How common was rape in the middle ages in Europe? In Asia?
Was it mainly a peasant thing?
And if it was at least as common as it is today then 70% of all children must have been bastards. Why would a medieval men raise them as their own instead of exposing them?
>>373063
>Why would a medieval men raise them as their own instead of exposing them?
Free labour.
Plus you don't raise them as your own.
You raise them as bastards and brutalise them.
>>373067
Wouldn't you get a reputation of being a kek?
>>373063
Books and essays have been written on the subject, though I can't think of any off the top of my head.
My understanding of it though is that it happened with a about the same frequency as today, though proving it was difficult without modern methods. There was also a peculiar medieval belief that a woman had to have an orgasm to become pregnant, therefore if she became pregnant as a result of rape, it must have been consensual as she enjoyed it.
I imagine a lot of the time, things were resolved by husbands, fathers and brothers with pitchforks and daggers rather than in the courts.
There are however very explicit instructions against raping and pillaging by the English army during Henry V's campaigns, based on earlier instructions. The penalty given is death in think.
That women were raped when the Lancastrian army sacked Ludlow during the Wars of the Roses, is mentioned almost as an after thought, given after mentioning the furnitureb they stole.
>>373118
Also Gilles de Rais may be one of the first examples of a serial rapist/murderer.
He was hanged, which is unusual for such a high ranking noble.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais
>>373118
>That women were raped when the Lancastrian army sacked Ludlow during the Wars of the Roses, is mentioned almost as an after thought, given after mentioning the furnitureb they stole.
Wait, the English were raping each other?
>>373139
The Yorks and Lancasters really fucking hated each other. The people in the town had the misfortune of having pretty wives and daughters in the presence of horn besiegers.
>>373134
The only reason they did something was because they were children, sometimes of other nobles sometimes french sometimes english.
>>373081
Given that a shit load of medieval humour is about the battle between cock and cunt, and the conception was that most men were in that situation, why would it being actualised and you now having a young human to beat / rape to take out your anger at your wife be bad?
>>373139
The Lancastrian army was made up mostly of "Northeners". Either Scots or Northumbrian English. Ludlow and it's citizens may as well have been a completely separate country and people as far as they were from it.
This is pretty much the only time such a thing happened during the WotR though. Bringing down a hoard of savages and paying them in plunder only drove more people towards the Yorkist faction.
Not really sure why, because the great, heroic, knightly and chivalrous Yorkists just fucked off rather than give battle at Ludford Bridge and defend the town, even abandoning their own family members in the process.
>>373134
>Gilles de Rais
HE WAS A GOOD NOBLE HE DINDU NUFFIN THEY NEED MO TITHE FOR THEM PROGRAMS
>>373186
From Gregory's Chronicle
"thenn they robbyd the towne, and bare a-waye beddynge, clothe, and othyr stuffe, and defoulyd many wymmen"
>>373186
>>373224
I may actually be mistaken, as it may have happened following St Albans too.
From Whethamstede's Chronicle
Meantime, while the Duke of York was (as has been told) consoling the King, and comforting him, the victors were left idle, and being too eager and avaricious, passed their time with pillage, plunder and rapine, incapable of restraining their hands either at home among their neighbours or outside among enemies. They were all, for the most part, of the northerly parts of the kingdom; and therefore, although stronger in arms and more ready to war, also to the spilling of blood, according to this metre.
Again apparently Northeners looting and pillaging southerners.
>>373081
I don't think people back then really gave a shit about that
>>373577
They do.
The Crusader States had rather strict laws applying to rape, including the rape of free Muslims and slaves or just sleeping with them for idle pleasure. General punishment seems to be either death or castration, with mutilation of the face for women found guilty of engaging in extramarital affairs with Muslim men, or Muslim women that had tempted Christian men. Note that the mutilation was only done in cases that were deemed consensual.
Since a lot of the Crusader Lords were French the laws of Jerusalem and the surrounding affiliates were probably very similar in character to French customs.
>>373063
Sorry, but I cant take this thread seriously.
