Medieval Sexuality: A Casebook - Julian Emperor

111123422256722289101112322245678920222123456789301111234356789401111232221Sexuality in Late Lombard Italy,c.700–c.800 ADRoss BalzarettiIn most histories of Western sexuality there exists what might be termed an “earlymedieval missing link.” The normal trajectory of such histories passes fromancient Greece and Rome via the “great” theologians of Late Antiquity, nearlyalways the atypical Augustine of Hippo, to the repressions of the later MiddleAges and the subsequent emergence of “identities” in modern times. MichelFoucault in his overly influential History of Sexuality omitted the early medievalperiod entirely because he argued that sexuality—in its sense as self-conscioussexual identity—was a creation of the late nineteenth century. 1 Most authors whoapproach the history of sexuality from the modern period have followed Foucault’spath, a typical example being Stephen Garton’s excellent overview, Histories ofSexuality: Antiquity to Sexual Revolution (London: Equinox, 2004). The “missinglink” is still in evidence in works ostensibly designed to fill the gap, such asRuth Mazo Karras’s impressive survey, Sexuality in the Medieval World: DoingUnto Others (New York: Routledge, 2005), which concentrates heavily on theperiod after 1000 AD. In general histories, omissions of this sort seem to implythat nothing of any great significance happened in the early medieval centuries,at least when these are viewed as part of the longer-term history of sexuality.But viewed on their own terms by specialists in the history of early medievalsexuality—such as Pierre Payer, Allen Frantzen and many others—the oppositeconclusions have been reached. 2 For these scholars, the Early Middle Ages were,in fact, a crucial time for the transmission of Late Antique Christian sexualmorality to later generations, and also for the institutionalization of this moralityso that it became deeply embedded within Western European culture. One ofthe reasons why this important period has been left out of general accounts maybe that the surviving evidence is difficult to handle, or at least is perceived assuch by non-specialists. But equally important, in my view, are the ways in whichspecialists in early medieval sexuality have tended, for very good reasons, of