Abstract
The modern interest in medieval or Renaissance chastity belts finds a fairly easy explanation in Thomas Huonker’s foreword to Eduard Fuchs’s (1870–1940) most popular and widely disseminated six-volume Illustrierte Sittengeschichte vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Illustrated History of Morality from the Middle Ages to the Present), first published between 1909 to 1912 by Albert Langen in Munich, later even reprinted numerous times in paperback, and also translated into various languages.1 Irrespective of its almost scandalous nature—at least for early-twentieth-century sensibilities— this enormous popularity might perhaps have been an additional reason for it being severely criticized and even persecuted by the authorities. Huonker observes that since the second half of the nineteenth century the scholarly genre of Sittengeschichte (History of Morality) tremendously gained in interest because “[d]ie prüden, förmlichen und steifen Bürger dieser Jahrzehnte fasziniert von der Entdeckung [waren], die ihnen die Sittengeschichte lieferte, daß nämlich die nackten Tatsachen des sittlichen und sexuellen Gebarens nicht nur anderer Völker, sondern auch der eigenen Vorfahren ihre gewagtesten Träume und Phantasien bei weitem überboten” (the prudish, formality-fixated, and stiff bourgeois from those decades were fascinated by the discovery that the history of morality offered them; that is, the naked facts of the moral and sexual behavior not only of other peoples, but also of their own forefathers, by far exceeded their most daring dreams and phantasies).2
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Notes
Walther Killy, “Fuchs,” Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie, ed. Walther Killy, Vol. 3 (Munich, New Providence, et al: K. G. Saur, 1996), 517.
See also Thomas Huonker, Revolution, Moral & Kunst. Eduard Fuchs: Leben und Werk. Reihe W (Zürich: Limmat Verlag, 1985).
Eduard Fuchs, Geschichte der erotischen Kunst, Vol. 1: Das zeitgeschichtliche Problem (Munich: Albert Lang, n.y. [1922]), 162.
Vincent T. van Vilsteren and Rainer-Maria Weiss, eds., 100.000 Jahre Sex: Über Liebe, Fruchtbarkeit und Wollust (Zwolle and Assen: Uitgeverij Waanders, 2003/2004), 86.
G. Legman, Rationale of the Dirty Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor. First Series (New York: Grove Press, 1968), 384.
Martina Pall, Prunkstücke: Schlüssel, Schlösser, Kästchen und Beschläge aus der Hanns Schell Collection (Graz: Hanns Schell Collection, 2005), 81.
Jochen Malms, “Keuschheitsgürtel: Die aufregende Geschichte des eisernen Tugendwächters,” PM—Magazin 1 (1996): 100–05, reiterates all the well-worn stereotypes and myths, culling his information from the standard sources, without ever questioning their validity or objectivity.
Paul Fritschauer, Knaurs Sittengeschichte der Welt, Vol. II: Von Rom bis zum Rokoko (1968; Munich and Zürich: Droemer Knaur, 1974), 128.
Jan-Dirk Müller, Spielregeln für den Untergang: Die Welt des Nibelungenliedes (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998), 273–75.
Lütz Röhrich, “keusch, Keuschheit,” Das große Lexikon der sprichwörtlichen Redensarten, Vol. 2 (Freiburg, Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1992), 834–35.
Wolfgang Harms and Michael Schilling, together with Barbara Bauer and Cornelia Kemp, eds., Die Sammlung der Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. Kommentierte Ausgabe, Part 1: Ethica. Physica, ed. Deutsche Illustrierte Flugblätter des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, 1 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1985), no. IE 126, 213 (commentary on 212).
Fritz Traugott Schulz, “Vogtherr, Heinrich d. J.,” Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Vol. 34, ed. Hans Vollmer (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1940), 504–07, also identifies Vogtherr the Younger as the creator of this woodcut, 506. Its measures are: 47.7:32 cm.
See also Josef Manwal, “Heinrich Vogtherr (ii),” The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, Vol. 32 (London and New York: Macmillan and Grove’s Dictionaries, 1996), 681. I consulted the extant copy of the woodcut in the British Museum 1930,1216.10 PRN: PPA89078.
Th. Hampe, “Flötner,” Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Hans Vollmer, vol. 12 (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1916), 108–15.
