Oh What A Time... - #35 Medieval S*x (Bonus episode!)
Episode Date: September 14, 2025OWAT returns properly on Monday 29th September 2025, so to fill the gap over the next couple of weeks we're dropping a few old subscriber episodes onto the feed.Today we've got the only episo...de ever recorded without Elis - with the marvellous Matthew Crosby sitting in for him.This episode is Medieval S*x and yes, it’s worth pointing out that history’s horniest podcaster Tom Craine came up with this one. Who would you go back and kiss through cling film? Do you love creme egg gloop? If you’ve got answers to these or any other questions, please do get in touch: hello@ohwhatatime.comOh and please follow us on Twitter at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAnd thank you to Dr Daryl Leeworthy for his help with this week’s research.Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).We'll be back soon!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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Hello and welcome to Oh, What a Time, huge news on the 29th September.
What we're describing as a new series of O Water Time will be starting.
But until then, over the next couple of weeks,
we're going to drop onto the feed some old subscriber episodes from many moons ago.
If you're a subscriber, you will have heard these.
But if you want brand new O Water Time you've never heard before,
You can become an O-Watertime, full-timer.
Go to O-Watertime.com for your options.
And today, if you're a subscriber, you'll get a new episode on Stonehenge.
However, today, on the main feed, we've got episode number 35, which is medieval sex, first broadcast in April 2024 for subscribers.
If you want to get all that good archive stuff, you can go to Owatertime.com, sign up and become a full-timer.
Enjoy this episode, and we'll see you on Monday.
the 29th of September when we restart a new series, a new run of Oh What a Time, but enjoy this one right now.
today. Yeah, exactly. I am Tom Crane. I'm nodding in agreement because I think, I think it definitely
was. It was muddier. There were more boils on the face, generally, I think. I think.
No Anne Summers on the highest tree. Exactly. It was definitely less sexy. At this point,
a third tickly sexy Welsh voice would normally chime in, but unfortunately, due to personal
reason, Ellis James is not with us this week. However, we are joined by Britain's sexiest
sketch act. You're happy with that?
Matthew Crosby.
Stav Ross Flatley.
Stav Ross Flatley.
Yeah, exactly.
Matthew Crosby, for those of you who don't know, Crosby, is brilliant comedian.
He presents, what's your show on Radio X called with Ed?
What's that called?
Thanks for doing the research.
It's, you're going to kick yourself when you hear it, because it's the Ed Gamble and Matthew Crosby show.
You could have given yourself one guess.
I just wasn't.
It's called Fun House.
What are you expected?
I wasn't sure which order the names came in.
That's literally what it was.
I didn't think it was kind of, you know, Ed and Matt's wacky funhouse.
I wasn't thinking it was that, but I wasn't quite sure which all of the names came in.
Now, today, guys, what are we talking about?
Let's put it on the table, because this is quite a meaty subject this week.
Skull, what we're talking about?
We're talking about medieval sex.
Now, Crosby, this is an interesting one because Crayne actually suggested this topic for our subscribers.
And there is a running theme in the show where Crane will often ruminate on which historical figures he would have liked to have snog.
Okay.
How he could use a Thai machine to go back and snog different people.
It's just interesting to me that the hornyest man in history podcasting should suggest this subject.
And here we are talking about medieval sect.
Let me just clear this up.
It wasn't exactly about who I would kiss, is the initial idea.
It was more my concerns about should any kissing occur, let's say, in medieval Britain, the sort of things you'd be picking up.
I suggested I'd go back with cling film.
I'd put it across my lips.
If I ever needed a kiss somewhere, there'd be some kind of layer of protection.
So my 2024 mouth will be all right in that situation.
Is that your way of getting around cheating on your wife?
No, I wasn't kissing a girl.
There was cling film in between me and the girl.
I was snogging a piece of cling film.
It just so happened she was on the other side of the cling film.
Before we crack into the filth, though,
should we start off with a little bit of correspondence skull
and then we'll get into the history?
I need to tell you about this, Crosby.
This is a key sort of meaty bit of our show
that cropped up a few weeks ago.
It's not all sort of, you know, well-researched historical fact.
There's a big chatting point about whether...
My feeling is that the filling of the cabri's cream egg
is my least favourite, almost liquid, basically.
I hate the centre of a cabri's cream egg with a deep passion, okay?
What's your feeling towards the centre of a cabri's cream egg very briefly?
I love a Cadbury's cream egg.
I think I would say it is one of the...
It's not one I like to eat in public.
Okay.
It's one of the hardest ones to eat with a sense of decorum, I would say.
I had a cremeag yesterday.
And this feels like if someone said this to me before this weekend, I wouldn't have believed it.
But are they not getting smaller?
They are, yeah, shrinkflation, mate.
The cremeag I had was definitely smaller.
A bit of good news at last that they should keep getting smaller until you can barely see them by the naked eye.
It's a terrible chocolate.
It's too thick.
The stuff inside sort of stuff, if I was trying to sort of build a wall,
If I was building a house and trying to seal the bricks together,
it has that sort of heavy, sort of industrial quantity, it's too much.
However, our listeners don't seem to...
Just before you launched into this email, I've just tried to find it.
We discussed on a previous episode the disappointment I had as a youth
that the big Cadbury's cream egg Easter egg wasn't filled with cream egg cream.
Yeah.
I just saw on Instagram today, someone had done it.
Someone had bought 20 cream eggs and then scooped out the innards and,
filled it into the big Easter egg to create a massive cream egg.
Thoughts on that crane?
Well, horror show, obviously.
And that person needs to be collectioned.
I do genuinely believe that.
However, as a thing to bring up, it couldn't be more fitting for the email we've received.
I'm just going to go straight into the email because it's completely on what you're talking about there.
This is from Sam Barker.
Hi, Sam.
Thank you for getting contact.
The email simply says, re-cream egg gloop.
normally I would delete that email immediately
if I saw that that was the subject heading
it would just go I wouldn't even
I'd hear the wishing sound
You've got a rule on your own inbox haven't you
Exactly
I go straight to span
So hello says Sam Barker
As a child I knew that most other people
Would be hoping a large cream egg
Would be filled with the goop
As you just suggested there Chris
But I wasn't so foolish
I knew it would be too heavy
It would pose manufacturing complications
And it could be used as a blunt weapon
It simply wouldn't be practical.
