Sexual Freedom in "Iwein" and "Il Marescalco"

In the modern world, the notion that every individual possesses a sexual identity dictated by sexual preference is so ingrained in our common imagination that it is hard to conceive of a world without sexuality as we know it today. While homosexuality is often designated as a modern construction that should not be projected anachronistically onto the past, heterosexuality is presumed to be the default human state, such that the conflation of "heterosexuality-as-sexuality" makes it difficult to render "heterosexuality historically visible” (Schultz, 61). In his discussion of sexuality in the Middle Ages, however, the literary critic James Schultz argues that scholars need to think outside of the boxes of both homo- and heterosexuality in order to understand how sexuality functioned historically.

Hartmann von Aue’s ​Iwein (~1203) ​and Pietro Aretino’s ​Il Marescalco (~1533)​ offer two useful case studies for this kind of reappraisal. Each depicts characters that might today be understood as participating in homosexual relationships or simply being h​omosexual, but cannot be reflexively defined as such. In the twelfth-century Arthurian tale ​Iwein,​ Iwein and his close friend and fellow knight Gawein have a passionate relationship that seems to verge on the romantic by modern standards, while the sixteenth-century Venetian comedy ​Il Marescalco​ portrays the Marescalco’s reluctance to leave behind his sexual relationships with men in order to marry a wife chosen for him by the Duke, only to discover that his bride is a stable boy in disguise. Despite their differing geographical and temporal contexts, both texts seem to depict sexuality not as a stable interior identity but rather as a progression defined by one’s age and relationship to women. In both texts, relationships between men provide an alternative to or perhaps even an escape from the seeming inevitability of marriage to a woman and the life stage that such a bond entails. As such, they bring out by contrast the lack of flexibility in female sexuality. While men are pressured into ​doing s​ex and marriage, women in both of these stories essentially become symbolic of or even synonymous with sex and marriage.

Schultz and Guido Ruggiero provide helpful conceptual frameworks for understanding sexuality in the contexts of​ Iwein​ and ​Il Marescalco ​respectively. Schultz argues that “The Middle Ages had no notion of sexual orientation,” thus complicating any attempts to project modern notions of gender, desire, and attractiveness onto medieval society (57). In a court setting, what is sometimes interpreted as heterosexuality is “aristophilia,” or an appreciation of noble qualities in the object of one's affection. Schultz argues that nobility was a visible attribute of bodies defined mostly by unisex qualities, and that “visible nobility” is what provoked love rather than the gender of the beloved (80). In turn, Ruggiero notes that sexual identity in Renaissance Italy was largely socially and externally defined through what he terms “consensus realities,” or realities that were constructed and reinforced through an individual's interactions with various social groups (21). Men followed a sexual progression that began in asexual childhood and ended in marriage to a woman as an adult; however, adolescence was a sexually ambiguous period in which men could present as feminine and homoerotic, as androgynous and sexually ambiguous, or as “decidedly masculine.” This period of sexual ambiguity in a man’s development, during which same-sex sexual interactions were common, ended with marriage and reproduction, when a male “took on a full adult role by demonstrating through his sexual performance in marriage that he deserved to be an adult” (26). 

Although Iwein and Gawein’s relationship might contain sexual or romantic undertones, it is not analogous to Iwein’s relationship to his wife Laudine, but rather seems to represent a temporary escape from the inevitability of marriage, reproduction, and adult responsibility. Soon after Iwein’s marriage, Gawein urges him to leave his wife for a year to continue fighting in tournaments to preserve his honor and standing as a knight. Gawein implores Iwein to “not soon repeat the mistake of those who, because of their wives, are reproached for losing their honor owing to sloth,” for if he turns “wholly to a comfortable life" he may lose his honor like other men who “loved too much” (Hartmann, 269). Iwein decides to leave with Gawein, and gets so caught up in the adventure that he forgets to return home, provoking his wife's anger and his own deep shame which sends him off alone on a journey of madness and self-discovery. His ultimate reunion with Gawein is markedly more affectionate and receives far more attention in the tale than his brief reunion with his wife at the end (Schultz, 94). Iwein’s relationship to Gawein thus functions as an opportunity for a temporary respite from his fate as a married man, a chance to extend the excitement of his career as a knight before retiring to a life of domesticity represented by his attachment to a woman. 