A much better reproduction, triple the size, can be found in Max Geisberg, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut: 1500–1550, rev. and ed. by Walter L. Strauss (1923–1930; New York: Hacker Art Books, 1974), IV: 144, G.1470. For a biography, see viii.
Walter L. Strauss and Carol Schuler, eds., The Illustrated Bartsch: German Book Illustration Before 1500, Vol. 83 (Part IV: Anonymous Artists 1481–1482) (New York: Abaris Books, 1982). See also Vol. 86 (New York: Abaris Books, 1984), but I have not checked every volume and examined only representative selections.
Dorothy Alexander, in collaboration with Walter L. Strauss, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut: 1600–1700, 2 vols. AGA Abaris Graphics Archive, II (New York: Abaris Books, 1977).
Beat Rudolf Jenny, Graf Froben Christoph von Zimmern: Geschichtsschreiber. Erzähler. Landesherr. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Humanismus in Schwaben (Lindau and Constance: Jan Thorbecke, 1959);
Erica Bastress-Dukehart, The Zimmern Chronicle: Nobility, Memory and Self-Representation in Sixteenth-Century Germany (Aldershot, Hants, England, and Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2002).
Robert Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1986);
Vickie L. Ziegler, Trial by Fire and Battle in Medieval German Literature. Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture (Rochester, NY, and Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2004).
Girolamo Morlini, Novelle e favole, a cura di Giovanni Villani. I Novellieri Italiani, 23 (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1983).
For a sociolinguistic analysis, see Marga Cottino-Jones, “Princesses, Kings, and the Fantastic: A Re-Vision of the Language of Representation in the Renaissance,” Italian Quarterly 37 (2000): 173–84.
Francis M. Kelly and Randolph Schwabe, A Short History of Costume & Armour: Chiefly in England, 1600–1800 (London: B. T. Batsford, 1931).
Maurice Leloir, Dictionnaire du Costume et de ses accessoires des Armes et des Étoffes des origines à nos jours (Paris: Librairie Gründ, 1951), 78–79.
Ludmila Kybalová, Olga Herbenová, and Milena Lamarová, Das große Bilderlexikon der Mode: Vom Altertum zur Gegenwart. Trans. from Czech into German by Joachim Wachtel (1966; Dresden: VEB Verlag der Kunst, 1980), 441.
Anja Belemann-Smit, Wenn schnöde Wollust dich erfüllt…: geschlechtsspezifische Aspekte in der Anti-Onanie-Debatte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt a.M. et al: Peter Lang, 2003).
Götz Müller, Gegenwelten: Die Utopie in der deutschen Literatur (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1989), 71–83.
Johann Gottfried Schnabel, Der im Irrgarten der Liebe herumtaumelnde Kavalier, oder Reise= und Liebesgeschichten eines vornehmen Deutschen von Adel, Herrn von St,… ., bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Paul Aretz (Berlin: Wilhelm Borngräber, n.y. [1920].
Johann Christoph Adelung, Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart mit beständiger Vergleichung der übrigen Mundarten, besonders aber der Oberdeutschen, Vol. 2 (Leipzig: Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, 1796), 1566.
Tobler-Lommatzsch, Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch. Adolf Toblers nachgelassene Materialien bearbeitet und mit Unterstützung der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften herausgegeben von Erhard Lommatzsch, Vol. 2 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1956), 87–88; for “chastëé, chäesté,” see 303.
Frédéric Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècles, Vol. 2 (1883; Vaduz: Kraus Reprint, 1965), 7.
Salvatore Battaglia, Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, Vol. 3 (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1964), 164.
J. Heinsius, Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. Vol 8/1 (‘S Gravenhagen en Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, A. W. Sijthoff, 1916), 528–29. The entry also includes a reference to “Kuischheidsgelofte,” which translates as “vow of chastity,” but no word about a chastity belt.
G. Geerts and H. Heestermans, van Dale Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal, 12th ed. (Utrecht and Antwerpen: Van Dale Lexicografie, 1995), 1571.
Abraham Rees, The Cyclopedia; or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, Vol. VII (London: Longman, Hurst, et al., 1819), 3Z4b–4A1a.
Philip Babcock Gove, ed., Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Languages, Unabridged (Springfield, MA: G & C. Merriam Company, 1971), 379.