Okay, the idea of killing someone with a full Easter egg-sized cream egg.
It's got strong Midsummer Murders Easter special, hasn't it?
If anything, if you ever return to acting, Tom, and you're a fantastic actor,
I'd love to see you back on the small screen.
But yeah, if you were in an episode of Midsummer Borders,
I think that's how you should go.
You know, somebody suffocates you by sticking one over your head
and you just can't pull it off.
It's like house of wax.
You can't pull off
and just going up inside your nose
and in your mouth
and you're just there
Like when Joey got a chicken on his head
or a turkey on her head
at Thanksgiving and friends
Yeah yeah absolutely
Yeah yeah
Monica with a chicken on her head
Yeah
But what they'd
Here's what they do right
They'd stick it over you
Right
But it would be part of a big egg parade
Where everybody's got eggs over their heads
And everyone's like dark
You know
So it's like a big Easter day parade
Everyone's marching through the streets
With like big egg heads
Made out of Papi Mashay
Except yours is made of real chocolate
And you're dying
as it's happening. Nobody knows.
And you're waving your arms and everyone's going,
God, that guy's really going for it, isn't he?
And then you keel over and they realize
that you've been suffocated.
The mayor, the mayor of Midsomers, been suffocated.
And then they wrongly assume,
they say, well, I'm sure he was happy.
What a lovely way to go.
They wrongly assume that I was having to be going that way.
He died doing something he loved.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall of that autopsy for two reasons.
One, as the doctor opens up your lungs
and finds it filled with cream egg gloop and your cranium.
But also, secondly,
as a fly he could go there's loads of cream egg knocking about there and that as a fly would be
delicious yeah some of that's not even touched the skin that's fine briefly on that just before we
started recording i was eating a banana the story just get more interesting than that and midway through
i coughed inhale and a bit of banana went down in the inhale so i'm now slightly worried i've got a
note here to ask you guys is it possible to die from banana on the lung as you can see it on
my pad it's a genuine concern is that is it possible could i have banana in my lung or is that
Because obviously we know about the poor miners who suffered black lung.
But what about the people in the Caribbean in the banana fields?
Exactly.
They would get yellow lung.
Very, very common if they've been working in the fields for several decades.
They'd wake up in the morning, they'd do that cough and they'd see the little potassium in their tissue and think, oh, I'm not long for this world.
So yeah, sorry, Crane, you're a ticking time bomb.
You yourself will be history very soon.
Tune in next week to find out if Craig makes it.
So sound concerned, okay, was the fact that it's going to be too heavy.
a product. If it's full of the gloop, it's too much. So, Sam says, I wrote to Cabri's to propose,
this is quite funny idea, really, a potto goop, okay, which is just a pot full of the goop.
And then with that, you would get a standard Easter-style hollow egg, which you could break up
into soldiers and dip into the pot of goop. I love it. Needed to say, it never materialised,
I didn't even get a response from Cabberies. And as a result, my one-day time machine would be to go back to early Easter egg,
R&D sessions to be certain the world would see this innovation.
So Sam's idea, which obviously I hate, is a pot full of the goop and then a separate egg
which you use to break the soldiers and dip in over to you guys.
Thoughts on that?
Yeah, I like that.
That's great.
Crossby was nodding along throughout.
Yeah.
It's got something of the kind of fondue but for kids, you know.
Like, you've ever been to like a fondue party or like a reclette party or something like that.
I don't know if you know, but I'm sorry, a reclette party.
I'm broadcasting from 1976.
I thought that was part of the idea.
I had to go back to, I had to live in a previous time.
And all my references should be 50 years had a date.
No, I have in my lifetime, as a man who's, you know,
as only 44, a sprightly 44 years old,
I have in my lifetime been to fondue parties.
There was a period where they, there was a period where I think a few people,
like read the same article and thought they were coming back.
Um, big, big cheese got there, you know, managed to get an article in Tattler or something.
And then, and then suddenly everyone was like, yeah, we're having our, we're having our fondue parties.
But I think there's something very fun about a sweet fondue.
I tell you what, what it is a little bit like is if you've ever been to a party that's had a chocolate fountain, you know.
Yes.
Have you ever been to a party that's got a chocolate fountain?
I have, yeah.
Actually, I've been to a buffet.
I've been to a buffet, though.
Apparently, it's a very high amount of oil in the chocolate, which is what keeps it viscous and keeps it flowing.
thing. It's not like just pure chocolate.
The way they stop it from setting is quite a lot
of oil. That's apparently the case.
My concern, if you're selling a pot of goop,
I think if it's a full pot, there's a genuine
chance that someone's going to OD on that.
That's why the cream egg
is so small because it's safe,
digestible portions
of cream egg goop. The full
amount is too dangerous to let out into wider
society. It's basically like
you're eating a pack of sugar, surely.
It's so dense. Now you're
coming round. That's the challenge. I mean,
That's the challenge.
I think Easter should be, like, there are two things about Easter.
Number one, our Lord Jesus Christ, and number two, teeth itching by the end of the day.
Your teeth should have like, you should be like, no amount of brushing is ever going to get to reset these to factory settings.
That's what it should feel like.
And I think that is, you know, if you've eaten a couple of Easter eggs, you're not eating up to your potential.
A big pot of sitting in front of the telly at the end of the day, the kids have gone to bed,
you're still snaffler wearing your own Easter eggs.
Crack into a big pot of goo with soldiers.
I love it.
Pot a go.
Pot a goop.
Big pot of goop.
Well, there you go.
Sam Barker, you have convinced two of the hosts, not me, but, you know, if this was Dragon Den,
you're getting your money, you are.
You're getting two bids and that's enough to see this company through.
If the rest of you have any thoughts you want to email in about, be that one-day time machine,
some more sort of rational thoughts as to cream egg qualities, because obviously Sam's lost their mind.
Do get in contact with the show
And here's how you do just that
All right, you horrible look
Here's how you can stay in touch with the show
You can email us at hello at oh what a time.com
And you can follow us on Instagram
and Twitter at oh what a time pod
Now clear off
So this week on the show
I'll be talking about historic sexual manuals, which is exciting.