Similarly, the Marescalco’s same-sex relationship with his servant, while more overtly sexual than that between Iwein and Gawein, is not equated to a love relationship with a woman, but is rather portrayed as an elongated stalling at an adolescent stage of development. Throughout the play, his resentment about his arranged marriage seems to stem more from a repulsion towards women than a romantic attraction to men. In the context of Italian Renaissance society, in which male adolescent sexual ambiguity was only acceptable as long as it was ultimately resolved by taking on an adult role through marriage to a woman, the Marescalco’s desire to remain in this stage would have threatened the soundness of this seemingly natural progression of sexual identity. Ruggiero notes that the joke of the play turns on the Marescalco possessing sexual habits that are different from the norm. As sexuality was essentially understood to be constituted by sexual practice rather than an inborn sexual orientation, and the acknowledgment of those practices by society through a “consensus reality” constituted an individual's social identity, Ruggiero argues that within the play the Marescalco’s “practices have become his social identity” (29). This ultimately allows the Marescalco an escape from being married to a woman, as the Duke acknowledges his social identity by arranging his marriage to a boy. Yet while Ruggiero states that this is a “happy ending” for the Marescalco, since he now has “his boy bride,” I would argue that the Marescalco is not actually married to the stable boy at the end of the play: the marriage ceremony was not only non-traditional but essentially a farce (40). The Marescalco’s elation at the end of the play is that this trick has confirmed his social identity as the one acknowledged by his social group. He thus has avoided progressing to the next stage of marriage and thereby adulthood, and is instead allowed to remain a “confirmed bachelor.” 

While Iwein and the Marescalco’s relationships with other men, and the contexts in which they pursued them, differed greatly, one constant throughout both texts is the way in which women come to be defined by their sexual and marital function. This is particularly apparent in Gawein’s speech to Iwein after his marriage, which is ripe with misogynistic assertions that loving and being married to a woman necessarily ropes men into dealing with household matters, which in turn robs them in part of their masculinity and honor. Although Iwein ultimately returns to his wife to fulfill his inevitable role, she has no such flexibility: rather, she embodies the domestic marital sphere he attempts to escape. This does not mean she is without influence or power: she is responsible for the political and economic welfare of the kingdom in Iwein’s absence. However, it seems that her access to this power is dependent on her attachment to a man, even if he is not present. After Iwein kills her husband, Laudine’s confidante Lunette convinces her that she must marry Iwein, arguing that the man who slayed her husband is the best candidate to defend the kingdom. She seems to marry more out of political necessity than love, and unlike Iwein she does not have the agency to leave the kingdom, as she is tied to the lifestyle of household maintenance about which Gawein warns Iwein, even if in her case the “household” is in fact a kingdom.

 

Similarly, Ruggiero notes that in contrast to the more fluid sexual progression available to men in Renaissance Italy, “gender seems to have implied sexuality more explicitly for women,” as females were viewed “first as asexual children, then sexually possible and marriageable with their first period, then sexually potent and realized as wives producing legitimate children, and finally sexually dangerous as widows.” He notes that even those who did not marry were still defined in relation to sexuality, from nuns who were considered to be married to Christ to prostitutes who were entirely defined by their sexual function. "Thus,” Ruggiero argues, “a woman's sexuality was ideally always labeled and central to her status and identity" (24). While Iwein and the Marescalco were clearly products of their society, constrained to some degree by its expectations, their ability to push back against or even avoid a marital fate demonstrates the greater flexibility that men had as sexual agents, while women were essentially rendered synonymous with their sexual role.

Christina of Markyate and Héloïse d’Argenteuil: Medieval Women on Sex, Love, and Marriage

In the medieval Christian world, marriage provided a controlled and sanctioned outlet for sensuality and sexual passion, which were otherwise considered to be precursors to sin. Two twelfth-century European women, Christina of Markyate and Héloïse d’Argenteuil, challenged this dominant understanding of the relationship between marriage and sexuality. Christina was a holy woman who rejected marriage to devote herself to Christianity. This devotion, however, did not prevent her from exploring her sensuality, which became a key facet of her religious experience. Heloise was an abbess and the wife of theologian Peter Abelard, who placed her passionate love for Abelard above both their marriage and her devotion to god. In some ways, Christina and Heloise appear to have had opposite aims: Christina wanted to evade earthly sexual bonds to dedicate herself completely to her spiritual pursuits, while Heloise prioritized her relationship with Abelard over her commitment to religion. My interest, however, lies in how both women rejected the institution of marriage and elevated sensuality from a sinful urge to a divine experience. According to the sacred biography The Life of Christina of Markyate, Christina forsook earthly marital bonds to remain faithful to Jesus, whom she saw as her true partner. Her relationship to Jesus was enhanced by a deep spiritual eroticism that satiated her earthly sexual desire. In turn, although she was in fact married to Abelard, Heloise challenged the importance of the institution in their correspondence, elevating their passionate and sensual love bond over their marital bond.

When comparing these two treatments of the relationship between sex and marriage, it is important to take into account the divergent modes of authorship at play in Heloise’s love letters and the hagiographic retelling of Christina’s life. While the first-person narration and somewhat private nature of Heloise’s letters seem to allow us entry into her personal thoughts, the life of Christina is told by an unknown author, most likely a man, who is writing not only to document her life but to present it as an example of a saintly existence. Thus, while Heloise is at times quite openly rebellious, Christina’s biographer is careful not to let the discussion of her sensuality undermine the ultimate narrative of her sanctity.