Elizabeth Knowles, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 201. There are no references, no citations, and no sources.
Lo Duca, ed., Moderne Enzyklopädie der Erotik: Sexologia-Lexikon (1962; Munich, Vienna, and Basel: Kurt Desch, 1963). This was reprinted in 1966 and 1969. The original title reads: Dictionnaire de sexologie, sexologialexikon; sexologie générale, sexualité, contre-sexualité, érotisme, érotologie, bibliographie universelle. It was reprinted in 1967 under the new main title: Nouveau dictionnaire de sexologie (Paris: L’Or du temps), and once again in 1972 (Paris: Propera), this time without the lengthy subtitle. This encyclopedia does not seem to have been translated into languages other than German. The article on the chastity belt, 329–33, is richly illustrated. I had access only to the German translation and could get hold of a copy in the University Library of Freiburg i.B. only in the rare book reading room. As the introductory text on the inside fold of the dust jacket announces: “Das Werk ist nicht für Jugendliche bestimmt, und die Abgabe bleibt beschränkt auf den Kreis von Personen, die die beruflichen und geistigen Voraussetzungen für den Erwerb dieser Enzyklopädie mitbringen” (This work is not intended for young adults, and it can be sold only to those people who bring with them the professional and intellectual preconditions for the acquisition of this encyclopedia). Obviously, the problematic situation for a scientific treatment of sexuality in its cultural-historical context, as Eduard Fuchs had experienced it with his Sittengeschichte, continues until today.
Robert M. Goldenson and Kenneth N. Anderson, Sex A to Z (New York: World Almanac, 1989), 44.
Rufus C. Camphausen, The Encyclopedia of Erotic Wisdom: A Reference Guide to the Symbolism, Techniques, Rituals, Sacred Texts, Psychology, Anatomy, and History of Sexuality (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 1991), xv.
For a serious study on the Inquisition, see Edward Peters, Inquisition (New York: Free Press, and London: Collier and Macmillan, 1988).
John Money and Herman Musaph, eds., Handbook of Sexology (Amsterdam, London, and New York: Excerpta America, 1977), includes articles on virginity, but not on chastity or the girdle of chastity;
see also Clive M. Davis, William L. Yarber, Robert Bauserman, George Schreer, and Sandra L. Davis, eds., Handbook of Sexuality-Related Measures (Thousand Oaks, London, and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1998).
Jean-Josef Brunner, Der Schlüssel im Wandel der Zeit. Suchen und Sammeln, 14 (Bern and Stuttgart: Paul Haupt, 1988), 214.
The history of medieval hygiene still has to be written. Studies on the everyday life do not yet venture into these intimate areas, although they were of critical importance then as well. See, for example, Harry Kühnel, ed., Alltag im Spätmittelalter, 3rd ed. (1984; Graz, Vienna, and Cologne: Styria, 1986);
Paul B. Newman, Daily Life in the Middle Ages (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2001), 137–57.
Daniel Furrer, Wasserthron und Donnerbalken: Eine kleine Kulturgeschichte des stillen Örtchens (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), focuses on the history of the toilet only. But for the history of gynecology,
see Soei Han Lie Orlanda, Vrouwengeheimen: geneestkunst en beeldvorming in de Middelnederlandse artesliteratuur (Amsterdam: De Buitenkant, 1999);
Monica H. Green, ed., Women’s Healthcare in the Medieval West: Texts and Contexts. Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot, Burlington, et al: Ashgate, 2000).
Eva Larraß, “Der Keuschheitsgürtel—Phantasie und Wirklichkeit,” Waffen- und Kostümkunde: Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Historische Waffen-und Kostümkunde 34 (1992): 1–12; here 1. Her source,
Karl Maria Feldhaus, Ka-Pi-Fu und andere verschämte Dinge: Ein fröhlich Buch für stille Orte mit Bildern (Berlin: the author), 1921, was nothing but a satirical, entertaining booklet for those, as the subtitle indicates, who needed some reading material while they spent time in the bathroom.
Alfred Kind, Die Weiberherrschaft in der Geschichte der Menschheit, 3 vols. (Munich: A. Langen, 1913 [not 1914, as Larraß claims]). Larraß never examined this volume herself and cites from an unnamed source.
