@english-history-trip / english-history-trip.tumblr.com
just learned today that there was a german monk who was obsessed with witches and women having sex so he wrote an entire book called the hammer of witches where in one part he describes in detail that witches have the ability to make people’s penises disappear and they keep the penises as pets and feed them oats
i’m serious
What if I told you that in 13th century prose romance les prophecies de merlin a sorceress casts a magic beam out of her vagina what then
So like picture this : merlin has been entombed alive don’t be too sad abt it tho bc he is a huge cunt in this text — there is a prophecy that he will be killed by a white serpent and obviously he interprets this as a virgin woman so guess what his genius plan is: have sex with every woman who wants to learn magic from him. Anyway this woman tricks him by making him believe that they have had sex (she has been putting him under a sleeping spell) and then entombs him alive while he’s checking that this random tomb is the right size for him and his girlfriend (the one who wants to entomb him). And THEN this leaves a power vacuum in the British magic community and Morgan le fay is like ok great now I’m the best enchantress in Britain but also I’m kinda sad bc that was the man i used to casually have sex with. However this woman who has been sailing through time on a magical ship is like you’ll find I’m the best enchantress in Britain - morgan and her have a violent argument abt it which culminates in Morgan getting stuck on a roof without any clothes and also the second enchantress vagina beaming her. Then all the enchantresses of Britain have a meeting and realise that merlin has fooled them all bc he said that by agreeing to have sex with him they will be the most powerful magic users in Britain but they find out that the lady of the lake (I forgot to say: that is Merlin’s girlfriend who entombed him alive ) is a better magic user than all of them and she didn’t even have sex with merlin. And that is the end of the vagina beam story.
Pirates could have strange names. But have you ever heard of Captain Half-Butt?
Captain Louis Le Golif (who is said to have been a Pirate or Buccaneer in the West Indies between 1660 and 1675) was not only known for the book he wrote about his wild life in his book Memoirs of a Buccaneer (whether it is real or a fake is not clear). But also through the companionship and here clearly described as a love affair with Pulverine another male pirate. Both went to sea and lived their lives until Louis married a woman. This led first to a rift between them, later to a threesome and finally to murder.
He is considered to be one of two who can be proven to have had a matelotage, the marriage-like relationship of same-sex partners among pirates.
But now to his nickname. He is said to have received it when he tried to raid a Spanish settlement and had his left buttock shot off by a cannonball. Since he had many prostitutes in addition to his lover and they saw his somewhat embarrassing injury, they called him Borgne Fesse - Half Butt. Much to the amusement of all who knew him.
After killing his wife on their wedding night, he is said to have set off with his lover and captured a Spanish treasure ship with other Pirates before settling in Brittany as a rich man and allegedly becoming an author. But he did so under his real name, as he probably would not have been successful as Captain Half- Butt.
Me: okay let's not get ahead of ourselves, presumably he would drink like half a butt of alcohol a night or whatever....
oh. well then.
it's me and my two sources on medieval strap-ons against the world
Right, so.
Source One is Burchard of Worms' Decretum, Book XIX. The Decretum was a collection of canon laws compiled in the early half of the 11th Century. Book XIX, or The Corrector, was a penitential: basically a guidebook for confessors. Here's a sin, have u done it, here's your penance.
One of the questions for women was, essentially, "Did you make a dildo, strap it to yourself and fuck someone with it?". The original text is in Latin, and there's a few translations floating around of what it said. Here's one, which I spent the past three days looking for, because I wanted a direct source:
Have you done what women are wont to do: to make a certain device in the form of a male member to the measure of your will, and to tie it to your own or another woman's genitals with some ties, and commit fornication with other women, or others with the same instrument, or with another with you? - Translated from Latin, taken from "Die Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche nebst einer rechtsgeschichtichen Einleitung", F. W. H Wasserschleben
Pretty cut and dry re: the use of strap-ons. And dildos, because the next question is "and did you use this device on yourself?"
The second source is from the trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer, specifically Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477) by Helmut Puff, which has an analysis of the trial as well as a translation of the trial texts.
Katherina is the first recorded woman to be executed for homosexuality. There's a lot to be said about her and the way she performed gender but what I'm interested in today is the strap. So, from the court text itself:
...She made an instrument with a red piece of leather, at the front filled with cotton, and a wooden stick stuck into it, and made a hole through the wooden stick, put a string through, and tied it round; and therewith she had her roguery with the two women...
And there we go! Two sources about people in medieval times using strap-ons, one from around 1020 and one from 1477.
Helmut Puff
It's fascinating to me how premodern ideas about FF sex are so focused on dildos. I've read about a trial ca. 1600 (probably England?) where a woman was accused of sodomy, but ultimately was let go because they couldn't prove that they had inserted anything... And apparently fingering each other was not illegal.
