Chapter 38 - Christine Ekholst and Henric Bagerius

For Better or for Worse:
Royal Marital Sexuality as Political Critique in Late Medieval Europe

This chapter discusses how sexuality was used in political critique in late medieval Europe. In the Middle Ages the union of the king and the queen symbolized the social contract, and the royal marriage represented the bond between the king and his subjects. Negative descriptions of a royal marriage could therefore be used to signal discontent with a king’s reign. The chapter analyses a number of late medieval texts in order to expose reoccurring critical discourses that built on perceptions of gender and sexuality. We argue that sexual matters were used deliberately to highlight fundamental shortcomings in how a country was governed. A king’s inability to be sexually active indicated a lack of masculine authority. Kingly masculinity and dominance were closely linked and an effeminate king was an unthinkable proposition. In addition, since the king and queen were regarded as a unit, his behaviour impacted how she was judged. If the king was believed to lack masculine dominance and to be unable to control his wife, this could unleash the dangerous power that lay within queenship itself. The queen could be become unruly and adulterous. The incapable king and his unruly queen represented a dysfunctional rulership and failed regency.

By Christine Ekholst and Henric Bagerius

Christine Ekholst and Henric Bagerius

Henric Bagerius

Henric Bagerius received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Gothenburg in 2009. He is an associate professor of history at Örebro University, Sweden. He has published extensively on gender and sexuality in Iceland and Sweden. He is currently working on a monograph on the dress reform movement in late nineteenth-century Sweden.

Christine Ekholst

Christine Ekholst received her Ph.D. in history from Stockholm University in 2009. She has taught at several Canadian universities and is now an assistant professor of medieval history at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research focuses on sexuality, gender, legal history and the history of crime. She is currently researching gender and crime in late medieval Swedish towns.

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Annotated bibliography

  • Lisa Benz St John, Three Medieval Queens: Queenship and the Crown in Fourteenth Century England. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
    • This book compares three medieval English queen consorts and explores how these three queens used their power and authority. It provides insight into how queens managed their households and how their status changed with motherhood.
  • Joanna Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445–1503. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004
    • Joanna Laynesmith’s book was one of the first comparative analyses of English queenship. It provides insight into how late medieval queenship in England was constructed and understood. It also provides a gendered analysis of the queens’ roles and agency.
  • Theresa Earenfight, ‘Without the Persona of the Prince: Kings, Queens and the Idea of Monarchy in Late Medieval Europe.’ Gender & History 19 (2007): 1–21.
    • Earenfight’s analysis of the royal couple as a unit dispels ideas of the medieval queen as non-political and uninteresting in political history. Her article emphasises that the king did not rule alone and that scholars must take other actors, in particular the queen, into consideration when analysing a particular reign.
  • Cynthia Herrup, ‘The King’s Two Genders.’ Journal of British Studies 45 (2006): 493–510. 
    • Herrup builds her analysis on Ernst Kantorowicz’ pivotal work The King’s Two Bodies while arguing that the early modern rulers needed to embody both feminine and masculine characteristics. Her article is important because it provides a gendered perspective on rulership.
  • Katherine J. Lewis, Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England. London: Routledge, 2013.
    • Katherine Lewis analyses the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI. Lewis’ book is important because it is one of few works that directly addresses kingly masculinity and discusses the role of masculinity in late medieval English rulership.
  • W. M Ormrod, ‘The Sexualities of Edward II.’ In The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, edited by Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson, 22–47. Woodbridge: York Medieval, 2006.
    • Mark Ormrod’s article focuses on the sexuality of King Edward II and unlike many earlier works did not simplify it into merely a question of whether Edward II was gay or not. Ormrod explains why Edward’s sexuality was important to his contemporaries and discusses how kingly sexuality was constructed.
  • Christopher Fletcher, ‘Manhood, Kingship and the Public in Late Medieval England,’ Edad Media: Revista de Historia 13 (2012): 123–142.
    • Christopher Fletcher has explored kingly masculinity in several important works. This article is an excellent introduction to a nuanced understanding of the links between masculinity and kingship.

Reading and viewing lists

  • Jacqueline Murray, ‘Historicizing Sexuality, Sexualizing History.’ In Writing Medieval History, edited by Nancy Partner, 133–52. London: Arnold, 2005.
    • Murray provides an excellent introduction to different views of sexuality in the Middle Ages. The article also introduces readers to different approaches to studying sexuality in the past.
  • Ruth Mazo Karras, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, 2012. 
    • Karras well-written and accessible textbook provides a great overview of sexuality and gender in medieval Europe. It discusses chastity, marital sexuality and the various forms of sexuality that were seen as deviant by the medieval Church.
  • Theresa Earenfight, Queenship in Medieval Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
    • Earenfight explores how queenship was viewed in different parts of medieval Europe. It provides a foundation to understand the various components of medieval queenship and how queenship varied over time and in different places. It provides an introduction to how queens can be analysed. It is well written and highly accessible. 

Keywords

Main people

Edward II, Isabella of France, Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou, Juan II, María of Aragon, Isabel of Portugal, Enrique IV, Blanca of Navarre, Juana of Portugal, Magnus Eriksson, Blanche of Namur

Places

England, France, Castile, Sweden, Norway, Ávila, Portugal, St Albans Abbey, Westminster Abbey, Denmark, Aragon

Terms/objects

Political critique, discourses, marriage, alliances, kingship, queenship, masculinity, femininity, rulership, honor, conjugal debt, sexuality, sodomy, adultery, impotence, magic, annulment, virginity, Farce of Ávila, virility, Muslims, Moors, sodomy, xenophobia, adultery, rebellions, civil war, dowry, Wars of the Roses, mental health, chastity, advisers, court, councillor, the Order of Santiago, constable, favouritism

People and texts

Hugh Despenser the Younger, Jean Froissart, Robert of Reading, Vita Edwardi Secundi, Queen Philippa of Hainault, King Edward III of England, St. Paul, Crónica de Juan II, Alfonso de Palencia, Diego de Valera, Juan de Flores, Edward of Westminster, The English Chronicle, The Brut, Richard of York, Henry Blacman, Piers Gaveston, Annales Paulini, Ranulf Higden, Polychronicon, King Philippe IV of France, Geoffrey le Baker, Roger Mortimer, Libellus de Magno Erici Rege, Álvaro de Luna, Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, Beltrán de la Cueva, Crónica anónima de Enrique IV, Fernando del Pulgar, Isabel the Catholic, Juana la Beltraneja

Modern scholars

Richard Kagan, John Carmi Parsons, Theresa Earenfight, Cynthia Herrup, Mark Ormrod, Katherine Lewis, Ruth Mazo Karras, Barbara Weissberger, Joanna Laynesmith

Related Chapters

Hélder Carvalhal: Kingship and Masculinity in Renaissance Portugal (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries) (See Chapter 18)

Benjamin Wild: Clothing Royal Bodies: changing attitudes to royal dress and appearance from the Middle Ages to modernity (See Chapter 23)

Jonathan Spangler: A Family Affair: Cultural Anxiety, Political Debate and the Nature of Monarchy in Seventeenth-Century France and Britain (See Chapter 27)

Theresa Earenfight & Kristen Geaman: Neither Heir nor Spare: Childless Queens and the Practice of Monarchy in Pre-Modern Europe (See Chapter 30)

Stephen Donnachie: Male Consorts and Royal Authority in the Crusader States (See Chapter 36)

Chad Denton: From Galanterie to Scandal: The Sexuality of the King from Louis XIV to XVI (See Chapter 41)