This chastity belt is today kept in the Deutsches Schloss- und Beschlägemuseum in Velbert, near Essen, Germany, under the catalogue no. 881. It originated from the Collection P. Lussow in Munich and had originally been discovered in 1889 by Dr. Pachinger (see my discussion). I would like to thank Dr. Ulrich Morgenroth, curator in the museum, for his information (e-mail, August 23 and 29, 2005). For background information regarding this museum, see Ulrich Morgenroth, Four Hundred Years and More… : Locks and Fittings from Velbert (Velbert: Scala, 2003).
For a variety of perspectives toward the often problematic relationship between text and image, see Kathryn Starkey and Horst Wenzel, eds., Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages. The New Middle Ages (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
Paul Lacroix, History of Prostitution Among All the Peoples of the World, From the Most Remote Antiquity to the Present Day, trans. Samuel Putnam, Vol. 2 (New York: Covici, Friede Publishers, 1931);
Nickie Roberts, Whores in History: Prostitution in Western Society (London: HarperCollins, 1992), 79–81.
See also Leah Lydia Otis, Prostitution in Medieval Society: The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc. Women in Culture and Society (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1985);
Vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, Women and Prostitution: A Social History (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987), 110–38;
Nils Johan Ringdal, Love for Sale: A World History of Prostitution, trans. from Norwegian by Richard Daly (1997; New York: Grove Press, 2004).
Helmut Nickel, “Einige Bemerkungen zum Thema ‘Keuschheitsgürtel,’” Waffen- und Kostümkunde: Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Historische Waffen-und Kostümkunde 36 (1994): 139–43; here 141.
As an aside, serious scholars dealing with the history of sexuality both in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance steer clear of the myth of the chastity belt and focus on the factually identifiable knowledge available in those centuries, see Sander L. Gilman, Sexuality: An Illustrated History. Representing the Sexual in Medicine and Culture from the Middle Ages to the Age of AIDS (New York, Chichester, et al: John Wiley & Sons, 1989).
Annette Lawson, Adultery: An Analysis of Love and Betrayal (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 166.
Timothy Wilson, “Chastity Belt,” Fake? The Art of Deception, ed. Mark Jones, with Paul Craddock and Nicolas Barker (London: British Museum Trustees, 1990), 70. Not surprisingly, the very object here studied is not depicted. Wilson’s only reference is
Jean-Josef Brunner, Der Schlüssel im Wandel der Zeit. Suchen und Sammeln, 14 (Bern and Stuttgart: Haupt, 1988), 214–15. I will discuss Brunner’s study, which simply reiterates traditional mythical viewpoints, listed further.
See also A. R. E. North, “Instruments of Torture,” Why Fakes Matter: Essays on Problems of Authenticity, ed. Mark Jones (London: British Museum Press, 1993), 93–99, with several illustrations. With respect to Francesco II di Carrara, he emphasizes that these torture instruments and the chastity belt held in the Doge’s Palace in Venice are only “associated with him. The appearance of the belt suggests that it is later than the early fifteenth-century ascribed to it…It should be noted that these novelties were made in substantial numbers in the nineteenth century.” The reason for the creation of such torture instruments in the nineteenth century would be quite obvious: “Dr. Alan Borg has pointed out that a number of the Tower of London’s instruments of torture, some dating back to the sixteenth century, were shown in a special display which was set up in the late seventeenth century and was intended to show examples of Spanish frightfulness from the time of the Armada.” Nevertheless, as North confirms, an inventory of the Doge’s Palace in Venice from 1548 describes the detestable specimen as “the iron knickers of the wife of the Prince of Padua” (all quotes on 94). In all likelihood, curators of sixteenth-century art collections already knew how to appeal to public taste of a sado-masochistic nature and skillfully drew from urban legends about this “cruel” and tyrannical ruler of Padua to satisfy popular demands for horrifying torture instruments on public display. As North comments, summarizing his observations regarding torture instruments allegedly of medieval provenance: “instruments of torture of the most elaborate kind are still being made to thrill and horrify the inquisitive visitor.” As to the exhibit at the London Dungeon, which no visitor should miss: “ ‘you can have a truly horrible day out’!” (96).
