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The adjective medieval tends to conjure up vivid and sometimes off-putting images, not least when applied to se*. But how many of us have any sense at all of what the real people of the Middle Ages got up to in bed? To get one, we could do worse than asking historian Eleanor Janega, teacher of the course Medieval Gender and se*uality and host of the History Hit video above, “What Was se* Really Like For Medieval People?” In it, Janega has first to make clear that, yes, medieval Europeans had se*; if they hadn’t, of course, many of us wouldn’t be here today. But we’d be forgiven for assuming that the seemingly absolute dominance of the Church quashed any and all of their erotic opportunities.

According to the medieval Church, Janega says, “the only time se* is acceptable is between two married people for procreative purposes.” Its many other restrictions included “no se* on Saturdays and Sundays in case you’re too turned on during mass; only have se* in the missionary position, because anything else subverts the natural relationship between men and women; don’t get fully naked during se*, because it’s just too exciting; in short, during se*, you should be trying to have the least amount of fun possible.” Strict and unambiguous though these rules were, “nobody really listened to them” — and what’s more, given the lack of private spaces, “se* was almost a public affair in the Middle Ages.”

So says Kate Lister, who researches the history of se*uality, and who turns up to bring her own knowledge of the subject to the party. “We tend to think about medieval people as being real prudes,” says Janega, but even scant historical records — and rather more copious erotic manuscript marginalia — show that “they were interested in all kinds of se* and romance that we would find co*pletely unacceptable.” Lister adds that, “in many ways, we’re not open like the medieval people were. We don’t have public co*munal bathing. We don’t have se* in the same room as other people. We don’t go to a high-brow dinner party and tell pubic-hair jokes.” Or we don’t, at least, if we haven’t devoted our careers to the se*uality of the Middle Ages, a field of history clearly unfit for prudes.

Related content:

The Earliest Known Appearance of the F-Word, in a Bizarre Court Record Entry from 1310

People in the Middle Ages Slept Not Once But Twice Each Night: How This Lost Practice Was Rediscovered

What Did People Eat in Medieval Times? A Video Series and New Cookbook Explain

Why Butt Trumpets & Other Bizarre Images Appeared in Illuminated Medieval Manuscripts

Medieval Monks co*plained About Constant Distractions: Learn How They Worked to Overco*e Them

The Turin Erotic Papyrus: The Oldest Known Depiction of Human se*uality (Circa 1150 B.C.E.)

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.