Sexuality in Crisis: The Black Death and Social Control in Fourteenth-Century England

ongoing

This project explores the impact of the plague on attitudes towards sexuality in late medieval England. The fourteenth-century plague, commonly known as the 'Black Death', killed up to half of the population of England in this period and had far-reaching social, cultural, economic and political consequences for English society. However, to date its impact on the exercise of institutional power and control over sexual behaviour has not been addressed. This is a significant omission given the substantial body of historical and sociological research on the role of sexual moralisation in societal responses to pandemics in the modern era, as well as historical scholarship assessing the broader societal impacts of the fourteenth-century plague. This project addresses this knowledge gap through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the records of the Church courts, which exercised jurisdiction over sexual offences in this period. This involves creating a database of cases heard in the courts of four English dioceses with extant fourteenth-century judicial records (York, Canterbury, Rochester and Salisbury), subjecting the dataset to statistical analysis and close reading techniques, and contextualising these records with relevant narrative sources (chronicles, letters, sermon collections). It seeks to test the hypothesis that litigation of sexual offences will intensify in the immediate aftermath of major plague outbreaks. This is important and timely research given the well-documented links between social unrest and worsening economic conditions caused by the COVID19 pandemic and the growth of political and popular attacks on LGBTQ rights in the 2020s. The project will provide an impactful case study concerning changing patterns in cultural attitudes towards sexuality, which can aid policymakers and advocacy groups to make protections for sexual and gender minorities today more resilient in the face of future pandemic threats.