Jean Rychnerx, ed., Les lais de Marie de France.x Classiques français du Moyen Age, 93 (Paris: Champion, 1983); here I have used The Lais of Marie de France, trans., with an introduction and notes,
by Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrante. Foreword by John Fowles (New York: Dutton, 1978).
This is also included in Albrecht Classen, ed., Eroticism and Love in the Middle Ages, 5th ed. (1994; Mason, OH: Thomson Custom Publishing, 2004), 224. For an English translation in prose, see The Lais of Marie de France. Trans. with an Introduction by Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby (London: Penguin, 1986).
June Hall McCash, “La vie seinte Audree. A Fourth Text by Marie de France?” Speculum 77, 3 (2002): 744–77.
Nancy Van Durling, “The Knot, the Belt, and the Making of Guigemar,” Assays: Critical Approaches to Medieval and Renaissance Texts 6 (1991): 29–53.
Ulrich Marzolph, “Gürtel,” Enzyklopädie des Märchens, ed. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Vol. 4 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1990), 311–15.
O. B. Hardison, Jr., “General Introduction,” Medieval Literary Criticism: Translations and Interpretations, ed. O. B. Hardison, Jr., Alex Preminger, Kevin Kerrane, Leon Golden (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1974), 3–38.
R. Howard Bloch, The Anonymous Marie de France (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 48–49; see also Nancy Vine Durling, “The Knot, the Belt, and the Making of Guigemar,” 29–53.
Rupert T. Pickens, “Thematic Structure in Marie de France’s Guigemar,” Romania 95 (1974): 328–41; here 340, also uses the term “chastity belt,” but obviously only in a very loose understanding: “Unable to force the lady’s chastity belt off despite repeated attempts, Meriadu realizes that only Guigemar can open it. This the hero does in order to assure himself of the lady’s identity…”
R. Howard Bloch, The Anonymous Marie de France, 83–89, offers an interpretation of this lai which is riddled with problematic readings and blatant distortions of the basic plot line. By contrast, Marco D. Roman’s study (“Reclaiming the Self Through Silence: The Riverside Counselor’s Stories and the Lais of Marie de France,” Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on Medieval European and Heian Japanese Women Writers, ed. Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho. The New Middle Ages [New York and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England: Palgrave, 2000], 175–88; here 176–85) offers a brilliant analysis of male verse female speech and silence.
Helmut Plechl, “Studien zur Tegernseer Briefsammlung des 12. Jahrhunderts IV, 1: Tegernsee unter den Äbten Konrad I. und Rupert (1126–1186),” Deutsches Archiv für die Erforschung des Mittelalters 13 (1957): 35–114;
Dieter Schaller, “Zur Textkritik und Beurteilung der sogenannten Tegernseer Liebesbriefe,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 101, 1 (1982): 104–21.
Jürgen Kühnel, Dû bist mîn, ih bin dîn. Die lateinischen Liebes- (und Freundschafts-) Briefe des clm 19411. Abbildungen, Text und Übersetzung. Litterae, 52 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1977);
see also Albrecht Classen, Frauen in der deutschen Literaturgeschichte: Die ersten 800 Jahre. Ein Lesebuch. Ausgewählt, übersetzt und kommentiert von Albrecht Classen. (Women in German Literature), 4 [New York, Washington, DC, et al: Peter Lang, 2000], 66–67;
Anne L. Klinck, An Anthology of Ancient and Medieval Woman’s Song (New York and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 97–98.
Ulrich Marzolph, “Gürtel,” Enzyklopädie des Märchens, ed. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Vol. 6 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1990), 311–15. He also refers briefly to Marie de France, but again without establishing in any concrete sense that Guigemar might have given a chastity belt to his lady.
The Poetry of William VII, Count of Poitiers, IX Duke of Aquitaine, ed. and trans. Gerald A. Bond (New York: Garland, 1982), 14–17, vv.47–48. This is a modified translation taken from Karen Sullivan, Truth and the Heretic: Crises of Knowledge in Medieval French Literature (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 90.
Martín de Riquer, Los trovadores: Historia literaria y textos, Vol. I (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1975), 114.
William W. Kibler and Lawrence Earp, “Machaut, Guillaume de,” Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, ed. William W. Kibler and Grover A. Zinn (New York and London: Garland, 1995), 573–75; see also http://www.anthologie.free.fr/anthologie/machaut/machaut.htm (last accessed on January 27, 2006).