And I'm going to be talking about cures and potions for potency.
And I'm going to be talking to you generally about sex life in the medieval world
and kind of the churches hold over that because it was weird, to perfectly honest.
It's an interesting period to sort of kick things off with this, the medieval period,
in terms of their relationship with sex.
Because you have this idea, I don't know if you do, but I have this idea of it being like quite
prudish and people being so obsessed with religion that they would just, they do it in a
really sort of, simply for procreation. That's how I'm imagining medieval people.
So we're all just distracted by the fact that little thumbs up a bit by Tom's head.
We were both kind of, we heard the question, but this has started happening on Zoom now
recently where you move your hands in a certain way and people think, like the other day
our producer, a load of balloons popped out of her head.
What's just said? You just did something, Craig. You were talking and a thumb
Flossed around your head.
Yes.
I'm that excited to be talking about sex.
The Zoom has animated me into an emoji.
I'm not going to, I'm glad Crosby was equally as distraction.
Tom, you just turned into the obogene emoji.
So what was I doing?
What was happening?
I don't know.
You must have done a thumbs up and it just suddenly.
Okay.
What was the question?
Should we just ask again?
No, no, no, no, no.
No, no.
Yeah, I'll get you.
We'll keep that in.
Okay.
So just to quickly chat.
I'm not on a.
emoji anymore. I'm myself again.
No, you're not. You're normal now.
Okay. My question was, do you imagine sort of medieval people being quite prudish about sex
and simply using it as a way to procreate? Is that how you imagine people about them?
I think so. Do you know what? I was thinking about medieval sex. I've never really thought about
it. It's not a particularly sexy time, is it? It's not like the Renaissance or ancient Rome or
ancient Greece, where you kind of imagine everyone looks great and everyone's drinking wine.
The whole thing's like a big party. Whereas like medieval.
evil times. It's just a bit dingy. In my head, it's raining all the time. Everything's
covered in moss. There's mud everywhere. It's not a sexy, it's not a sexy thing. So I imagine
it's just like, can we get this out of the way? So I can get on with dying of tuberculosis?
Can we, by the way, can we just right away put a lid on this kink shaming? For anyone out there who's
listening who loves to fucking moss, listen, you love it, guys. You do you. It's 2024. There's, you know,
There's room on the planet for all of us.
You deal with that.
That's fine.
But the thing I think about, though, is that I thought, you know,
I think Britain had quite good at choose to sex up until, like, the Victorian era, didn't it?
I know we're not just dealing with Britain, but that was when, like, real British repression
sort of kicked in was the Victorian era.
I went to university in Canterbury, we had the Canterbury Tales.
And they were really quite boredy.
They were quite sort of, you know, a lot of choices are about shagging.
So I thought, you know, they must have been doing it.
But I think it was crucially, it was crucially, like, it was dirtier back in the day.
So I think that's what we, you know.
Well, I think we can all be grateful that they kept doing it because we wouldn't be here now if they hadn't kept doing it.
It would have just, it would have been the end of mankind if they just stopped.
They've gone, you know what, that's not for me.
We wouldn't be podcasting today.
It's not a revelation to say they would definitely do.
Exactly.
In a way.
You can skip a generation.
This is the thing.
If you think about it, oh, what a time is a podcast wouldn't be here if they hadn't
kept doing it. So if, you know, I just want to say thank you, first of all, to the medieval
people of Britain for sticking with it. To start with, I'm going to talk to you about
the language that people use in medieval times because that's kind of quite interesting.
Nowadays, we use sort of fun phrases like, you know, bonking, shagging, any else do you want
to chuck in? Al's your father. Knocking boots. Body to body fun time. That's the big one.
I think knocking boots and how is your father. I think I did a bit of that after my fond of
do party.
Did you have that?
Some of the language, though,
back then, is just kind of crazy.
If, for example, you wanted to give your lover a kiss,
you might be told off,
this is how people described it,
you were being incontinent in public.
That's how to describe people,
which doesn't seem tickly sexy.
Masturbation at that point was referred to
as self-pollution.
Really?
If you masturbated in Medieval Britain,
you were seen to be self-polluting yourself.
It's quite a phrase, isn't it?
If anything, it's getting the poison out.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what I consider it to be.
Quite the opposite.
What is interesting, though, the reason I bring this up,
what's interesting about this is that so much of the language of the time
is kind of infused with this sort of moral judgment.
There's a moral judgment woven into it.
And this is largely because the medieval church
was responsible for policing public morals back then
and preventing what it called anti-nuptial fornication,
which was sex before marriage.
They were so obsessed with people's sex lives
and the way they viewed it
and it not being a source of enjoyment, basically,
that even married couples could get into huge trouble
for swaying from prescribed sexual positions.
So the church prescribed a number of like four or five sexual positions
you were allowed to do.
But what was most amazing about this was if you swayed from these five positions
or you fornicated outside of marriage, you could be arrested.
This is how strong a hold they had over it.
I genuinely think, though, I was thinking about this,
if I got arrested for having too much sex,
or too many positions.
I would be so loud about it
as I was being taken to the police fan.
I can't believe you're arresting me
for having too much sex,
yelling it so the neighbours here.
Oh, goodness me.
What?
I think you should yell that
whatever you're being arrested for.
I think just start the PR campaign,
get ahead of the news.
Start the PR campaign first.
So at least the street knows.
But despite this,
people obviously kept having sex.
What was interesting, though,
is they had to make choices
about where they did it because you didn't want to be seen or spotted or get in trouble doing it in the wrong place
and it'd be sort of implicated as a crime, essentially. So where were people having sex?
Well, there's a number of places that are listed in medieval text. I want your thoughts on these for different places.
First one that comes up most is their own homes when other family members are out. That's classic.
Yeah, happy with that one.
Pretty standard, yeah, sign off on that.
Another major player in the sex game were Barnes.
I don't think of Barnes sexy, is it?
It does feel like a 1950s thing.
Yeah, a roll in the hay.
I think that's like that.
Maybe, yeah.
Okay.
I think there is something quite sexy about a barn.
I mean, I know we talk about like, like, you know, you smell like a barn or were you
born in a barn or anything like that.
That's how I'm sitting.
I do think that, you know, this, this, there is something a bit, you know, you sort of
crept away from your farm work that you should be doing.
