French Literature Reviews - 2026
Sex and Love in the Middle Ages
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Sex and Love in the Middle Ages
Bernard Ribémont
Editions Klincksieck
collection "50 questions" (36), 2007, 232 pages, 15€
isbn: 978-2-252-03633-4
Publisher's Overview:
Between unbridled lasciviousness and the strict asceticism demanded by a castrating Church—extremes commonly attributed to medieval sexuality in more or less debased, yet bestselling modern works—it is undoubtedly necessary to set the record straight regarding love and its practices in the medieval world. Such is the purpose of this book, which, without prudishly averting its gaze (quite the contrary!) from certain earthy jests, also examines more serious issues related to medicine, law, and theology, with the ambition of giving the reader an overview of all the spheres in which love and sex were spoken of, written about, concealed, and practiced.
Table of Contents
(updated: 12.10.2007)
0. Why write such a book?
0bis. What texts will we be discussing?
1. How can we approach the notion of love in the Middle Ages?
2. What does the word "love" designate?
3. What is the place of profane love in mediolatin literature?
4. How does Occitan *amor* appear in literature (late 11th c.)?
5. What is *fin'amor*?
6. What imagery is used to sing of courtly love?
7. What does "troubadour" mean?
8. Who were the troubadours?
9. Were there female troubadours (trobairitz)?
10. What kind of love do female troubadours sing of?
11. What is the origin of *fin'amor*?
12. How was *fin'amor* transmitted to the North?
13. Does *fin'amor* change when sung by the trouvères (late 12th–13th c.)?
14. Can a woman refuse to love someone who declares himself her true lover?
15. Lancelot, do you truly love me?
16. True lovers and adulterous lovers; but what does the Church think?
17. In chivalric literature, is marital love possible?
18. Are there epic romances of love?
19. Is there room for physical love in the *chansons de geste*?
20. May I offer you a little love potion?
21. Are there tragic romances in medieval literature?
22. Does the cuckold take revenge?
23. Is it still possible to laugh or smile at the horrific revenge provoked by jealousy?
24. Do love affairs exist between humans and supernatural creatures?
25. What about women and otherworldly creatures?
26. Do you love me, big bad wolf?
27. Shall we go off to the countryside for a while?
28. What is an erotic *fabliau*, and what kind of erotics does it involve?
29. Were monks "sans-culottes"?
30. What was the medical approach to coitus?
31. What do texts tell us about (hetero)sexual practices?
32. What about solitary pleasures?
33. How were the genitals viewed?
34. What was thought of women's sexual desire?
35. Do older women make love?
36. Are there "merry widows"?
37. How should we interpret the place given to the sexuality of elderly women in medieval literature (or a conclusion to the two preceding questions)?
38. What about the sexuality of older men?
39. What was a procuress in the Middle Ages?
40. Coming up, darling?
41. Who were the prostitutes?
42. What is known about rape in medieval society?
43. What was the law regarding rape?
44. Is rape discussed in literature?
45. What about contraception?
46. And the "gays"?
47. What did profane love mean to medieval theologians?
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Excerpt provided by the publisher:
Why write such a book?
The Middle Ages, so we are told, are in fashion. Proof of this is the sheer number of films, novels—especially detective stories—and comic books that, from one festival to the next, in dark movie theaters or on bookstore shelves, attest to the public's fascination with a mysterious era that serves as a receptacle for all possibilities, all imaginations, and above all, the fantasies of our contemporaries. In the profusion encouraged by our so-called "liberal" society, there is something for everyone: blood and guts—gore, the esoteric, the syrupy—featuring a cliché knight and a damsel in distress, silicone-enhanced bosoms (medievalizing comic books adore this), and above all, clichés by the bucketful, some of which prove particularly stubborn: alchemy, astrology, the stake, the vile inquisitor, and the witch wavering between diabolical ugliness and equally diabolical voluptuousness—at least in the eyes of the righteous moralist, invariably a monk (hypocritical and libidinous, if possible) or a bishop (always the dreaded inquisitor)! One might incidentally regret that, in Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose, the good Bernard Gui—a chronicling bishop who piously died in bed—was turned into a despicable villain impaled on farm machinery after having a sensual young woman burned at the stake. She may have been alluring, but more for the contour of her neckline than for any cloven hooves. Ah, the power of clichés, the public's appetite!
On the romance front, the balance between the rosy (the late Jeanne Bourin) and the dark is even more pronounced; the portrayed Middle Ages oscillates between, on the one hand, noble knights courting fine, gentle ladies (famous "courtly love"!) with nothing more than a glance and not even a touch, and on the other hand, the stake awaiting any subject (especially if the subject is female) the least bit flirtatious, immediately doomed to the flames of Hell by a vigilant and castrating Church.
In a seemingly contradictory fashion—since everything appears permissible with this obscure yet luminous period—the Middle Ages is also presented as an age of sexual freedom: backed by *fabliaux*, farces, carnivals, and feasts of fools, we imagine bacchanals and trysts, deceptions and multiple acts of cuckoldry, all within an atmosphere that is ultimately quite good-natured and "naturalistic," painting a golden age of sex and bawdiness. To return to the dark side, this time an iron age, the medieval period is also depicted as an era of rape and rampant sexual abuse inflicted—preferably upon fair, pastoral shepherdesses—by horrific lords (how we yearn for 1789!) who anticipated the Divine Marquis in their perversions; numerous adult comic books, which my mother strictly forbade me to name here, feed happily on this.
As one can gather, all this feels rather anarchic, highly fanciful, and redolent of a somewhat commercial mishmash or, in the best of cases, historical error. Between the extremes of charlatanism, however, a more serious cultural unconscious has taken shape—though still conditioned by false and persistent imagery. It draws on readings of historical novels of varying quality, films that avoid excess, and comic books attempting to illustrate various texts or episodes with a certain rigor. While the representation of the Middle Ages remains colorful, it is in a less delirious way: nevertheless, prevailing notions of love and sexuality still rely on numerous clichés. The most persistent of these is undoubtedly the one that invariably conflates courtly love with platonic love. Naturally, any exploration of profane love in the Middle Ages must begin through the inescapable gateway of courtly love, in other words, *fin'amor*.
And it is indeed profane love that is subjected to "fifty questions" here. Dismissing divine love, the love of God, or the love of the Virgin Mary would be incongruous when claiming to discuss romantic sentiment in the Middle Ages. Medieval preachers and theologians developed a particularly rich discourse and reflection that gave rise to a "theology of love." But doing justice to that would require expanding the collection's strict limit of fifty questions—so I shall leave those to be formulated by those more competent than myself.
For similar reasons, this book focuses exclusively on France, by which term we mean, roughly speaking, the geographical space corresponding to our modern Hexagon, even though the reality of France was vastly different and shifting throughout the medieval period. As regards texts written in vernacular languages, I will consider only Occitan (Provençal) and French. Although I occasionally venture into European or Arabic literature for comparative purposes, it seems impossible to incorporate every medieval literary tradition into this questionnaire: doing so would require examining the lands of Islam, Western Christendom, Byzantium, as well as the *Minnesänger*, the *Nibelungenlied*, *El cantar de mio Cid*, *El libro de buen amor*, Dante, Petrarch, Chaucer, John Gower, and so on. We would easily end up with a *Thousand Questions on...*
With fifty questions in our knapsack, we will set out across the roads of France, encountering exclusively the love that one human being can provoke in another, experience within themselves, and live out in heart, body, and imagination—in a relationship, whether contradictory or not, with the surrounding society: the love that literary texts articulate and invent.
Fifty questions in an attempt to see things a bit more clearly. Fifty questions to shatter certain popular myths while confirming others, trying to bring them into sharper focus. Fifty questions for fun, too: the bawdiness of certain texts is no legend! (Prudish readers of either sex may skip the passages in question).
Finally, fifty questions as a way of writing differently: attempting to sketch the outlines of medieval love rigorously, yet as engagingly as possible (again, the good old *docere et delectare*). The collection's format permits a "fragmented" style of writing and reading, offering a puzzle that the reader can assemble (almost) as they please—much like a collection of "micro-readings" where the path through the book is left entirely to the discretion of whoever chooses to ponder a given question with the author, or skip another. Readers are thus free to ignore the numbering, play leapfrog, the game of the goose, or an obstacle course!
[...]
Discussions of medieval sexuality often oscillate between two persistent extremes: an austere, repressive era dominated by a rigid Church, and a permissive age defined by earthy humor and unbridled desires. In reality, the medieval period encompassed a wide spectrum of social, legal, and theological attitudes toward intimacy. Scholars in cultural history and medieval studies frequently investigate how contemporary popular culture shapes these perceptions, contrasting modern fantasies with the complex realities documented in period texts, legal codes, and medical treatises from the era.
This volume explores these themes by examining courtly literature, troubadour traditions, fabliaux, and historical records concerning marriage, desire, and gender roles. Readers interested in cultural history and medieval literature may find this systematic overview particularly relevant for understanding how sexuality and emotional life were articulated, practiced, and regulated across different levels of medieval society.