Although marriage was considered to be a sacred bond, The Life of Christina presents it as an earthly attachment that is subordinate to Christina’s sensual relationship to Christ, which is portrayed as a transcendent spiritual experience. Christina is pressured into marriage by religious authority figures and her family, whom the text implicitly condemns; she refuses, however, in the name of her fidelity to Christ. Stephen Jaeger notes that within the text “marriage, the law, [and] the arrangements that structure civil society, are relegated to a lower order of experience” (105). This fits into the general understanding of marriage at the time, which would have been seen as less holy than a life celibately devoted to god. What is perhaps more noteworthy is the way that the text integrates her sexuality into her religiosity. Christina’s series of close relationships with religious men throughout the text is characterized by entangled spiritual and sensual bonds. Her ultimate spiritual epiphany comes in the form of a sexually charged dream in which she is both penetrated by and gives birth to Christ, resulting in a feeling of ecstasy so great that she ceases to feel any kind of earthly sexual desire (119). Jaeger argues that “The idea is not to reject passion and intercourse, but to posit a passion so deeply, inwardly and ultimately satisfying that it ends the demon-inspired, earthly kind...the sexual is incorporated into a higher, purer kind of love by the deifying of human desires” (108). While her sexuality is ultimately reconciled with her religious devotion through the idea that she is in a sense married to Christ, the text toes a potentially subversive line by presenting intense sexual desire and devoted religiosity as intertwined rather than mutually exclusive.

Heloise presents a much more openly subversive view of the relationship between marriage and sexuality. She writes to Abelard that “The name of wife may have the advantages of sanctity and safety, but to me the sweeter name will always be lover, or, if your dignity can bear it, concubine or whore” (55). As in Christina’s vita, Heloise presents marriage as an attachment of convenience, one that secures social status but is not the substance of a relationship. Jaeger notes that “Heloise’s sentiments sanction a genuine, inward love of the soul for a man, which aims at no material or social gain, at the same time as they reject marriage, the institution made to sanction love” (100). Heloise portrays a love that is strong enough to exist outside the sanctioned bond of marriage as purer than that which is dependent upon the social and financial security that marriage provides, challenging the role that love plays in marriage.

Rather than reaching spiritual enlightenment through eroticism, as Christina does, Heloise perceives her carnal desire to be at odds with her ecclesiastic position. She challenges traditional conceptions of chastity, stating that “Men call me chaste who do not see the hypocrite I am. They count purity of the flesh among the virtues though the virtue belongs to the heart and not the body” (80). She does not condemn sexual desire, but rather her own hypocrisy in appearing chaste in her role as an abbess when in fact she still lusts for Abelard. She thus sees chastity more as a mental disposition than an action, a position that appears to be at odds with Christina’s definition, which is based only on abstaining from sexual relations. While Christina’s eroticism becomes entwined with her spiritual pursuits, Heloise’s religious role seems to exist in tension with her erotic desires.

In order to read these texts with and against one another, it is necessary to attend to their distinct narrative forms. Heloise’s letters are written in the first person, and intended mainly for Abelard’s eyes, thus allowing her to articulate private and potentially subversive thoughts that could have jeopardized her career were they to be made public. At the same time, the semi-public nature of letter writing during the middle ages indicates that the potential for broader readership may also have shaped the presentation of her arguments. The Life of Christina, however, was a hagiography written after her death by an unknown, but most likely male, author. The perspectives we get into Christina’s interior existence, her thoughts, motivations, and particularly her erotic desires, are largely projections. Regardless of the accuracy of the biography, the text is clearly trying to promote a particular narrative of her life and sexuality. Jaeger notes that the narrator “senses that Christina’s mode of feeling and loving, and that which she inspires in men, is highly open to misunderstanding and attack; otherwise it would not need such justification” (106). The author appears to be aware of the subversive potential both of her refusal to marry and of the sexual underpinnings of her relationships with men and her spiritual journey. However, by ultimately channeling her sensuality towards Christ, the narrative seeks to preserve her holy status. As Jaeger points out, “The narrative suggests – wants to suggest – that the awareness of sensuality and the successful facing of malice and misunderstanding in spiritual love are part of the pattern of sanctity” (106).

The ultimate message of the hagiography, in other words, is that Christ can offer a higher and more fulfilling kind of passion, one that allows Christina to overcome earthly lust and desires. Yet, the message of the narrative does not entirely erase the subversive potential that emerges throughout the text: Christina is a woman who evades familial and ecclesiastic pressures to marry and have socially-sanctioned sexual relationships with men, while still engaging in romantically–and sexually–charged, albeit celibate, relationships with men throughout her lifetime. While these texts function differently, then, both present medieval female figures who in some way pushed the boundaries of acceptable female sexuality, redefining the relationship between love, sex, and marriage in the process.

