What was the medieval attitude to wartime rape?
Upvote:1
The History of England Podcast has a section where he summarizes the rules of war, and I'd recommend it in the context of this question.
Briefly, sieges were painful for both sides, so the besieging force made dire threats. The defending force could surrender and be treated lightly, or could resist in which case the besieger would up the threat level to as high as possible.
Upvote:3
Your question mentions references in Shakespeare. The other work I know of from before 1800 that mentions it a fair bit is Voltaire's Candide. It is mostly a satirical send-up of the philosophy that this is "the best of all possible worlds". But in the process of burning that idea to cinders, war rape is invoked at least twice that I can remember. I believe the phrase that was used was "fulfilling the natural urges of soldiers", the implication being that this phrase was being used to justify it.
Given that this was a satire of those views, I think its quite fair to say that Voltaire (and presumably his intended audience) viewed it as an endemic evil in the world, along with the various murders, starvations, slavery, mutilations, etc. that were related in that story.
More post
- 📝 How did Asian Americans manage to become richer than an average American?
- 📝 Medieval wall and garment patterns
- 📝 Army formation: veterans at the first line
- 📝 Did any country adopt a straight pull bolt-action rifle?
- 📝 What was the ethnic identity of first class sergeant Patrick Joseph Cleary?
- 📝 When and why did the given name Dariusz get popular in Poland?
- 📝 Anyone know what this stone building is?
- 📝 Why does Brazil have many more Italian descendants than the U.S. or Argentina when the latter two received more Italian immigrants?
- 📝 How were expelled ministers "witnessed" during the Great Ejection of 1662?
- 📝 Tradition of Boxing Day
- 📝 Was there ever a situation where members of two warring militaries were on leave in the same neutral location?
- 📝 How did Henry Knox retrieve the cannons that fell into the river?
- 📝 Is black American history only about segregation, slavery, and the 3 people you get taught about in school?
- 📝 Why didn't the knights of Western Europe drive the Moors out of Granada in 1212 when they invaded Iberia?
- 📝 How much resemblance did the industrialization of the Soviet Union bear to those of the rest of the world?
- 📝 Has there been a war in which the South conquered the North?
- 📝 Has there ever been a successful "Anarchy"?
- 📝 Could Polish people who didn't live in Poland get Polish citizenship after Poland's revival in 1918?
- 📝 What did the Romans call black people (sub-Saharan)?
- 📝 When in 1885 did Stafford Northcote cease to be Commons leader of the Conservatives?
- 📝 How were documents written in Plato's time?
- 📝 Do there exist or have there ever existed "gang war referees"?
- 📝 Why would staff officers carry swords during combat, in World War II?
- 📝 Did people practice multiphasic sleep in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 When did Germany pay the full amount of reparations of the Versailles treaty?
- 📝 Why was artillery a more effective infantry support weapon on tanks than machine guns?
- 📝 Did American POW’s get manipulated into cooperation in Chinese camps during the Korean War?
- 📝 What was the purpose of Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews' flight when he was killed in the Iceland crash on May 3, 1943?
- 📝 Did ancient Rome have slave hunters?
- 📝 Why was Villa Gaggia chosen as the setting for Hitler & Mussolini's July 1943 meeting?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What was the medieval attitude to wartime rape?
- 📝 What was the process of early medieval urban development?
- 📝 What was the church's attitude to "magic" prior to the 15th century?
- 📝 What was the attitude of English knights towards their longbowmen counterparts?
- 📝 What was the life expectancy of a Medieval European monarch?
- 📝 What was the "Brakteaten" medieval monetary system?
- 📝 What was the attitude of Mongols to conquered peoples?
- 📝 What was the official attitude to Cromwell after the Glorious Revolution?
- 📝 What was Hitler's attitude towards the Aryans of India?
- 📝 What was the attitude of the other European countries in the 1970s Cod War?
- 📝 What was preventing the populace from progressing in medieval times?
- 📝 What was the attitude of Brazil's government towards the Spanish Civil War?
- 📝 What was the attitude of leaders of the Ionian Greeks towards Persia?
- 📝 What was the composition of Medieval European armies?
- 📝 What was the general attitude of people in states without anti-miscegenation laws toward interracial marriage?
- 📝 After the split with Stalin, what was Yugoslavia's official attitude towards Soviet history before Stalin's takeover?
- 📝 What was the range of medieval bombards?
- 📝 What kind of clothing was worn in Mahgreb states circa the high medieval period?
- 📝 What was the attitude of the Scientific community when Hitler accessed power?
- 📝 What was the name of this medieval philosophical idea?
- 📝 What was the relation of Barons to Counts/Dukes/Earls in England during the medieval ages?
- 📝 What was the attitude towards Martin Luther among early non-Catholic Christians in Britain?
- 📝 What was the main role of alcoholic drinks in ancient to medieval times?
- 📝 Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- 📝 Did medieval scholars believe the Earth was round?
- 📝 What was the historical context of the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution?
- 📝 During the breakup of the Soviet Union, on what basis was citizenship granted or withheld for each of the fifteen new republics?
- 📝 What was the typical peasant's diet like in Europe during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 What were the acceptance criteria in universities of medieval Europe?