Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 8052
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Brundage , James A.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Playing by the Rules: Sexual behaviour and Legal Norms in Medieval Europe [ways in which ecclesiastical courts judged and punished sexual crimes].
  • Source: Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West.  Edited by Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler.  University of Toronto Press, 1996.  Pages 23 - 41.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Canon Law Clergy- Sexual Behavior Courts of Law, Ecclesiastical Crime and Criminals Sexuality
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: General
  • Century: 12-13
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract:
  • Related Resources: "Bullough's close colleague, James A. Brundage, summarizes an impressive knowledge of medieval canon law with "Playing by the Rules: Sexual Behaviour and Legal Norms in Medieval Europe." Brundage shows how the concept of famaor public reputation by the thirteenth century provided a basis for allowing the prosecution of sexual offenders, especially in the Church. This development Brundage sees in the medieval Church's "need to implement" its "laws concerning sexual conduct" (p. 34). Here the emphasis on the regulatory Church is understandable but why did the Church act as it did? What about the Church's interest in the integrity of marriage? There is no reference to the important work done by the Toronto scholar Michael Sheehan, who died in 1992 and whose collected studies edited by James K. Farge and also published in 1996 by the University of Toronto Press deserve to be read concomitantly with this book." From the review written by Brian McGuire of "Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West," "Medieval Review" (TMR ID: 96.12.11). [Reproduced by permission of the "Medieval Review."].
  • Author's Affiliation: University of Kansas
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1996.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0802007805