Yeah.
And you're having a little, you know, roll in the hay with the, with the, the farmer's
daughter.
That feels, yeah, the farm hand, exactly.
Well, yeah, if it's, if you're on your own.
just a farm hand.
But whatever, I think there is...
I think, yeah, I think barns actually...
I see your point of you.
There are two different types of barns.
For me would be, I think a barn's not sexy.
Barn conversion is actually quite sexy.
That would be right.
There's a divide there.
Next one, and this is very...
I can't walk past hay and horse manure
without getting really turned off.
Well, you'd have loved medieval Britain in that case.
Another major one, it comes up a lot in medieval text,
and it's very specific about this,
is back gardens,
which I love the distinction between the front garden and the back garden,
the idea that I suppose if you're a threat of arrest,
you don't want the postman coming in while you're doing it.
So it does make sense that you're going to the back.
It has to be the back garden.
It has to be the back garden is, you know,
the front garden is, you know,
that's curb appeal, isn't it?
And you're not trying to show off.
And also, as well, I imagine,
you've got a house where every member of the family is living in that house.
Yes.
Right? So if you do want to have sex, you know,
you've possibly got both sets of grandparents in the house with you,
at all times
sleeping in the same bed
you know
like the bucket family
in Woody Wonka
you know
the bed's taken
of course you've got to use
the back garden
as you go around the house
closing all the curtains
then going into the garden
with your partner
very obvious what's going on
let's see for that
or clear the entire family
into the back garden
while you do your business
but here muffs over your grandma
we're organising a sports day
there are two more
two more that I listed
under a hedge row
which is quite a weird one
I think that's feel quite uncomfortable
you have to be quite small
to fit under a hedgerer. I'm not sure about that.
Spiky as well. Yeah.
But a really popular one was under a hayrick or a haystack as it's now known.
So haystacks are or a wheel sort of popular choice for medieval fornication apparently.
That's where people would often sneak off.
Wait, can I, under a haystack?
That's what it says.
Because I've sat on a haystack at a rustic wedding and I've urinated on a haystack at a rustic festival.
But I've never been underneath it.
And imagine, isn't that also a medieval form of torture?
They put you under a big heavy haystack
until you're crushed to death.
What are you doing?
Are you carving out a little sex den under the hay?
Are you making a straw igloo?
Is that what you're doing?
Like a straw igloo?
Under the cover of a haystack.
So probably behind amongst the haystacks.
Basically, under cover is what it would mean.
But the key thing...
How big is this haystack?
Just do it on top.
It's way less fath.
But then you'll be spotted, Chris.
And this is the point.
Basically, what's consistent about all these places,
it has to be somewhere where there's cover
so you will not be seen.
And this was key.
because the charge for fornication was properly severe.
It was really severe.
For the church, the only acceptable sexual activity
was male, female, procreative sex
with a sole aim of having a child.
That was all the church thought was all right.
And there were further limitations even placed beyond that.
For example, sex of any kind was forbidden on Sundays,
feast days, during Lent and at Christmas.
You couldn't have sex at any of those points.
Okay?
And as for the punishments, they were wide and varied.
So this will explain why people weren't just doing it, you know, on top of the haystack,
why they were being a bit more subtle about it.
Punishments included these.
And I want to know which of these would put you off having sex.
Public whipping.
I mean, what if that's your king again?
Yeah, exactly.
Excommunication was the next one.
If you were caught having sex out about or with someone who wasn't your partner or before marriage.
My favourite, I like this one because it's just so petty, being made to enter the church last on a Sunday.
So as everyone filed in, you would have to be at the back of queue
and everyone would be going, oh, there he is, that dirty sod.
Look it is.
But part of you once again would be proud.
Yeah, exactly.
Or, and this is annoying, having to pay a civil fine
known in England as a laywright.
So this is a fine.
White meant for lying down and leisure,
which is i.e. for having had sex.
A laywright was typically imposed upon poorer women,
but was also nominally a general punishment
without gender profile.
And it was mirrored in Wales as well
where they had a fee paid by unmarried women
at the point of marriage
or levied as a fine
when an individual lost their virginity.
So you'd pay a fine at the point
you lost your virginity.
I think there'd be a point where
you'd have that money ready for the fine
and you still haven't lost your virginity
and it's burning a hole on your mantle piece.
Every day you're looking at it going.
When are I going to get to pay that fine?
Like an unused condom all the way through university,
that sort of thing.
Exactly. Eventually you go to pay
and it's no longer legal tender.
It's been that long.
But what this all meant was that someone else profited from the sex lives of ordinary people,
whether that was like a landlord or a wealthy man.
And what's worse, this is the craziest bit.
I'm going to end with this, basically.
There were incentives built into the system,
ones that led all sorts of people to make accusations whether they were true or false.
So if sex had led to pregnancy, of course, there was physical evidence there with a baby as a church saw it,
that the crime had taken place, and someone had sex.
outside marriage, and so fines could be imposed then without further burden of proof.
But in cases of general sexual behaviour without pregnancy, the courts relied upon testimony
from third parties, which meant that people were constantly snooping on their neighbours
and then revealing or making up what they'd seen happening next door for a cash reward.
Isn't that crazy?
Really?
What? People just believed it?
So people would go and see the church and they'd say,
I've just seen Chris Scal having sex in his front garden.
and they would get paid a certain amount of money for that
whether it had happened or not
and you would get in trouble for that
and this happened consistently
it was a way for people to make money
so people were constantly making up stories
about their neighbours
and how they'd seen them engaging in sex
Isn't that crazy?
Crane, this begs the question
would you be a top shagger
or a hay bale twitcher
which one would you be?
Crosby, could you not be both?
Believe in yourself.
I'm here to talk about sexy historic books.
My science class, we knew we were going to get sex education.
So when the textbooks were handed out, we were so excited to flick through them.
Great, there's going to be pictures of vaginas and penises in here that we can really have a look at.
and there was nothing.
Ours were sort of
cartoon drawings.
That's what we're in our books.
And even that was quite exciting.
And then one lesson
we had to put a condom on a banana.
I do remember that as well.
Did you actually have a condom and banana?
Yeah.
That was quite...
I thought that was like an old...
I was saying old wife style.