>>375395
>Since a lot of the Crusader Lords were French the laws of Jerusalem and the surrounding affiliates were probably very similar in character to French customs.
That's assuming with no understanding of what the crusades were about.
>>375405
>That's assuming with no understanding of what the crusades were abou
I'm not referring the Crusades as a movement, I'm referring to the Crusader States, i.e the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa et all and their governing bodies that were primarily drawn from or descended from the French nobility that led the original crusade.
There are extensive documents detailing the legal codes of the kingdom of Jerusalem. I might be making an assumption by correlating it to the French law codes of the day, but denying that the majority of law makers in Crusader Jerusalem were not French or of French descent seems a foolish thing to dispute.
>>375416
>denying
Sorry, meant disputing.
>>375416
Doesn't have anything to do with the french. The crusades drawn those who were ready to cast aside everything behind and put their lives on the line against an enemy that fought mercilessly with barely any regard for nobility and bloody battles with high casualties.
How the place was regulated would have nothing to do with how Europe was regulated.
>>375428
>How the place was regulated would have nothing to do with how Europe was regulated.
>would have
Maybe you ought to read some FUCKING SOURCES instead of IMAGINING.
>>375455
That's rich coming from the guy who's assuming Crusader states laws were the same as continental Franks laws.
>>375458
Does /his/ have a problem with the concept of multiple users in threads? Or are you the same daft cunt in every thread tonight?
>>373165
that explains why they treated women like shit
>>375468
To just assume a state would have the same laws as another because it's run run by the same ethnicity is dumb as shit. If you replied to my previous comment then you tacitly approved what the first user said.
>>375474
>tacitly
Please cease with /his/tory. Your reading skills are tendentious and appalling.
>>375483
>tendentious
>mfw you just went in and looked for the most highbrow word you could think of to look like a sophisticate
>mfw you're a frenchfag trying his hardest to seek validation
>you were a samefag all this time
>>375523
Yep, tendentious as fuck, mate. Tendentious as fuck.
Read more primary sources with greater humility, you're over-reading.
>>375396
Then get out.
>>375416
>I might be making an assumption by correlating it to the French law codes
Seems a perfevtly readonable assumption. Cursory research seems to suggest that it is true.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem needed laws to function, and the laws most familiar to the most important men of the kingdom were those of France.
>>375658
>replying to your own post.
>>373063
>How common was rape in the middle ages in Europe?
It depends on how you define "rape". It was common to marry off girls even though they possibly didn't want to marry the guy. Does that count as rape? By today's standards it would.
Outside of that, I doubt it was significantly more common than it is today.
>>375699
I'm not the guy that first suggested the link between the laws of France and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but if you google it, you'll find references backing it up.
>>375718
With the influence the monastic orders had over the Levant, it's most likely that those strict laws on sex and behavior were from them.
The French kingdom hardly regulated or did anything to prevent foraging and the horrors that came with it. Nor did it revoke the droit du seigneur, even if it was hardly ever applied.
That the laws are written in French or that they have some *basis* from French law is something else entirely than them being the same as the French Laws, or that more importantly the jurisprudence was the same.
>>375865
The surviving documentation (Assizes of Jerusalem) are derived from French feudal law.
How reliable these are though has been a source of debate for a long time.
Although I agree that certain rules regarding certain types of behaviour would have been influenced by religious concerns e.g. severe punishments for intimate relationships with non-Christians.
>>373577
It's biological so they probably did.
Rape is a social construct
>>376526
So are the middle ages, Europe, Asia, peasants, children, bastards, and men.
Doesn't invalidate OP's questions in the slightest.
>>376526
It is. There are conventions and narratives which are connected to the social context, power structure, understanding of biology and so on. It is complicated and variable subject, therefore it is social construct.
I hope you are not one those who thinks that when is something "social construct" than it is not real.
>>375715
Forced marriage isn't rape it is marriage.
>>373134
Wasn't he a compatriot of St Joan?
>>376916
And companion.
>>376857
Indeed, marriage which involves rape.
