Were rapes common in the Middle Ages?

**Ruggery** · 03-12-2020, 12:17 AM

It seems like a stupid question but I'm not informed about this, and I'm curious?

**Laly** · 09-01-2020, 04:35 PM

The "droit du seigneur" is a myth and just a myth.

**Chris596** · 09-01-2020, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by Laly

The "droit du seigneur" is a myth and just a myth.

Is it? I've heard some stories that it was still common in Hungary even in the XIX. century and early XX. century. We even have examples from literature (based on true stories). I'm not sure about other parts of Europe.

**Laly** · 09-01-2020, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by Chris596

Is it? I've heard some stories that it was still common in Hungary even in the XIX. century and early XX. century. We even have examples from literature (based on true stories). I'm not sure about other parts of Europe.

There is actually a consensus among historians and I’m referring particularly to the renowned specialist of the subject Alain Boureau, who wrote the book “The Lord's First Night: The Myth of the Droit de Cuissage” (here in English on Google Book: https://books.google.be/books?id=E4C...20myth&f=false). I am not aware of any more complete work on the topic.

The droit du seigneur was one of those myths used in the modern period to pour scorn on the Middle Ages and to forge its “black legend”.

The other renowned medievalist Albrecht Classen, professor in the United States, evokes that myth, among other myths on the Middle Ages exacerbated in the modern period:

We began this study with a critical reading of the myth regarding medieval concepts of the flat shape of the earth. There are, of course, some people who, still today, are convinced that scholars until the time of Columbus’s discovery of America in 1492 assumed that the Earth was a flat disk.1 Subsequently I have dealt with the myth of the chastity belt, and I believe that I could demonstrate how much the idea concerning this allegedly medieval invention to protect a wife’s chastity during her husband’s absence also pertains to the world of myths, primarily established and colported in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. To conclude this study, I propose to look at a third, highly fashionable myth, also closely connected with love, marriage, sexuality, and power in the Middle Ages, the lord’s privilege to take the virginity of the newly-wed bride, that is, to sleep with her in the first night after the marriage rituals have been completed. As William Chester Jordan defines this myth, “([m]any modern writers of historical fiction imagine a Middle Ages in which lords had a special right that inhered in them as lords, hence the phrase ‘droit du seigneur,’ which literally means nothing more than the ‘the lord’s right.’ More suggestive and describing the same putative right is the Latin phrase ius primae noctice, or ‘right of the first night.’ ”
https://www.researchgate.net/publica...it_Du_Seigneur

**Annie999** · 09-01-2020, 06:32 PM

They had real fear of religion back then, so maybe that prevented many rapes to happen. On the other hand people were more savage and living in a very male dominated culture so rapes were probably also common because of that, especially among peasants.