That was in maths as well.
Is that right?
Very strange teacher.
Crane, if only you'd taken your own advice
and rub it up before you ate that banana,
you wouldn't have half of...
You wouldn't have half of one down your lung right now.
Well, enough about my year 8 science textbook.
Back in the 1970s, scholars working in the Spanish archives
discovered a book that had been hidden away.
It was hidden away because, as historians were to discover
when they opened its pages, it was a sex manual.
And get this, a sex manual from the 15th century.
It was a Catalan book known as
The Speculum Al-Fodari,
which translates roughly as the mirror of fucking.
It's funny these like historic books.
It's got such Route 1 titles, isn't it?
Is that really what it was called?
It doesn't roll off the tongue like Kama Sutra or The Joy of Sex.
I'm sorry, you'd have to...
If you were trying to sort of sell that through Waterstones,
they'd get you to tone that down a bit, wouldn't they?
They can't have that one of those tables
you come in through the door, the Mirror of Fucking.
Come on, guys.
So the Mirror of Fucking has since joined...
It's so weird to keep saying it,
but I'm going to have to keep saying it.
The Mirror of Fucking has since joined
a small number of similar sex manuals
that survived from the medieval period.
These include the Italian.
16 pleasures and the wonderfully titled Arabic text,
The Perfumed Garden for the Souls Recreation.
There we go.
That's nice.
There's a florid, sexy title.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a Valentine's Day gift.
So, you're probably wondering.
That's nice.
I like that.
It's quite sweet.
So, what do medieval sexy books have within their contents?
Well, I can tell you now.
So they provide details of the standards of the beauty,
a standards of beauty, guides to sexual health,
names for parts of sexual anatomy,
me. And, and you touched a bit on this, Cram, I didn't really know this.
They feature a discussion on different sexual positions.
Controversial at the time because religious prohibition meant a ban on any sexual position other
than missionary.
Really?
So the target audience for these manuals was, you probably can guess this, like the
literate, obviously, it's a book, which means that it's really for the elites.
And particularly for men rather than women.
is the male elites who read them
and also because it's the elite
it's kind of like
the writers were writing it for people
who were deemed to be more
have more civility
than the rough medieval people
who are illiterate
do you know what I mean?
So they're a guide of civility
to the elite essentially.
The mirror, to give it a shorter name,
introduces five main sexual positions
with around 20 possible variations.
I don't know how they vary
what the variations are there.
I don't want to make everyone uncomfortable
so I'm not going to guess.
But the whole detail in the mirror is, like, it's explained in a really kind of matter-of-fact way.
They just simply list different positions and list what you can do, essentially.
And it's all quite dispassionate.
Basically, it sounds like a car manual.
Yeah.
It's not like, I remember reading, I don't even know where I saw it.
I saw, I have thumbed, I'm not sure it's the right phrase, a copy of The Joy of Sex.
I have seen it.
And it's got illustrations.
It all felt quite 70s and fun.
I can imagine, Crosby, at your fondue parties.
People talk about the hot new book that had just come out.
Absolutely.
Remember the illustrations of Super 70s.
The guy looks a bit like me.
He's got kind of the same hair and beard as I've got.
He's a true inspiration to me and very hairy all over his body.
Seventies were a hairy time, weren't they?
And also weird that this fondue parties happening around the couples
and chocolate fondet fountains.
The last thing.
The thing you want with that much body hair is melted cheese.
It's a big bubbling pot of melted cheese.
Speaking from experience.
When there are pubs flying all over the shop, you don't need that.
Unless that's how you're choosing to wax yourself.
It might be that's a really easy way to remove body hair
is to cover yourself in melting cheese and they give it one quick rip.
So that might be the real plan of this party.
So we don't know who wrote The Mirror, but we know a little bit about them.
They does suggest some of the more informal passages,
The writer, who I'm going to presume is a man,
he suggests some non-tactile methods of engaging a female,
and they include singing and making funny gestures, telling jokes,
or simply being happy.
By laughing at men's gestures, the writer tells us,
women become hot.
That is to say, lustful.
What are these funny gestures, do we think?
Are they like the thing we do, the rabbit ears behind someone's head?
What are these funny gestures that we're thinking?
What are the gestures we imagining?
Maybe it's that magic trick where it makes it look like you're removing your finger.
Because everybody likes a bit of that.
There's no one you can't be charmed into bed with that.
Got your nose.
Got your nose.
That's a good one as well.
And what about singing?
What are you singing at that point?
Bearing of mind that all was basically always around is green sleeves and plain charm, isn't it?
I don't know if that was knocking around back then.
That's the music that's the music that survived, isn't it?
That's the music that was written down.
I'm sure there was some boredy.
little songs, you know, rude little ditties that people would sing to each other
have been sort of lost to the oral tradition.
Because it must be humiliating, starting a song, and then your partner's just going
after the first verse, not tonight, love.
You just have to stop the song.
Put the loot down.
You're three sentences for seven days by Craig David.
No, not tonight, love.
You haven't even reached Sunday.
So this book is super important in the context of the medieval world
because it was teaching to the contrary of the church.
The church said sexuality and its enjoyment was distinctive from procreation.
In other words, these books say that sex was indeed a form of fun
rather than a duty to be performed after marriage.
A playful discussion of sex culminated in the 16 pleasures, which I mentioned earlier.
This was a set of erotic verses with illustrations this time,
produced in Italy during the Renaissance, and this work used engravings to suggest to its readers
a range of alternatives to the church permitted missionary position. And this book, 16 Pleasures,
massively controversial at the time because it discussed the most sinful position. Now, I'm going
to ask you what the most sinful position is. But, and I know when they do this on family fortunes,
Les Dennis doesn't rule out options, but I'm going to rule one out.
It's not up the bum.
Okay.
So don't suggest that.
I'm just getting that in there now.
What is the most sinful position?
Can I ask?
Yeah, this by the way is the worst question you can never be asked.
Because it's going to, I mean, it's going to either paint me as a total deviant
or the most vanilla man alive.
And I'm not happy with either of those, really.
But do it with your historian.
Not your sex party cheese fondue here.
This reminds me of at a German lecturer at university
and she was a young German lecturer
and she was constantly railing against us
for being stuck up British, you know, like the students.
