Medieval erotica
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| It was followed by [[Renaissance erotica]], when [[patronage]] shifted from the [[church]] to the [[bourgeoisie]]. | It was followed by [[Renaissance erotica]], when [[patronage]] shifted from the [[church]] to the [[bourgeoisie]]. | ||
| - | == See also == | + | == Christian Sexuality == |
| + | :''[[Religion and sexuality]], [[sexual morality]]'' | ||
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| + | Christianity supplemented the Jewish attitudes on sexuality with two new concepts. First, there was the idea that [[marriage]] was absolutely [[exclusive]] and [[indissoluble]], thereby restricting the sphere of [[sexual activity]] and eliminating the husband's ability to divorce at will. Second, there was the notion of [[virginity]] as a moral ideal, rendering marital sexuality as a sort of concession to [[carnal weakness]] and the necessity of [[procreation]]. | ||
| == Sexuality in Christian demonology == | == Sexuality in Christian demonology == | ||
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As Peter Webb notes in his excellent The Erotic Arts, eroticism is rare in the art of the Early Christian period and the Middle Ages. Pagan monuments were often overtly sexual, but Christian art shunned the world of physical love. Christianity was a non-sexual religion (Virgin birth of Jesus, Saint Paul advocating clerical celibacy).
Very much contrary to the sexual morality of antiquity, the Middle Ages were an era of sexual repression, with exceptions of course. There were elegiac comedies such as Lidia, erotic folklore such as the fabliaux, seductive enchantresses such as the Morgan le Fay, succubi and incubi, sexual church gargoyle ornamentations and Sheela na Gigs and sexual misericords.
The Christian repression of sexuality led to the depiction of erotic horrors in various frescos such as Giotto's Last Judgement.
It was followed by Renaissance erotica, when patronage shifted from the church to the bourgeoisie.
Christian Sexuality
Christianity supplemented the Jewish attitudes on sexuality with two new concepts. First, there was the idea that marriage was absolutely exclusive and indissoluble, thereby restricting the sphere of sexual activity and eliminating the husband's ability to divorce at will. Second, there was the notion of virginity as a moral ideal, rendering marital sexuality as a sort of concession to carnal weakness and the necessity of procreation.
Sexuality in Christian demonology
Demons and sexual relations
Christian demonologists agree in the fact that sexual relationships between demons and humans happen, but they disagree in why and how. A common point of view is that demons induce men and women to the sin of lust, and adultery is often considered as an associated sin. Pierre de Rostegny supported the idea that Satan preferred to have sexual intercourse with married women to add adultery to her sins.
Gregory of Nyssa said that demons had children with women, which added to the children they had between them, contributed to increase the number of demons.
It was considered that demons always had sexual relationships with witches and warlocks in the form of incubi and succubae, and some witches had sexual intercourse with a male goat, as it was supported by Pierre de Rostegny. But common people, as it was believed, also were seduced by incubi and succubae, especially while they were asleep, and sometimes when they were awake, in the form of a beautiful man or woman that excited their desire to the point of not being able to resist the temptation, although the possibility of resistance always existed as asserted by Christian theologians, but the tendency to sin was stronger than their faith. Francesco Maria Guazzo offered detailed descriptions of sexual relationships between demons and humans.
Nicholas Remy, disagreeing with many theologians and demonologists, supported the idea that even if a woman opposed resistance to the demon he could rape her, and wrote about a case of a young teenager that "was raped twice the same day by a demon, although she opposed resistance, and, not being her body enough mature to receive a man, she almost died because of the hurts". Catherine Latonia confessed this case to him in 1587. If that confession was an excuse to avoid giving the name of the rapist or the girl actually thought that a demon had raped her, will remain unknown. Sylvester Prieras agreed with Remy, supporting the idea that demons could not only rape common women but also nuns.
The Malleus Maleficarum established that sexual relationships between demons and humans were an essential belief for Christians. But its authors considered also the possibility that demons provoked a false pregnancy in some women, filling their belly with air due to certain herbs they made them drink in beverages during the Sabbaths; at the time of giving birth to the child, a big quantity of air escaped from the woman's vagina. The false pregnancy was later explained by medicine.
Many Christian theologians (Martin Luther and Jean Bodin among others) believed that demons could impregnate women but their children would have a short life and be good for nothing; other theologians (Francisco Valesio, aka Valesius, Tomaso Malvenda and Johann Cochlaeus among others) thought that these children could be important characters, like Attila, Martin Luther, Melusine or the Antichrist.
Augustine of Hippo, Pope Innocent VIII, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Paluda, Martin of Arles and Ludovico Maria Sinistrari believed that demons could fecundate women, but Ulrich Molitor, Heinrich Kramer, Jacob Sprenger and Nicholas Remy disagreed.
According to Remy, sexual relationships with demons were painful, meanwhile many persons that confessed to have had those relationships told that they were satisfying.
Henri Boguet and Johann Meyfarth supported the idea that demons provoked an imaginary coitus because they did not have sexual organs, such as a penis or a vagina.