Guillaume de Machaut, Le Livre Dou Voir Dit (The Book of the True Poem), ed. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, trans. R. Barton Palmer (New York and London: Garland, 1998).
Hans Biedermann, Knaurs Lexikon der Symbole (Munich: Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Th. Knaur Nachf, 1989), 387–89; J. Poeschke, “Schlüssel” (81–82); “Schlüsselübergabe an Petrus” (82–85), Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, ed. Engelbert Kirschbaum, Vol. 4 (Rome, Freiburg, Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1972).
Otto Richard Meyer, Der Borte des Dietrich von der Glezze: Untersuchungen und Text. Germanistische Arbeiten, 3 (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1915). For recent studies on this extraordinary verse narrative, see Christa Ortmann and Hedda Ragotzky, “Minneherrin und Ehefrau. Zum Status der Geschlechterbeziehung im ‘Gürtel’ Dietrichs von der Glezze und ihrem Verhältnis zur Kategorie gender,” Manlîchiu wîp, wîplîch man: Zur Konstruktion der Kategorien Körper’ und ‘Geschlecht’ in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz and Helmut Tervooren. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 9 (Berlin: Schmidt, 1999), 67–84;
Petrus W. Tax, “Zur Interpretation des ‘Gürtel’ Dietrichs von der Glezze,” Zeitschrft für deutsche Philologie 124, 1 (2005): 47–62.
Volker Schmidtchen and Hans-Peter Hils, “Kyeser, Konrad,” Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, 2nd completely rev. ed. by Kurt Ruh et al., Vol. 5 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1985), 477–84. The relevant research literature can be found here.
See also Lynn White, “Kyeser’s ‘Bellifortis’: The First Technological Treatise of the Fifteenth Century,” Technology and Culture 10 (1969): 436–41; Udo Friedrich, “Herrscherpflichten und Kriegskunst. Zum intendierten Gebrauch früher Bellifortis-Handschriften,” Der Codex im Gebrauch: Akten des Internationalen Kolloquiums 11.–13. Juni 1992, ed. Christel Meier, Dagmar Hüpper, and Hagen Keller. Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften, 70 (Munich: Fink, 1996), 197–210.
K. H. Ludwig, “Kyeser, Conrad,” Lexikon des Mittelalters, ed. Robert-Henri Bautier et al. (Munich and Zurich: Artemis & Winkler, 1991), 1595–96.
Christoph Graf zu Waldburg Wolfegg, “Der Münchener ‘Bellifortis’ und sein Autor,” Bellifortis: Clm 30150, ed. Konrad Kyeser. Kulturstiftung der Länder—Patrimonia, 137 (Munich: KulturStiftung der Länder and Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2000), 21–60; here 23.
Wolfegg, “Der Münchener,” 32, carefully formulates: “Die noch erhaltenen Exemplare eines solchen Gürtels, oft mit Seide und Samt bezogen, weisen mehr in die Richtung der erotischen Spielereien als in die eines zweifelhaften Werkzeugs zum Schutz der Tugend” (Those still preserved specimen of such a girdle, often covered with silk, seem to be more objects of erotic playfulness than dubious tools to protect virtue). See also Eva Larraß, “Der Keuschheitsgürtel. Phantasie und Wirklichkeit,” Waffen- und Kostümkunde 34 (1992): 1–12;
Helmut Nickel, “Einige Bemerkungen zum Thema Keuschheitsgürtel,” Waffen- und Kostümkunde 36 (1994): 139–43. I will exam both their arguments later.
Conrad Kyeser, aus Eichstätt, Bellifortis. Umschrift und Übersetzung von Götz Quarg (Düsseldorf: Verlag des Vereins Deutscher Ingenieure, 1967), Vol 1: facsimile, Vol. 2: transcription and translation, here 91.
Albrecht Classen, The German Volksbuch: A Critical History of a Late-Medieval Genre. Studies in German Language and Literature, 15 (Lewiston, Queenston, and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995), 215–16.
Andreas Beriger, Windesheimer Klosterkultur um 1500: Vita, Werk und Lebenswelt des Rutger Sycamber. Frühe Neuzeit, 96 (Tübingen, Niemeyer, 2004), 33. I would like to thank Peter Dinzelbacher for pointing out this reference.