It was for the film course I was doing
and there was a lecture on, or a seminar on a film and sex.
And she said, where is, like, where do you see
a combination of like technology and sex being paired up today?
and no one said anything.
And she said,
stop being so prudish, right?
Stop being so,
this is typical British people.
You just can't discuss sex.
Go on,
where do you think?
I put my hand up and I said,
is it those like robots
that are like sort of do this
and they've got a dildo on the end of them?
You know,
like they go in and out and in and out like that.
Probably I was thinking of the Osborne book of the body.
But I said that.
Is it like one of those sex robots
that has sex with you?
And she's like, no, it's not that.
I'm talking about like,
like pornography.
video video that's what I would imagine she was talking about crossby that's exactly what she was talking about and I don't know why she would have been going let's talk about sex robots but I very early in the term was the guy let's talk about sex robots let's talk about so I was I was a pneumatic dildo machine I watched an episode of real sex on HBO because I used to show on channel 5 and I was like oh that must be what it is and it wasn't that it was it was
It's just great, because if it is, I've got one back at my student digs.
So you would like to come and watch me use it on myself.
As long as you don't tell the church,
there's a hay bale I spotted in the field,
so we could all go underneath that for a bit.
So you'd like us to guess which of the sexual positions, Chris, was banned?
Can I be honest, I'd rather not.
But I can't, yeah, I can't.
I'll save your pleasure.
The most sinful of these new ways,
Very briefly, Chris, just to interrupt you.
I'll save your blushes.
It doesn't really work.
Crosby just described people going back to his student flat
to watch him be fucked by a robot dilder.
I'll save your blushes.
I can only imagine how that German lecturer
and bustle felt.
You don't want the little E to appear
by the side of this podcast.
You know, this remains,
this remains Britain's premier family history podcast.
So that's why Crane's got his in-laws
just on the other side of the door.
Well, the most sinful position in medieval times was the woman on top.
As new spread of the book, that is to say, 16 pleasures,
as new spread of the book throughout Europe,
it was not long before these positions gained local names.
In England, the sinful stance was known as the St. George,
and in France it was a chival, but it was denounced,
and this is a quote from the contemporary source,
it was denounced for procuring orgasmic rapture by the woman's own activity.
It was sinful then,
because the male partner was reduced to a supporting role.
There was so much controversy in the discussion of this position
that the book was banned, the artist imprisoned,
and all but one copy was destroyed.
Wow.
I'm simply mentioning this.
All but one copy.
The guy who arrested him, I'll be keeping this, don't you?
I'll have this destroyed, don't you?
I've had a good day at work today, I can tell you that.
In the Arab-speaking world, medieval erotic literature
To flourish, the perfume garden was written by Nefzawi, a 15th century author from what is today, Tunisia.
And he was commissioned to write his book by the then ruler of Tunis, and it was widely circulated around the Arab world.
And as a result, avoided the strictures and outrages, leveled at Christian sexual manuals of the same period.
And the perfume garden was forgotten for many hundreds of years, but a copy of the manuscript was discovered in Algiers,
and then translated into French by an army offset and published in Paris in the 1880s.
And it was translated then into English by Sir Richard Burton,
who was responsible for bringing the Karma Sutra
into circulation in Britain.
Sir Richard Burton?
I've been meaning to Google that.
It can't be Richard Burton.
It can't be under milkwood.
It can't be that Richard.
It can't be Burton and Taylor.
It can't be Richard Burton like the most...
He would have been spreading himself so thin if that was it.
Which is one of the moves in the Kalasutra, isn't it?
Medium level of synonymous, that one.
It's not him, because there's no way people would bring up
Under Milkwood as the first thing
if he'd brought the Kama Sutra to the West.
That would be the thing, it would be, primarily it would be that, wouldn't it?
And do you know he was also in under Milk Wood?
There was a kind of an obsession at the late 19th century
with historic sexual manuals.
So there was also the 15th century book of exposition
and an even older compendium of pleasure.
And a lot of these works were translated by Burton.
And like I said, the late 19th century, it was a bit of a sexology craze.
And all this erotic literature flooded the market, especially in Paris and London,
where these books were seen as kind of Oriental or Bohemian.
Well, well, well.
And that kind of brings it like, yeah, I can understand, like, I'm kind of almost familiar with this.
I knew that there was a kind of, I can well imagine late 19th century,
a bit of a sexology craze just before the Victorian really kicked in an earnest.
I'll leave you with a little bit from Nefzawi.
So he said, positioning, all those different sexual positions, they're not that important, unless your kissing game is on point.
And this is specifically aimed at Ukraine, so I know you love a bit of historic kissing.
Nefazawi said, without kissing, no kind of position or movement procures the fullest pleasure,
considering that the kiss is one of the most powerful stimulants to the work of love.
There was one caveat, however.
He said, avoid kissing if you do not want action, since kissing,
only fan a fire
and fires must be extinguished by water.
That's what he says.
Without making this even more eggy,
I'm just going to leave it there.
That's what he says.
All I'm saying is he's a wise man.
He's a wise man.
So I'm going to talk about potency.
the various cures that you could find for sexual inadequacy back in the day, back in the
medieval times. And actually, I'm going to be talking, referencing a couple of the books that you
reference as well, and tying it all together, also talking about the church. Because the church,
as you said, Crane, very, very into sex and procreation, but under quite sort of controlled
circumstances. Yeah. But they were into it. They wanted people to have it because they
obviously they wanted to grow their congregation, that idea of going forth and multiplying.
So if you were in a marriage, sexual anxiety was rife in medieval times.
And so physicians, magicians and writers tried to come up with solutions throughout that period.
And I like the fact that that was a time when magicians had a look in.
Yeah.
You know, it was, it really was a different time when you went, right, now I can't get it up at the moment.
I'm either going to speak to Dr. Christian, Richard Osmond, or Dynamo.
It's going to be one of the three.
They're going to help me out here.
I think the, I mean, there's never not been a good time to be a confident man back in, you know, like in history, basically.
Yeah.
But medieval times, you know, you just, oh yeah, I'm a magician.
I could cure anything.
It was a glorious time to be alive.
But a lot of it came down to food.
What do you think their suggestions were, by the way?
