History of Sex, Erotica, and Pornography IX. - Byzantium 2.

Promiscuity

In Byzantium, rulers, aristocrats, officials, craftsmen, soldiers, and even slaves had sex with several partners. 

Byzantium

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Many either switched partners or had relationships with several partners at the same time. But promiscuity was not unique to men. At this time (6th century AD) almost every woman lived a strange life. The husbands listened for different reasons. Some couples lived in open marriages, in other cases there was an insurmountable social difference between the woman and the seducer, and it was also common for the husband to benefit from his wife’s infidelity. Sometimes the woman was looking for another sexual partner because of the man’s impotence. But the number of extramarital lovemaking did not decrease later. Empress Zoe was recorded to sometimes hold two or three lovers at a time, in addition to the palace servants and the male employees. 

Empress Zoe

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Often the ladies knew about each other, living in the environment of their lords without jealousy. The Vikings appeared en masse in the 10th century AD, and their frequent childbearing is indicated by the fact that in the areas of Asia Minor and Palestine to this day, around 20% of the population are light-haired and eye-colored. The huge army, extensive tourism, official travel and missions, fueled not only prostitution but also promiscuity.

Some cultural historians derive the term “cuckold husband” from Byzantine customs. For the emperor endowed the aristocrats with hunting grounds for the service of their wives, and the man happily pinned to his gate the sign of the ruler's gift, the antlers. Other times, the wife remained near the palace and her husband was appointed head of distant landscapes. Merchants, sailors, ambassadors, officials, etc. they traveled for months, years. It is understandable that both the traveling men and the women who stayed at home were looking for new partners and prevented pregnancy with effective contraceptives and procedures.

Rape was common. He was initially sentenced to death, but later the punishment was milder. If a married man had violent intercourse with another wife, he received twelve whips and fines. The verdict was more severe if the violence took place on a nun or a priest’s wife. Adultery, even if voluntary, was also punishable by twelve whips. The unmarried man received six whips for the same reason. If the man knew but did nothing about his wife’s outbursts, they both had their noses cut off, whipped, and exiled.

Pedophilia

Roman law (which, with minor modifications, was also applied by the Eastern Roman Empire) set a minimum age for marriage, considering girls to be twelve and boys from the age of fourteen. Byzantium it was overlooked if the mature man married a girl under the age of 12, but with the passing of the covenant, he would have had to wait until the child reached the prescribed age. This rule was often violated, some directly, others because parents set their children older. Little is known about pedophilia among the common people, but we know a lot of examples from ruling families. Children raped under the guise of marriage, or their parents, could turn to the patriarch, who examined the girls with midwives, and if the violence was proven, the marriage was dissolved. The man was not punished for the mutilation in the marriage, at most, the marriage was declared null and void.

The phenomenon of pedophilia has traversed the entire Byzantine era. It was common in men in large cities (especially Constantinople) to rap children of children in both the upper and lower classes. 

Constantinople, the Forum

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In the 5th - 7th centuries AD, parents did not dare to let their children go to the streets alone because they could become victims of sexual violence even on a clear day. The rulers were free to riot, but the guilt of their subjects was severely punished. The verdict varied from age to age: walking down the street, cutting off the nose or penis, wasting, fining, exile, and beheading in blatant cases. Church dignitaries were no exception to pedophilia. Justinian later passed a law banning pedophilia, with retroactive effect: the perpetrator of a child of any gender was confiscated, his property (in favor of the treasury) confiscated, and so the rapist of the nuns was punished. Justinian also founded an office to prosecute pedophilia and corner prostitution, headed by a quesitor who investigated and sentenced. Inexplicably, the victims of rape were also punished by being imprisoned or sent to a monastery. The church excommunicated the victim over the age of 19.

Not only the girls, but, to a lesser extent, but the boys were also exposed to sexual violence. According to the hermit who marched into the solitude of the desert, the child is an even more diabolical trap for monks than women. There are plenty of records that talk about the relationship between steppe ascetics and boys. Homosexual aristocrats forced money on the act with money, other benefits, violence. It often happened that an aristocratic slave bought children and used them to satisfy his homosexual desires. A recurring concern during the 1,100-year history of the Eastern Roman Empire is the vulnerability of boys, who have been threatened by many gay men.

incest

This term refers to the sexual relationship and possible childbearing of close blood relatives. This could not have been rare in Byzantium either, for laws and ecclesiastical provisions return to the punishments of incest. In the case of incest, anal intercourse was a more serious sin than “natural” sexual intercourse between family members. The family kept such events secret, even if it turned out that it happened with the knowledge of one or the other spouse. During the existence of the empire, the small number of cases that came to light was always punished with headaches, and the church declared incest marriages null and void. The best-known incest case is from the Imperial House. Despite loud protests from the church and even the common people, the widow married Heraclios, a fourteen-year-old daughter of her sister, 610-641 AD, Martina and gave birth to ten children. But the blood relatives avenged themselves, several of their offspring were born with severe developmental disorders and died in infancy.

Heraclios

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The incest also appears in the steppe hermit. But in Egypt, for example, where there was a centuries-old tradition of brotherhood, it was not taken strictly in the 4th to 5th centuries AD.

Read about the erotica in the Middle Ages!