times around the church, naked except for her chemise.
0:44:49 > 0:44:53"Beatrice, daughter of William Duty, pregnant. It is not known by whom.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57"Appeared in the chapterhouse at Lincoln and confessed the sin
0:44:57 > 0:45:00"and was absolved. Swore not to sin again.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03"Ordered to be beaten six times around the church
0:45:03 > 0:45:07"on Sundays and feast days in front of all the procession."
0:45:12 > 0:45:16Religious authorities relied heavily on fear and shame
0:45:16 > 0:45:18to police their flock.
0:45:24 > 0:45:25All over the country,
0:45:25 > 0:45:31the full machinery of the Church was brought to bear upon the sexual activities of the faithful.
0:45:35 > 0:45:39For the Church, sexual purity was an ideal,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42but it was an ideal that was difficult to live up to,
0:45:42 > 0:45:45even for members of the Church.
0:45:45 > 0:45:47Take this book for example,
0:45:47 > 0:45:50copied out by the monks of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury,
0:45:50 > 0:45:53around the year 1200.
0:45:53 > 0:45:58The first half is fairly innocuous, a history of English bishops.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01But at the end is a series of pornographic stories,
0:46:01 > 0:46:06copied out and presumably enjoyed by the monks.
0:46:06 > 0:46:08One of them concerns a man and wife
0:46:08 > 0:46:10who went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13One evening, they took refuge in the back of a cave.
0:46:15 > 0:46:19Nine Saracens come in, light a fire and strip off.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23The woman sees their virilia, their virile members,
0:46:23 > 0:46:24and becomes so excited
0:46:24 > 0:46:28that she insists her husband make love to her.
0:46:29 > 0:46:31After he's done so three times,
0:46:31 > 0:46:34he can't manage a fourth and falls asleep.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37And the woman then offers herself to the Saracens.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39All nine of them.
0:46:54 > 0:46:56Priests were supposed to be celibate,
0:46:56 > 0:46:58at least in the later Middle Ages,
0:46:58 > 0:47:01when the Church decided they could no longer marry.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06But some lived with mistresses or had affairs with other men's wives.
0:47:09 > 0:47:13They were the target of the occasional satirical poem.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18"What do priests do with no woman of their own?
0:47:18 > 0:47:20"They force themselves on others.
0:47:20 > 0:47:22"They have no fear, they feel no shame.
0:47:22 > 0:47:24"Take married women as their lovers."
0:47:30 > 0:47:34Medieval clergy had other ways to satisfy their sexual desires -
0:47:34 > 0:47:39by making use of an institution even older than their own.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42The records of the brothels of Dijon in France
0:47:42 > 0:47:49reveal that at least 20% of the clientele were churchmen.
0:47:49 > 0:47:54Aged monks, mendicant friars, canons, priests -
0:47:54 > 0:47:58all of them visiting prostitutes in the city's bathhouses.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05A medieval brothel could provide a healthy income
0:48:05 > 0:48:08as well as a sexual outlet for church dignitaries.
0:48:08 > 0:48:12The Bishop of Winchester received a regular rent from the brothels
0:48:12 > 0:48:14in the red light district of Southwark,
0:48:14 > 0:48:17which is why the prostitutes from the area
0:48:17 > 0:48:19were referred to as Winchester geese.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26Regardless of the behaviour of its own clergy,
0:48:26 > 0:48:31the medieval Church vigorously condemned and punished
0:48:31 > 0:48:33most kinds of sexual activity.
0:48:33 > 0:48:37But there was one sexual practice for which medieval society reserved
0:48:37 > 0:48:39its most savage condemnation.
0:48:39 > 0:48:41The sin of sodomy.
0:48:45 > 0:48:50Male homosexuality was something medieval clerics knew about.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53This was a time when thousands of men lived together
0:48:53 > 0:48:56in communities, rarely seeing a woman.
0:48:56 > 0:49:01These are the words of a medieval abbot writing to a young monk.
0:49:01 > 0:49:06"My eyes long to see your face, most beloved.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09"My arms stretch out to your embraces.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12"My lips long for your kisses.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14"Whatever remains of me of life
0:49:14 > 0:49:19"desires your company to make my soul's joy complete for the future."
0:49:20 > 0:49:24Such words sound erotic to the modern ear.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27Yet such language was not uncommon between men at the time.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30It didn't even imply a physical relationship.
0:49:35 > 0:49:37In fact, these are the words
0:49:37 > 0:49:41of perhaps the most virulent campaigner against the sin of sodomy -
0:49:41 > 0:49:45Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury.
0:49:54 > 0:49:56According to Anselm,
0:49:56 > 0:50:00this deadly vice was spreading throughout England.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03The country, he warned, was threatened with the fate
0:50:03 > 0:50:07of the lustful inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.
0:50:14 > 0:50:18Few historians have studied this dark chapter of medieval repression.
0:50:25 > 0:50:27One who has is Bob Mills.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34The Bible account in Genesis
0:50:34 > 0:50:39tells of how, because of the sins of the inhabitants of these cities,
0:50:39 > 0:50:43God rains down brimstone and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah
0:50:43 > 0:50:47and destroys all of the city's inhabitants.