Augustine on the Question of Marriage and Celibacy

In the modern day, marriage is indisputably endorsed by the Christian faith. In the fourth century, however, marriage and its moral status were a hot topic of debate among Christian thinkers. Arguments as to the moral suitability of marriage were often grounded in interpretations of Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, written in the latter half of the first century CE. In this letter, Paul frames marriage mainly as a tool for the management of sexual desire and relations. While he presents marriage as a necessary solution to inevitable human drives, he also states that in an ideal world all would be “as I myself am,” meaning celibate (1 Cor. 7:7). This statement insinuated that marriage was inferior to celibacy, thus sparking debate between theologians as to the ultimate moral standing of marriage. The fourth-century monk and theologian Jerome believed that marriage was morally inferior at best, whereas Jovinian, the fourth-century monk turned critic of asceticism, rejected the notion that celibacy was a more holy way of life than marriage. It would fall to Jovinian and Jerome’s famous contemporary, Augustine, to find the middle ground between their views, arguing that while both marriage and celibacy were to be praised, celibacy was deserving of particular veneration in a way that did not disparage the value of marriage.

Augustine argued that the central benefit of marriage was its ability to contain human sexual drives and channel them towards procreation. He noted that marriage had “the benefit that sensual or youthful incontinence, even though it is wrong, is redirected to the honorable purpose of having children, and so out of the evil of lust sexual union in marriage achieves something good” (Augustine, 35). While he still condemned sex as a lustful and therefore evil act, he portrayed marriage as a means of channeling sexual energy towards the religiously condoned act of procreation. Even without the expressed purpose of childbirth, Augustine suggested that members of a married couple could engage in intercourse without moral consequences, as husband and wife “owe each other a mutual service to relieve each other's weakness, and thereby avoid illicit unions” (38). He presented marriage as a practical union, one in which each partner had a duty to fulfill the sexual needs of the other in order to channel the couple’s sexual energy into a controlled relationship and prevent the sins of adultery and fornication.

Love was largely left out of Augustine’s discussion of marriage, however when it was mentioned he presented it as something that existed separately from the passion-driven sexual relationship between husband and wife. Augustine noted that “in a good marriage...although the passion of youth between man and woman has waned, the relationship of love between husband and wife continues strong, and the better persons they are, the earlier they begin by mutual consent to abstain from carnal union” (35). He frames love as a non-sexual corollary of passion: as passion decreased in a union, love took its place. The transition from passion to love thus facilitated the transition from a sexual union to a celibate one. Husband and wife had a duty to fulfill each other's sexual drives. However, once these drives dissipated, they were meant to assist each other in mutually maintaining a celibate existence. Although the need to control sexual passions may have been the initial purpose of a marriage, the ultimate goal was a celibate bond held together by a non-sexual, and therefore more holy, kind of affection. This would seem to complicate the binary division between marriage and celibacy, suggesting that both were ways of avoiding actions defined as sexually immoral and that marriage could in fact be a path to the ultimate goal of abstinence from sexual relations.

Augustine clarified his perspective on the hierarchy between marriage and celibacy by stating that “marriage and fornication are not two evils, one worse than the other, but marriage and abstinence are two good things, one better than the other” (39). This statement solidified the moral standing of marriage, compromising between Jovinian’s praise of marriage and Jerome's exaltation of virginity. However, Augustine noted that there was one case in which this hierarchy dissolved: that of the fathers of the Old Testament. According to Augustine, these men “had intercourse because it was their duty, and their natural enjoyment of it was never let go to the point of becoming irrational or sinful passion” (47). When the fathers of the Old Testament had sexual relations due to procreative necessity rather than personal desire, that action was morally comparable to celibacy. This would seem to confirm that the sexual act itself did not hold any inherent moral valence in Augustine’s eyes. Rather, its valence was determined through the context and motivation that surround the act. Augustine expanded upon this logic when he said that the “natural inclination of a mortal being has its own kind of chastity” and that “when it is accompanied by worship of God it is destined to be fruitful thirty times over” (50). By noting that the sexual act when committed under the right circumstances could be comparable to chastity, he portrayed chastity as something more complex than the complete avoidance of intercourse. While Augustine clearly condemned sexual passion and saw marriage as a safeguard against the potential sins those desires could elicit, he did not directly condemn the sexual act, the morality of which appeared to be contextually dependent.

 Another year, another issue of Love, Medieval Style. Join me and our new staff writer, Ciara Hervas '21, for more stories of how sex, love, and marriage have changed--and stayed the same--over the past millennia!