D. P. Rotunda, Motif-Index of the Italian Novella in Prose (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1942), 197, No. T373.
Janet Levarie Smarr, “Sercambi, Giovanni,” Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia, ed. Christopher Kleinhenz, 2 vols. (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 1021–22.
Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 111–12.
Gian Paolo Marchi, “Facezie del Quattrocentro,” Dizionario critico della letteratura italiana, diretto da Vittore Branca. Secunda ed. (Turin: Unioni Tipografico-Editrice, 1986), 211–14; here 213.
Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978);
cf. A. L. Macfie, ed., Orientalism: A Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000).
Dafydd Johnston, ed. and trans., Medieval Welsh Erotic Poetry (Grangetown, Cardiff, 1991), 117.
Dafydd Johnston, “Erotica and Satire in Medieval Welsh Poetry,” Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages, ed. Jan M. Ziolkowski. Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions, 4 (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne, Brill, 1998), 60–72; here 67. I would like to thank Peter Dinzelbacher for pointing out this poem to me.
Thomas Bein, Liebe und Erotik im Mittelalter (Graz: Akademische Druck-und Verlagsanstalt, 2003), 23; for broader perspectives,
see Albrecht Classen, ed., Discourses on Love, Marriage, and Transgression in Medieval and Early Modern Literature. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 278 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2004).
For a most detailed historical account of the Carraresi family and its demise in Padua, see Benjamin G. Kohl, Padua Under the Carrara, 1318–1405 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 303–36.
Antonio Zardo, Il Petrarca e i Carraresi: studio (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1887).
Lawrin Armstrong, “Padua,” Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia, ed. Christopher Kleinhenz, Vol. 2 (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 815–22; here 821–22.
Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses vollstændiges Universal Lexicon Aller Wissenschaften und Kuenste, Vol. 5 (1733/1961), 1142.
W. Carew Hazlitt, The Venetian Republic: Its Rise, its Growth, and its Fall, 421–1797 (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1900), I: 751.
See the extraordinarily meticulous study by Attilio Simioni, Storia di Padova dalle origini alla fine del secolo XVIII (Padua: Giuseppe e Pietro Randi Librai, 1968), ch. X through XIII.
Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, rpt. (1931; Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1950), IX:150. Curiously, neither Francesco I nor Francesco II are discussed separately among the many other major Italian figures with the same name (vol. XV). See also Italo Raulich, La caduta dei Carraresi: signori di Padova, con documenti (Padua: Drucker & Senigaglia, 1890);
Edoardo Piva, Venezia, Scaglieri e Garraresi: storia di una persecuzione del secolo XV (Rovigo: Edoardo Piva, 1899) [this is an extremely rare item, and I could only find one copy in the Staatsbibliothek Berlin through an online search];
Luigi Montobbio, Splendore e utopia nella Padova dei Carraresi ([Venice:] Corbo e Fiore, 1989);
Gigi Vasoin, La signoria dei Carraresi nella Padova del ‘300 (Padua: “La Garangola”, 1988).
David Syme, The Fortunes of Francesco Novello da Carrara, Lord of Padua, an Historical Tale of the Fourteenth Century, from the Chronicles of Gataro, with Notes (Edinburgh: Constable and Co., and London: Hurst, Chance, and Co., 1830), offers a minute account of the military events, going into amazing details concerning the various sieges, campaigns, negotiations, and defeats. But there is no indication whatsoever that would incriminate Francesco II as a man fascinated by torture instruments, sexual perversion, and chastity belts. Of course, Gataro, a contemporary chronicler, composed his account as an obvious sympathizer with the duke, but there are not even comments about any concubines, personal conflicts with his wife, or of public accusations of Francesco’s possible moral shortcomings.
Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex, Crime, and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice. Studies in the History of Sexuality (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).
Guido Ruggiero, Violence in Early Renaissance Venice. Crime, Law, and Deviance (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980).
Giuseppe Cappeletti, Storia di Padova: Dalla sua origine sino al presente, Vol. 1 (Padova: Premiata Tipografia Editrice F. Sacchetto, 1874).
