Sexual politics

Anecdotes told by 12-century chroniclers and moralists illustrate the reality, then as now, of eroticism, sexual jealousy and romantic love, and show there was a ready audience for a spicy story. We know, too, that in their daily lives people were bounded by the conventional ideas of Christian marriage; and we must suppose that ordinary human passions played their part. But despite these clues, the relationship between the sexes in the 12th century remains shadowy and elusive, with little indication of how men and women thought about each other.

The subjection of women -- ideally, subordinate in society and submissive in the home -- was fundamental to the medieval interpretation of Christian ethics, and was largely reflected in law and custom. On marriage, at or before 14, women gave up their rights to their husbands who, at least in theory, had almost absolute power over their wives and their properties. Their betrothal often required them to go to strange courts, far from home, perhaps to be returned to their fathers when a better match presented itself. Depending on a woman's social status, her marriage was in the gift of her father, or of her lord or the king; in a society acutely conscious of family position and ambitions, the marriage of a daughter or ward was too important to be left to chance or personal choice.

Characteristically, these restrictions were accompanied by the habit of blaming women for departures from the sexual code. Female virginity was highly prized, and its loss outside marriage brought disgrace -- but only on the woman. If virtue was the virtue of the Mother of God, the responsibility for sin rested with the daughters of Eve, and the Church identified women as the source of human lechery. In the king's courts a sexually experienced woman was not allowed to bring an accusation of rape. In the manor courts, even when both partners were known, only the woman was fined for fornification or the pregnancy which would devalue her as a marriageable asset.

Yet many women were far from being meek and submissive chattels. Henry II's mother, Matilda, and his wife, Eleanor, were formidiable and ambitious, with evident capacity and opportunity for political power; Nicola de la Haye became constable of Lincoln castle and sheriff of Lincolnshire. Such examples were not confined to the nobility and royalty. Throughout the social spectrum, capable women did the jobs of capable men while those men were away in the fields or on Crusade, and must have received a measure of trust and respect for doing so.

With marriage a matter of dynastic economics, female sexuality both exploited and closely circumscribed and childbirth a very real hazard, the apparent room for tenderness between the sexes was limited. Yet

paradoxically it was in this society that the romantic notions of courtly love and devotion flourished; the Arthurian myths, fostered at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, are an example. In the circles of the elite, therefore, fantasy often conflicted with reality.