The way that we have perceived, described, and understood sexual desire has changed dramatically over time and across cultures. This collection brings together a group of experts from a variety of disciplines to explore the history of sexual desires and the transformation of sexual ideas, attitudes, and practices in premodern Europe. Among the topics considered are the visibility of sexual offenses and the construction of passions; the geographical range extends to Great Britain, with extended attention also to France as well as Northern and Eastern Europe. The result is a groundbreaking volume that adds significantly to our understanding of premodern European history, history of sexualities, gender studies, religious history, and many other fields.

This volume investigates the state of same-sex relations in later medieval England, drawing on a remarkably rich array of primary sources from the period that include legal documents, artworks, theological treatises, and poetry. Tom Linkinen uses those sources to build a framework of medieval condemnations of same-sex intimacy and desire and then shows how same-sex sexuality reflected“and was inflected by“gender hierarchies, approaches to crime, and the conspicuous silence on the matter in the legal systems of the period.