John Esten Keller, Motif-Index of Mediaeval Spanish Exempla (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1949), 53–57;
Reginetta Haboucha, Types and Motifs of the Judeo-Spanish Folklore. The Garland Folklore Library, 6 (New York and London: Garland, 1992), also knows of no narrative example that might include a reference to a chastity belt.
Ernest W. Baughman, Type and Motif-Index of the Folktales of England and North America. Indiana University Folklore Series, 20 (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), 388–89.
Bruno Fritsch, Die erotischen Motive in den Liedern Neidharts. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 189 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1976), 107–10;
Stefan Zeyen,…daz tet der liebe dorn: Erotische Metaphorik in der deutschsprachigen Lyrik des 12.–14. Jahrhunderts. Item Mediävistische Studien, 5 (Essen: Item-Verlag, 1996), 151–53; for a discussion of the belt in the Nibelungenlied,
see Jerold C. Frakes, Brides and Doom: Gender, Property, and Power in Medieval German Women’s Epic. Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 125. There is much scholarship on the belt in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, see, for instance,
Ji-Soo Kang, “The Green Girdle and the Narrative Circularity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” The Journal of English Language and Literature 41, 4 (1995): 927–45.
Antonio Panormita, Hermaphroditus, trans., with an Introduction and notes by Eugene O’Connor (Lanham, Boulder, et al: Lexington Books, 2001), No. VI, 131.
Johann Fischart, Geschichtsklitterung (Gargantua). Text der Ausgabe letzter Hand von 1590. Mit einem Glossar herausgegeben von Ute Nyssen (Düsseldorf: Karl Rauch, 1963), 37. The full title reads: Affentheuerlich Naupengeheurliche Geschichtsklitterung: Von Thaten und Rhaten der vor kurtzen langen unnd je weilen Vollenwolbeschreiten Helden und Herren Grandgoschier Gorgellantua und deß deß Eiteldurstlichen Durchdurstlechtigen Fürsten Pantagruel von Durstwelten, Königen in Utopien…, a clear signal of its highly satirical nature. For a biographical overview,
see Hans-Jürgen Bachorski, “Fischart, Johann,” Literatur Lexikon: Autoren und Werke deutscher Sprache, ed. Walther Killy, Vol. 3 (Gütersloh and Munich: Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, 1989), 384–87.
Ute Nyssen, Johann Fischart: Geschichtsklitterung. Glossar. Worterläuterungen zum Text der Ausgabe letzter Hand von 1590 nach der Neuausgabe 1963 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 40. She explains the term “Pantzerfleck” as “Stück zur Ausbesserung e. Panzers… Keuschheitsgürtel” (a piece to repair an armor…chastity belt).
Alcuin Blamires with Karen Pratt and C. W. Marx, eds., Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 18–19, 26–27, 48–49, 127–28, 141–42, 192–193, et passim;
R. S. M. Prudence Allen, The Concept of Woman, Vol. II: The Early Humanist Reformation 1250–1500 (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002), 186–87, 265–67, 515–16, 752–53, et passim.
A medieval example would be the anonymous thirteenth-century verse novella Aucassin et Nicolette where the king lies in child-bed, whereas the queen fights on the fields; for an English translation, see Albrecht Classen, ed., Eroticism and Love in the Middle Ages, 5th rev. and expanded ed. (Mason, OH: Thomson Custom Publishing, 2004), 415–44; for a history of this topos,
see Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Trans. from German by Willard R. Trask. Bollingen Series, XXXVI (1948; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 94–98.
François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. Burton Raffel (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990), 15.
Gilles Néret, Erotica Universalis (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 1994), 736–46. The subsequent illustrations by Eneg conform to the same approach.
Vern L. Bullough, Dwight Dixon, and Joan Dixon, “Sadism, Masochism and History, or When is Behaviour Sado-Masochistic?” Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: The History of Attitudes to Sexuality, ed. Roy Porter and Mikulás Teich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 47–62.
Françoise Borin, “Judging by Images,” A History of Women in the West, III.: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, ed. Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge (1991; Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993), 187–254; here 226, 228.
Brasch, How Did Sex Begin?: The Sense and Nonsense of the Customs and Traditions That Have Separated Men and Women Since Adam and Eve (New York: David McKay Company, 1973), 22.
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Classen, A. (2007). Modern and Medieval Myth-Making. In: The Medieval Chastity Belt. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230603097_3
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