If I'm coming away from my first meeting with the magician
is, yeah, or going, entering the bedroom wearing a top hat and a cloak.
What is the, exactly.
What's the suggestion?
Forget kissing.
Pull a rabbit out of a hat, mate.
It also suggests the magician is like an emergency service, like a locksmith.
You know what I'm going to do?
Call the magician.
Not for entertainment purposes.
But a lot of it came down to food, what you were consuming and what you were lacking
in your diet.
So in his guide to sex and sexuality,
the 11th century North African physician Constantine said
there were three types of food that increased potency.
Now, these aren't like specific foods he's talking about.
They're sort of types of food.
Anyone want to take a guess at any of those types of food
that you think might increase your potency?
Well, I'm going to go with, because, you know, oysters nowadays are loved,
I'm going to go for seafood as one.
Would that be one?
That's interesting.
Maybe there's some kind of overlap there
It's not on there
It's not on the list here
They're actually quite sort of chaste
Kind of categories
There's very nourishing
Okay
That was the first one
Very windy
And very warm and moist
Those were the things
The third one a little bit fruityer there
But those if you were eating those kind of foods
Then you're on the right track to potency
So we're talking about
We're talking about meat, eggs, onions, wine
they're all kind of like they've got
they're nourishing, they're moist,
they're windy, all in their different ways.
But there was one food
that was the sort of the god of these foods
because it combined all of those things.
It was nourishing, it was windy.
It could be warmed, obviously, like a lot of foods,
and it was moist.
And that was the humble chickpea.
The chickpea.
Yeah.
So if you were suffering from fragility
or electric...
Well, yeah, but you know, you can stick a few.
You know, we're talking about 11th century North Africa here.
You can stick some, you can stick some spices in there, can't you?
Surely you can, you know.
He's not just talking about open up a tin from Tesco and pouring it down your gob like Popeye.
We're warming up.
We're making it into some sort of chickpeach stew, some sort of curried chickpeach stew,
which is going to be moist.
Whenever I eat, whenever I make, I'm probably same as you cause me,
whenever I make love, I eat a full tub of hummus just beforehand.
You, absolutely.
I find that really gets me going. I heat it up in the microwave first because it's got to be very warm.
Absolutely. I microwave a tub of hummus. I start eating it and singing.
And obviously, my partner knows exactly what's on the cards.
I have a question very briefly. This use of the phrase windy, are they meaning foods that make you flatulent?
Is that what they mean? Things that cause bloc. Obviously, chickpeas do that to some people.
That is famously is a thing that chickpeas do. They can cause a sort of trapped wind effect.
Not with me. Just to make that absolutely clear. Not with me.
It all works well. I can eat hummus.
It's not a problem.
Because that's a weird thing to sort of, to feel it should be part of bedroom fun, a feeling of...
Well, I've thought about this.
And what I'm sort of choosing to interpret it as this, that it is it creates a kind of power in the guts.
Do you know what I mean?
It creates a sort of turbulence in the guts, which could, you know, like, all you've got to do is transfer it from the back to the front and you've got, you know, you've got a good night ahead.
I feel like that's what it's after.
I feel like it's food that feels like it's working.
Do you know what I mean?
Food that you feel like you've eaten it and something, it's changed your, it's changed your body in some way.
I feel like that's where it's come from.
One final question, Crosby, just to check.
So are you saying that when you fart, it pushes you forward like a piston engine?
Is that what you're saying?
And if you can time your farting every five seconds through about six minutes, then it'll be a very happy day and Dave.
Why did I say six minutes?
It's on a podcast.
Go longer.
Let me say that again for an hour and a half.
I've gone too low.
I've low board.
Mortify.
That was also very much into this idea of the kind of foods you were eating that had a sort of
an effect on your potency.
So they recommended chickpeas, they recommended turnips, they recommended carrots.
It's all very, you know, it was already plant based.
You know, good news if you're, if you're vegan, apparently this is, you know, this is,
this is good for your kind of continence.
But according to that text, according to the mirror of fucking, it was all about balance.
It's working out your sexual temperament and feeding the deficient areas.
So if you're already windy, don't bother with chickpeas and turnips.
Interesting.
You need something else.
So, for example, Chris, you've got a cool temperament.
You need heating up, right?
They recommend curry and wine for you, right?
Whereas Tom, you're hot enough already.
Thank you.
But you lack moisture.
So they would recommend an egg for you.
So if you're cracking an egg into it.
It's straight into your gob.
To get the moisture out, that is what, you know, that's a sign you're on the road to sexual
continency.
Me, I need wind, I need warmth, I need nourishment.
So I'm basically, my sort of aphrodisiac is the vegetable stew.
Other suggestions from this period include almonds, garlic beans, even a glug of Campbell's milk,
which, again, is very, very dependent on the area you live.
Yes.
In that one, I'd say, you know, I wouldn't imagine what many people, you know,
in Worksop Village, trying to find the nearest camel to milk.
Yeah.
And again, I guess it also, that would also feed into the idea of it being elite as well,
that you would have access to these animals.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Yeah, and it's also, it's interesting as well.
Like, there would be recipe books, basically, you could buy.
Yes.
That would be like, cook these foods and off you go.
Yeah.
And you're ready, you know.
But it's, but a lot of these things, you know, I talked about oysters earlier.
this idea of Afrodisiac food
does still exist today
it's not
a lot of this stuff
you could look back in the past
and go it's mad people thought
that about camel juice or whatever
but we still think
that galgging down an oyster
you know this thing that's still alive
in a shell with some lemon like
that that's a thing that's going to lead to
so these things maintain don't they
just what
it just shifts what it is
but the very idea often maintains
absolutely it just moved away from turnips
and just moved to something that's
I think although oysters as well
I still have there's something of the
you know champagne and oysters if you think about that
being an aphrodisiac
it's still a very elite food
yes there's still this this notion
nobody's saying you know
against his pasty or whatever
you know Greg's steak bake
no one's saying these sort of easily accessible
dirt cheap foods
nobody's saying you know like a KFC
Zinger meal you know that's not that's not
what they're saying even though that has all these
you know it has heat and all the rest of it in it
isn't that that's not what the people are thinking of
Going to the perfumed, perfume garden, now this, this one I, I found this fascinating.
This suggested that you drink before bed for three nights, every night, you drink a glassful of very thick honey.
Right.
You take 20 almonds and 100 grains of the pine tree and you have those before bed and you follow that for three days.
And according to their tips, that is a one-way trip to Bone Town.
Wow.
Now, we talked about this at the top of the pod.
the thickness of honey, very thick honey.
It's not a million miles away
from the thickness of the fondant inside a cream egg, is it?
The idea of taking a glass.
The ultimate Easter aphrodisiah.
Yeah, but the idea of taking a glass of honey.
And I think there's a good chance
that if you drank that before you fell asleep,
you'd drown in your sleep.
It would just plug in your throat and that would be it.
What I'm imagining is you are in bed with your partner
and you are...
tipping the honey into your mouth, knowing that when you've drunk it,
things are going to get, you know, you're going to get things we're going to get it on.
But the honey would run so slowly, it would become quite awkward,
that it would take so long to come out of the cup.
It would just creep down into your mouth.
That sort of crystallized, you know, like with a really thick honey that's just become
just basically a big sort of load of glass in the bottom, like sort of.
So I'm imagining that's exactly it.
You're sat there.
The idea we're going to have sex, you start drinking the honey.
And then before even half of it's gone, she's on.
her iPhone. And she's just sort of like, or she's opened her book. And the honey's still moving
really slowly. Like the last drips of or cana. Do you think, have you ever, so when you had
oysters crane, did it give you like an aphrodisiac effect? Did you notice that it was, did it make
you feel more amorous? No, I can't say it ever has. But I think when you mentioned champagne earlier,
I think it's wrapped up in this idea of a special night and that's what it is, I think, really.
as much as anything.
That's why people still associate it.
Because if you're having champagne and oysters,
you're in a nice restaurant,
you're probably,
this night matters more than other nights.
It imbues it with some kind of value
that maybe wouldn't be there otherwise.
I think that's probably it.
Absolutely.
It's the perfect night to say,
yeah, for me,
I'll have a pint of honey and 20 almonds, please.
And straight away,
if that's a first date,
everybody knows what's on the card there.
Just bring me the pot like I'm Winnie the Pooh.
just do that for me.
Trousers off, of course, Willie the Pooh.
It's perfect.
Yeah, absolutely.
He's ready to go.
Trousers off.
Pot of honey.
Now, if food wasn't working, it was down to the marketplace.
That's exactly where you'd imagine a lot of these things are being sold.
If the food, if the stews aren't working for you, if the curries aren't working for you,
you go down to the medieval marketplace.
Some of the potions were obviously made of the classic things, your herbs, your spices,
your rocket, your garlic, all of those kind of things.
But some were a little bit more exciting.
is exactly what you were talking about here.
We're talking about a wolf penis
roasted in the oven
and they're chopped into small pieces.
We're talking about sparrow meat.
We're talking about eating a starfish.
Of course.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I sort of get the wolf penis
and the starfish,
but I don't know about
the erotic symbolism of a sparrow.
How's the sparrow managed
to get into that menageretoire?
One of the least sexy of the birds.
So if the food
and the potions and sucking on a
Will Phyllis don't work, then there's always the classic medieval excuse of witchcraft.
That's the other thing as well.
So if a man couldn't get it up and he tried absolutely everything, he could claim that he'd been cursed by a witch, that his partner or some other vengeful woman had procured some form of sexual magic which impeded the, impeded the husband's function.
Interesting.
Again, it's a bit like the astrology.
It was always there, wasn't it?
Witchcraft.
I mean, obviously, it's got a, it's got an absolutely sort of, it's a horrible, you know,
the witch trials and everything that is.
But this sort of specter in the background of kind of, if it's a man's problem,
there's always a woman, a weird woman to blame.
Yeah.
It's just, it's a bit of a catchall, isn't it?
Historic catchall.
It's a, it's witches.
Yes.
I've looked into this.
There's nothing new.
There's nothing new under the sun.
This sort of thing is, you know, it's sort of still happening today in, in kind of various forms.
but people still did it
and the reason behind that is because impudency or fragility
with proof was one of the few reasons
that a marriage could be annulled.
Yes.
So people, you know, so it's not a fun accusation
and also quite a humiliating one as well
because it required physical proof.
So, you know, you would actually get a physical examination
to be carried out by a doctor or a midwife
to legally check for signs of potency or a sexual relationship.
So you can see why people,
people would try anything, you know, try anything before, even eating a wolf's penis before
ending up, ending up with their todge out in a court of law. And I don't know if this is the
cat, but I'm, I'm hoping that's where the expression, does it stand up in court, uh, comes from.
But anyway, that was, that was my piece on, on, on, uh, on medieval potency cures. And I don't,
I don't know about you. That is, I'm really regretting having that, um, curried wolf penis for
dinner, because it's given, excuse me, this, I've got the absolute raging horn at the end of
this pod now.
It sounds unbelievable.
You're a vegetarian as well.
What a choice.
I know.
Well, that's it for this week.
Thank you so much.
Oh, what a time, full time.
We hope you enjoyed that.
We love that.
Crosby.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It's been a total pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
And Crain.
How's that banana?
Is it deep within your lungs yet?
I can feel it rattling around like, you know,
a pound in a piggy bank.
But I'll be right, I'm sure.
Crosby, before we leave,
plug your wonderful podcast.
How can people check it out?
What's it called again?
Well, I'll remind you now,
it's the Ed Gamble and Matthew Crosby show.
There you go.
That's just for Craig.
I'm sure other people can work.
It's called Wackaday.
The actual show is just Wackaday.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Wide Away Club.
It's live on the radio
8 till 11 every Sunday morning,
or there's a podcast of it.
If you want to go and get the podcast,
please do.
And the other podcast I do is called Pappy's Flatshire.
And yeah, Papi's Flat Share.
And we're doing live shows later on in the year.
So if you go to pappiescomedy.com forward slash live,
you can find out where they're going to be.
It's a genuinely brilliant show.
Do you check it out.
They're all so funny.
Thanks, Crosby.
Thanks, Skull.
We'll see you next week, guys.
And we should also mention normal service will resume.
As Tom mentioned at the top of the show,
had some family things going down,
but we'll be back next week.
See you soon, guys.
Bye.
Bye.
I don't know.
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