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COMING SOON! The Sex Lives of the Anglo-Saxons

12/8/2014

Look out for my new video blog series The Sex Lives of the Anglo-Saxons.

Over the next few weeks I will be exploring the little-known world of Anglo-Saxon sex. You may know something already, of course, about the sex lives of Anglo-Saxon kings and queens. Who married who, and what their children were called, for example. But I want to delve into the sex lives of ordinary Anglo-Saxons, the everyday folk of early medieval England.

Episode 1: Female Desire

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Don't stand up in the bath! Naughty Irish monks ...

9/8/2014

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Vatican City, BAV Ross. 379, folio 21r, detail

I wanted to share with you one of the weirdest (and, to my slightly prurient mind, one of the funniest) rules I've come across in the Irish penitentials.

I also wanted to revert to my stereotype of the Anglo-Saxon scholar that "does sex", as someone once described me. If you think that medieval sex is all I write about, then you missed my last post on ape suits! (OK, I did mention the word 'naked' a couple of times.)

But I digress ...

This rule is essentially about naughty Irish monks who can’t quite control themselves. A penchant for exhibitionism, shall we say. It’s found in the Penitential of Columbanus, and was probably written in the late sixth century:

‘If anyone, desiring a bath, has washed alone naked, let him do penance with a special fast. But if anyone, while washing lawfully in the presence of his brethren, has done this standing, unless through the need for cleansing dirt more fully, let him be corrected with twenty-four strokes.’

What’s this all about then?

First, it’s clear to me that sixth-century Irish monasteries hadn’t cottoned on to the benefits of en suite facilities.

Second, it would appear that no sixth-century monk or novice would have been allowed a private bathroom anyway, as communal bathing was the rule of the day. No washing alone – and certainly not while you’re naked!

Third, and this is where it gets really weird, whilst engaging in a spot of united lathering – look but don’t touch, mind you – do not, on the penalty of two dozen lashings, stand up!

How the heck were you meant to get in and out of the bath, brethren?

The issue seems to be that the monk who stood up to do his sluicing was in danger of being considered a bit of a show-off, if you get my drift. You know the type. I can’t be the only one with slightly disturbing memories of communal showers post-P.E. at school.

But! Thank Columbanus! There was a get-out clause ...:

“Oh brother, I need to stand up as I need to cleanse more fully. Would you mind terribly?”

“Not at all, brother. Go ahead. Though my brethren and I first need to fully ascertain that it is purely for the removal of dirt that you wish to stand erect in the bath.”

“Why of course, go ahead and ascertain.”

“What say you, good brethren?”

“Twenty four strokes! Minimum!”

Work consulted: Ludwig Bieler (ed.), The Irish Penitentials (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1963)

Disclaimer: Sorry, I couldn't find an authentic picture of a sixth-century Irish bath, nor Irish monks from the sixth-century. Thought this fourteenth-century Italian health spa (from the Vatican collection, no less) conveyed rather well the issues at stake. Poor sod who's dropped the soap! That's all I have to say on the matter.

Abundant thanks to The Mackinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations.

Go on ... you know you want to! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this piece.

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Is this an Anglo-Saxon ape suit?

5/8/2014

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British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv, fol. 102r

I like my Anglo-Saxon wonders and monsters, as you know, but a new study suggests I'd missed this ape impersonator!

I’ve just finished writing a review of a book by Asa Simon Mittman and Susan M. Kim: Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript.

A remarkable piece of scholarship in many ways, though I expect it will ruffle a few feathers in academic circles, especially with its argument that the naked monsters of the manuscript are not actually naked but are wearing ‘naked suits’!

It’s not as bonkers as it first seems, but as I might get my wrists slapped by the reviews editor for divulging the content of my review before I've even sent it to him (this is cutting edge stuff, I'll have you know!), I’d better not say anything more about these ‘costumes’ of naked bodies.

I will though talk a little about the ‘ape-suit’ in the Beowulf manuscript, as I'm actually silent about it in the review.

Mittman and Kim reckon that a previously unidentified character in the Wonders of the East drawings may well be depicted wearing one.

If you look closely, you can see to the right of the frankly bizarre looking sheep-cum-chicken thing, known as a Lertice, that there is a dark-bodied figure right at the edge of the crumbling page.

Its body does seem, as the two scholars put it, ‘somewhat thicker’ and ‘woollier’ than the more human looking head and hands – one of which, I'm sure you've noticed, is carrying a monster snack, the dismembered lower half of someone’s leg!

The strange thing is that the text that accompanies the drawing makes no mention of this disquieting, furry oddball.

Mittman and Kim argue that it may be another version of the monster at the top of the page, the rather nasty, anthropophagous, human-crunching Hostes, who’s somehow wandered into the lower scene.

Perhaps they’re right. This wacky manuscript is full of transgressions and slippages of space and body.

This has left me wondering, then ...

Maybe what we’re looking at here is something like an Anglo-Saxon gorilla-gram turning up at the wrong party!

I told you this was cutting edge stuff!

I'd love to know what you think of the ape-suit, so be intrepid and leave a comment below.

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COMING SOON! The Sex Lives of the Anglo-Saxons

Don't stand up in the bath! Naughty Irish monks ...

Is this an Anglo-Saxon ape suit?

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