0:50:50 > 0:50:55The penalties in medieval society are meant, in some ways, to reflect
0:50:55 > 0:50:59the penalties imposed by God on the original Sodomites.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06Fearing divine retribution, medieval society inflicted
0:51:06 > 0:51:13savage punishments on any kind of sexual behaviour deemed "unnatural".
0:51:13 > 0:51:19In Portugal and Castile, castration is imposed as a penalty.
0:51:19 > 0:51:24In Siena, the penalty is to be hanged by one's virile members.
0:51:24 > 0:51:30In 1288 in Bologna, the penalty is death by burning.
0:51:37 > 0:51:41Sodomites in the afterlife fared no better.
0:51:45 > 0:51:49There are certain images in late medieval Italy
0:51:49 > 0:51:55which show sodomites actually being burned eternally in hell.
0:52:00 > 0:52:06And one of these images shows a sodomite being penetrated
0:52:06 > 0:52:10from the anus through to the mouth and in a sense being spit-roasted
0:52:10 > 0:52:13by a devil, who's sort of turning the spit.
0:52:20 > 0:52:23The other end of the rod then comes out of his mouth
0:52:23 > 0:52:27and into the mouth of another figure who's sitting beside him.
0:52:27 > 0:52:29So there's a clear allusion here
0:52:29 > 0:52:33to the ways in which the penalties for sodomy
0:52:33 > 0:52:35mirror the sexual practices of the sodomites.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39So we've got an allusion to anal sex and the penetration of the anus
0:52:39 > 0:52:43and then the penetration of the mouth alludes to oral sex.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49In late 14th-century Perugia,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52there's an Italian Last Judgement play
0:52:52 > 0:52:54which describes the various penalties
0:52:54 > 0:52:57that are going to be inflicted on sinners in hell.
0:53:00 > 0:53:05At the very climax of this play, Christ describes the punishments for the sodomites.
0:53:08 > 0:53:13"You, stinking sodomite, have crucified me night and day.
0:53:13 > 0:53:20"Go quickly to hell to stay a while amid those punishments.
0:53:20 > 0:53:24"Put him quickly in that great heat, since he has sinned against nature.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28"You cursed sodomites,
0:53:28 > 0:53:32"roast like little piggies."
0:53:34 > 0:53:39Then Satan tells one of the devils to give the roast a good turning.
0:53:39 > 0:53:45So a very explicit illusion to the idea of the spit-roasted sodomite.
0:53:47 > 0:53:54Punishment for such unbridled sexual aberration awaited Christian Europe.
0:53:58 > 0:54:01So claimed the prophets of doom.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04And they would soon claim a terrible vindication.
0:54:12 > 0:54:19In 1348, William of Edendon, Bishop of Winchester, wrote to all the clergy in his diocese.
0:54:19 > 0:54:24"We report with anguish the news which has come to our ears,
0:54:24 > 0:54:28"that a cruel plague has begun a savage attack
0:54:28 > 0:54:30"on the coastal areas of England.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37"Although God often strikes us to justly punish our sins,
0:54:37 > 0:54:43"it is not within the power of man to understand the divine plan.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46"But it is to be feared that human sensuality,
0:54:46 > 0:54:50"that fire which blazed up as a result of Adam's sin,
0:54:50 > 0:54:54"has now plumbed greater depths of evil,
0:54:54 > 0:54:56"producing a multitude of sins
0:54:56 > 0:55:00"which have provoked the divine anger to this revenge."
0:55:16 > 0:55:20The Black Death killed half the population of Europe.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24Those infected swelled up with boils the size of eggs or apples.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28They vomited black and green fluid, they coughed up blood,
0:55:28 > 0:55:31and it condemned them to a quick and painful death.
0:55:31 > 0:55:34Relationships fell apart.
0:55:34 > 0:55:38"Brother forsook brother, uncle nephew, sister brother,
0:55:38 > 0:55:41"and oftentimes wife husband,"
0:55:41 > 0:55:43lamented the poet Boccaccio.
0:55:47 > 0:55:51For the Bishop of Rochester, Thomas Brinton, the onset of plague
0:55:51 > 0:55:55was due punishment for the sins of his contemporaries.
0:55:56 > 0:56:00"There is on every side so much lechery and adultery
0:56:00 > 0:56:03"that few men are contented with their own wives,
0:56:03 > 0:56:07"but each man lusts after the wife of his neighbour
0:56:07 > 0:56:09"or keeps a stinking concubine -
0:56:09 > 0:56:15"behaviour which merits a horrible and wretched death."
0:56:25 > 0:56:29The Black Death was a 14th-century apocalypse.
0:56:29 > 0:56:32But it was, tragically, of a piece with so much of life
0:56:32 > 0:56:36as it was lived on the other side of that great divide
0:56:36 > 0:56:40which separates the modern world from a more dangerous past.
0:56:49 > 0:56:55The medieval world existed far more precariously than our own.
0:56:55 > 0:57:01A complex world of passion and romance.
0:57:01 > 0:57:04Misogyny and cruelty.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10Infant death and everlasting love.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13Piety and poetry.
0:57:13 > 0:57:18Virgins wedded to Christ...
0:57:18 > 0:57:22and priests wedded to the pleasures of the flesh.
0:57:25 > 0:57:28A life that was, it must be said,
0:57:28 > 0:57:34nasty for some, short for many.
0:57:34 > 0:57:39But brutish, not at all.
0:58:07 > 0:58:10Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:10 > 0:58:13E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk