Plates

Plate ι. A common medieval belief about hu­man sexual behavior held that the Devil in­duced sexual desires and provoked people to yield to them, as this fifteenth-century wood­cut tries to make clear.

Plate 2. An alternative theory ascribed sexual desire to the influence of the planets, notably Venus. This fifteenth-century Italian woodcut il­lustrates her powers by showing Venus presid­ing over seduction in a bathtub following an in­timate dinner for two, as well various episodes of amorous dalliance in the open air. (Cour­tesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago; from Friedrich Lippmann, The Seven Planets)

Plate 4. Love in a tub: another example of the role of the bathtub as an engin d’amour in me­dieval literature and art. (Fifteenth-century woodcut from an Angsburg Calendar, ca. 1480)

Plate 5. (left) Early medieval canon law discour­aged respectable men from marrying women who had been prostitutes, but by the begin­ning of the thirteenth century this policy had changed. Innocent III positively encouraged charitable men to save fallen women from a life of sin by marrying them. This illumination for Causa 32 from a fourteenth-century Italian manuscript of Gratians Decretum shows such a marriage. (Courtesy of the British Library, from MS Add. 15,275, fol. ⅛.)V)

Plate 6. (right) The exchange of free consent be­tween the couple constituted the sole formal re­quirement for sacramental marriage according to the doctrine of Alexander Ill’s decretal Veniens ad nos, which remained the basic law on the subject in Christian Europe from the late twelfth century up to the Council of Trent.

Plate 7. A man who had been presumed dead returns to discover that his wife has married an­other. He asks a bishop to declare his wife’s sec­ond marriage null and to order her to return to him. This fourteenth-century illumination de­picts the hypothetical situation discussed in Causa 34 of Gratians Decretum. (Courtesy of the British Library, from MS Add. 15,275, fol. 133r)

Plate 8. Canon law discouraged, but did not effectively forbid, concubinage, and nonmarital cohabitation remained common throughout medieval society. Peasant couples frequently lived together, sometimes for years, before marrying; priests and other clerics who were forbidden to marry kept concubines instead; young men of humble station who could not af­ford the outlays involved in marriage lived with shopgirls; servants of both sexes indulged in sexual liaisons, sometimes with one another, sometimes with their employers; young noble­men kept girls of lower status for sexual diver­sion; and monarchs, even married ones, might keep a concubine or two in addition to an offi­cial wife, as did Jaume II of Aragon and Cata­lunya. The Concubinary king pictured in this fourteenth-century illumination represents King David, but he can stand for many another. (From MS Ee.2.23, fol. 98r, by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library)

Plate g.

Plates io and 11. Adultery was a serious crime in both canon and civil law, but it was also com­mon in medieval life and Church courts often had to unravel its consequences, including com­plex questions concerning the inheritance rights of children whose parentage was doubtful, as shown in these illuminations from two manu­scripts of Gratian’s Decretum_y Causa 31. (Plate 10 from MS Borgh. lat. 370, fol. 269rb, courtesy of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Plate 11 from MS Add. 15,275, fol. 87v, courtesy of the British Library)

Plate 12. Seduction of young women of well-to- do families by ardent young suitors who were unacceptable to the girl’s parents furnished a common theme for medieval poets and much work for canon lawyers as well. This illumina­tion from a fourteenth-century manuscript of Gratians Decretum shows on the left the union of such a suitor and his beloved being blessed by a priest, while on the right the distressed hi­ther of the girl asks a bishop to annul the mar­riage. The bishop’s admonishing gesture and disapproving expression suggest that he was not disposed to do so. (Courtesy of the British Li­brary, from MS Add. 15,275, fol. 141rb)

Plate 13. The illuminator of this thirteenth­century copy of the Decretum seems to have placed these four scenes in the wrong order, but read in proper sequence they illustrate a case of the dissolution of marriage because of impo­tence.

Plate 14. Canonical courts required convinc­ing evidence of marital impotence before they would declare a marriage void. One mode of proof involved examination of the parties by ex­perienced women, who attempted to produce sexual arousal in the allegedly impotent man. In the case illustrated here the husband had clearly failed to respond. (Courtesy of the Wal­ters Art Gallery, Baltimore, from MS W. 133, fol. 277)

Plate 15. Christ’s love for the human race came to be regarded increasingly in sexual terms dur­ing the later middle ages as the humanity of Jesus became a prominent theme in Western theology. Tliis illumination from a copy of the

Song of Songs shows Jesus as a lover embracing his spouse. (Courtesy of King’s College Library, Cambridge, from MS 19, fol. 21v, by the Mas­ter of the St. Albans Psalter)

Plate 16. The celebration of sensual pleasure and carnal love became increasingly explicit in the art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centu­ries, as the “Allegory of the Power of Love” by Cristofano Robetta (1462-1522) makes plain. (Courtesy of the Toledo Musevim of Art)

Plate 17. This late fifteenth-century engraving forcible rape.

Plate 18. The “Tree of Bigamy” presents in graphic form various types of good and evil rela­tionships, applying thirteenth-century canon law terminology to theological concepts. The woodcut is from the Lyons, 1537, edition of the Summa aurea of Hostiensis.

Plate 19. David and Bathsheba. Medieval mor­alists often cited the story of their relationship (2 Kings 11:2-27) ^{as a} classic example of the perils of sexual temptation and adultery. From Queen Mary’s Psalter, an early fourteenth­century manuscript, now in the British Library, MS Royal 2.B.VΠ, fol. 57r. (Reproduced by courtesy of the British Library)

Plate 20. Privacy was at a premium in medieval communities, and couples sometimes found it impossible to be alone, even at intimate mo­ments. This miniature from the fourteenth­century “Smithfield Decretals illustrates a situation also documented in court records of the period. (Courtesy of the British Library, from MS Royal 10.E.IV, fol. 115r)