Katherine Harvey

Author: Katherine Harvey

The Pustulent Penis: Searching for STDs in the Centuries before Syphilis

By Katherine Harvey June 2, 2016 Medieval 0 comments

John of Gaunt ‘died of putrefaction of his genitals and body’.

The Manly Priest: Celibacy, Masculinity, and Reform in the Medieval Period

By Katherine Harvey February 9, 2016 Author Interviews 0 comments

Interview by Katherine Harvey In The Manly Priest: Clerical Celibacy, Masculinity, and Reform in England and Normandy, 1066-1300, Jennifer Thibodeaux tells the story of the imposition of clerical celibacy in the Anglo-Norman realms. For much of the medieval period, priests in both England and Normandy were not only permitted to marry, but […]

Bad for the Soul, Good for the Body: Religion, Medicine and Masturbation in the Middle Ages

By Katherine Harvey November 19, 2015 Medicine and Sexuality, Medieval 1 comment

The monk could no longer be considered a virgin, since he has been ‘polluted…through masturbation’.

The Origins of Sex: An Interview With Faramerz Dabhoiwala

By Katherine Harvey June 18, 2015 Author Interviews 0 comments

Interview by Katherine Harvey with Jennifer Evans A sweeping history of changing sexual attitudes and behaviours in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Faramerz Dabhoiwala’s The Origins of Sex explores the history of the ‘first sexual revolution’. The book traces the transformation of western approaches to sexuality during the Age of Enlightenment. Dabhoiwala detects […]

The Perfect Corpse: Death, Virginity and the Bishop in Medieval Europe

By Katherine Harvey June 2, 2015 Medieval 0 comments

Lietbert was renowned for his piety, and in particular his sexual continence.

The King’s Favourite: Sex, Money and Power in Medieval England

By Katherine Harvey January 15, 2015 LGBTQ, Medieval 0 comments

Katherine Harvey In November 1326, Hugh Despenser was condemned to death for treason. Drawn to the gallows on a hurdle, he was hanged from a height of 50 feet; then, before he was completely dead, he was cut down from the gallows, eviscerated, and beheaded. His head was displayed on […]

Carnivalesque #107

By Katherine Harvey December 6, 2014 Early Modern, Medieval 0 comments

Katherine Harvey Welcome to Carnivalesque #107! Carnivalesque is an interdisciplinary blog carnival dedicated to pre-modern history (to c. 1800 C.E.), and NOTCHES is delighted to be hosting the final edition of 2014. If you are already a NOTCHES reader, then fear not, there is plenty of material on the history […]