Under the iron grip of the medieval Church, sexual activity was monitored with a zeal that would make modern regulators blush. Yet, despite the heavy hand of doctrine, people still pursued pleasure. In this top 10 tantalizing rundown you’ll discover how medieval folk navigated desire, from tolerated brothels to secret birth‑control tricks.
Top 10 Tantalizing Overview
10 Prostitution Was Considered a Necessary Evil
Prostitution thrived in towns and cities throughout the Middle Ages. Although the clergy publicly condemned the trade, they largely turned a blind eye, recognizing that many men needed an outlet and that suppressing it could cause greater moral chaos. Officials feared that without regulated brothels, men might assault respectable women or, worse, turn to homosexual acts.
Even with this tacit acceptance, authorities imposed humiliating ordinances on the women involved. They were forced to wear distinctive clothing to set them apart from “respectable” ladies, confined to specific districts, and were denied any standing in a court of law. Brothels often masqueraded as bathhouses or craft workshops, where women could pose as “apprentices” to conceal their true occupation.
9 Impotence Was Grounds for Marriage Annulment
Across Europe, the law treated consummation as a vital component of a valid marriage. If a spouse could not or would not produce offspring, the partner could petition for an annulment. In some jurisdictions, a man accused of impotence had to prove his physical capability before a court, lest the marriage be declared void.
Historical records reveal dozens of such cases. One of the most famous involved King Philip II of France and his second wife, Ingeborg of Denmark, in 1198. Philip, who despised Ingeborg, oddly claimed the marriage was never consummated, pleading temporary impotence to avoid taking her as queen.
8 Women Used Contraceptives
Contrary to long‑standing scholarly belief, women in the Middle Ages did not abandon birth‑control entirely. While the Catholic Church condemned any interference with procreation, demographic studies show a noticeable decline in pregnancy rates among women over thirty, indicating the use of various contraceptive techniques.
Because written evidence was scarce—suppressed by the Church’s opposition—knowledge of these methods was passed down orally, often from midwife to midwife. Common practices included coitus interruptus and plant‑based remedies, such as pessaries crafted from lily root and rue, demonstrating a covert yet sophisticated approach to family planning.
7 The Church Thought Midwives Forced Women Into Sex With the Devil
The late medieval period saw an explosion of witch hunts, with tens of thousands—predominantly women—accused of sorcery. Among the many alleged crimes, midwifery fell under suspicion, as some demonologists claimed midwives lured young women into sexual encounters with the Devil and used unbaptized infants for dark rites.
Pope Innocent VIII’s 1484 papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus endorsed the persecution of witches, and inquisitor Heinrich Kramer’s infamous Malleus Maleficarum singled out midwives as a particular threat. Modern scholarship, however, argues that the “midwives‑as‑witches” narrative is largely a myth, overstated by later historians such as Margaret Murray, with actual accusations being relatively rare.
6 Clergymen Could Sometimes Get Married
Marriage rules for clergy were a tangled web that shifted over centuries. In the early Byzantine era, Emperor Justinian annulled all holy‑order marriages and declared any offspring illegitimate, establishing a strict celibacy norm.
Nonetheless, enforcement was uneven. Some clerics were permitted to marry, and conversely, married men could enter holy orders—usually only if it was their first marriage and they pledged sexual continence thereafter. The Great Schism of 1054 prompted both the Eastern and Western Churches to tighten celibacy requirements, culminating in the First Lateran Council’s 1123 prohibition of clerical marriage.
These rules relaxed again during the Protestant Reformation, most famously when Martin Luther wed Katharina von Bora, illustrating that clerical marriage was not an absolute taboo but rather a fluctuating doctrine.
5 Lesbianism Was Considered a Medical Problem
While medieval discourse on homosexuality largely focused on men, a handful of legal texts did address female same‑sex relations. The mid‑13th‑century French treatise Li Livres de jostice et de plet prescribed punishments for lesbian acts that mirrored those for male sodomy: mutilation for the first two offenses and burning for the third.
Physicians of the era classified lesbianism as a medical ailment. Drawing on Galen, they argued that a “seed” could accumulate in a woman’s womb if she did not engage in heterosexual intercourse, recommending orgasmic release—often induced by a midwife using a heated poultice—as treatment. Another supposed condition, “ragadia of the womb,” claimed women could develop penis‑like growths, prompting desire for other women.
4 They Used Sex Toys
Sexual implements predate the Middle Ages by tens of millennia, with archaeological finds ranging from stone phalli to ivory dildos. Ancient civilizations such as Egypt and Greece fashioned toys from a variety of materials, including leather and animal hair, often lubricated with olive oil.
In medieval Europe, the most common dildo was a hardened loaf of bread—a practice also noted among the Greeks. These “bread toys” were crafted in secret to avoid ecclesiastical censure, as the Church condemned any pleasure‑focused sexual activity. The resulting devices were likely uncomfortable, but they reveal a persistent human ingenuity in seeking sexual satisfaction.
3 There Was Cross‑Dressing
Cross‑dressing was far from unheard of in medieval England, though society condemned it. An Oxford study uncovered thirteen women cited for wearing men’s clothing in the 15th century, and records suggest male cross‑dressers were equally, if not more, prevalent.
Most of those who swapped attire were prostitutes who adopted the opposite gender’s dress to fulfill personal or client desires. Authorities downplayed the phenomenon, labeling it a foreign vice, yet the documented cases prove that gender‑bending did occur, albeit clandestinely.
2 Missionary Was the Preferred Position
The medieval Church framed sex primarily as a procreative act, which cemented the missionary position—man on top, face‑to‑face—as the ideal. This posture was thought to maximize the chance of conception, while alternative positions, such as “sex a tergo” (from behind), were denounced as “beastly” and believed to blur the natural order.
Oral and anal intercourse were strictly forbidden, as they offered no reproductive benefit and were deemed purely pleasure‑driven sins. Nonetheless, some clerics began to adopt a more nuanced view.
In the 13th century, German friar Albertus Magnus ranked five positions by “naturalness”: missionary first, followed by side‑by‑side, seated, standing, and finally a tergo. While missionary remained the top choice, he deemed the others morally questionable yet not mortal sins, indicating a subtle shift in ecclesiastical attitudes.
1 There Were Punishments for Every Sexual Sin
To standardize penance, the medieval Church produced “penitentials”—manuals that listed specific punishments for each confessed sin. These texts emerged as priests recorded the confessions they heard and the corresponding penances they assigned.
Sex‑related transgressions featured prominently. The influential Paenitentiale Theodori, authored by Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus, detailed a range of penalties: men who engaged in sodomy with other men or animals faced ten years of penance, while women who practiced lesbianism received three years. Masturbation required men to abstain from meat for four days, whereas women endured a full year of repentance.
The most severe sanction was reserved for the act of ejaculating seed into the mouth, deemed the “worst evil,” demanding lifelong penance. These meticulous regulations underscore how deeply the Church sought to control even the most intimate aspects of medieval life.