It does make me wonder if that means any wlw in that era were really that focused on penetration, or if it was a failure of the male lawmaker's imagination, or whether everyone was actually basically cool with lesbianism.
i see typo in the group chat is a time honoured tradition
and i mean in every fictional setting like fantasy, scifi, etc but here are two prime examples:
these are both………… pretty weird. i get that wonder woman’s outfit has been the same since 1941 but she still serves as a good example, and idek what’s going on with valkyrie. a lot of people praise this for being “feminine but functional” but this still means there’s some armor smith out there carefully molding breastplates to fit each individual boob (as per that one tumblr post going around that i don’t have the link to).
here’s an example of real life armor on women:
there you go. some real women wearing real armor made for real combat situations. now listen, i’ve worn this and yeah—– this shit’s functional. and no, it doesn’t squish your boobs in, no matter what you’re doing. it actually fits quite snugly despite how it looks. see how no effort was made to have individual boobs poke through? that’s because that shit ain’t necessary. in fact the breast molding would be pretty terrible for your rib cage but i’m sure you’ve all seen that post.
at least star wars got this one right:
official boob post
I regret to inform you that we have the answer to that, courtesy of Henry VIII:
and i mean in every fictional setting like fantasy, scifi, etc but here are two prime examples:
these are both………… pretty weird. i get that wonder woman’s outfit has been the same since 1941 but she still serves as a good example, and idek what’s going on with valkyrie. a lot of people praise this for being “feminine but functional” but this still means there’s some armor smith out there carefully molding breastplates to fit each individual boob (as per that one tumblr post going around that i don’t have the link to).
here’s an example of real life armor on women:
there you go. some real women wearing real armor made for real combat situations. now listen, i’ve worn this and yeah—– this shit’s functional. and no, it doesn’t squish your boobs in, no matter what you’re doing. it actually fits quite snugly despite how it looks. see how no effort was made to have individual boobs poke through? that’s because that shit ain’t necessary. in fact the breast molding would be pretty terrible for your rib cage but i’m sure you’ve all seen that post.
at least star wars got this one right:
official boob post
For the purposes of this poll, assume it is being asked before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell, and thus does not include any experiences on the road or after the defeat of Sauron.
Bill the Pony not included on assumption he would "sweep."
Bare Essentials – near Knightsbridge, 1969 by Frank Habicht
Thinkin about that one whaler who complained about his shipmates in his journal being like ‘no one on this ship reads educational books, no one reads the bible, everyone only wants pencils so they can draw ships and obscene pictures’ and I’m just like…..where are they….where are the dirty drawings this fellow was complaining about…I wanna see some 19th century whaler’s amateur pornographic scribbles so bad WHERE ARE THEY?
Idk why this particular one has gotten so many notes, but here’s the fellow’s actual words. His name was Jon Langdon, and he signed aboard the bark St. Peter in 1849 at age 21.
[…] topgallantsails. The weather is very pleasant To day is spent like every other sunday in eating and sleeping angry words and a dial of swearing &c. Interesting and instructive books are seldom found in their hands and the perusal of the sacred pages of the Bible is beneath their notice altogether but the slate and pencil are in great demand for drawing Ships obscene pictures &c &c. Took in fore topgallantsail at 2pm.”
Another fellow from another voyage aboard the whaler Saratoga, William Chappell, also complains about his shipmates’ taste in literature. 1853.
“[it grieves me] to see how wreckless and indifferent my shipmates are to this great subject It is painfull to see how dilligent they are in reading the trashy novel to the neglect of the bible”
What trashy novels are you reading lads I wanna know.
did you say you wanted to see the victorian whalers' porn? ok
(the porn from the first letter has not survived because "slate and pencil" means "[small portable] chalkboard and chalk.")
(the porn in the extant examples has survived because it's scrimshaw which means someone went to the trouble of etching porn into a whale's tooth and then meticulously inking it)
Need everyone to know that at one point in the livre d’artus gawain sleeps with thr sister of long time enemy guingambresil and while they’re in bed together guingambresil’s sister is literally like ‘why are you pounding my tits like that who enjoys that ?’ QUEEN!!!!!!
so he went to the beautiful maiden's bed and put his hand on her chest and felt that her breasts were small and firm like apples. The maiden sighed and took his hand 'Sir, that hurts, I do not enjoy it'. And so he lowered himself onto her and kissed her and held her
We got Explicitly Ask For Consent from King Arthur, and now we've got Communication Is Key with Gawain. This is a very sex-positive book!
[ And the king rose and went to piss and saw that the damsel was still asleep and when he returned, he was suddenly gripped by a great desire, and he began to toss and turn as he lay by the damsel and could not go back to sleep. And he was tossing and turning so much that the damsel awoke and saw that he was complaining and said ‘Sir, what is wrong?’ And he replied that he was extremely uncomfortable and that this grieved him. And she asked him what he had and he replied that he would tell her if she might agree to help him. And she said that there was no cure she wouldn’t bring him if it meant he would feel better. ‘Damsel’ he said ‘I cannot hide it so know that if I do not lie with a woman I will die’ ‘By God,’ said the damsel ‘is this because I lie so close to you?’ ‘Damsel’ he replied ‘I do not know what it could be but I awoke because of the distress I was feeling. I am not telling you this to deceive you as there is no woman in the world that I would force if they did not reciprocate my desires. By God, if you are no longer a virgin, I ask if I may lie with you’ ‘Sir,’ she said ‘it seems to me that you are a gentleman and it would be a great shame if you were so uncomfortable when I could so easily cure you. I am a damsel, and I am as I am, you may do with me as you please’ and the king thanked her and took her into his arms and held her and kissed her tenderly and so did she as she desired him as much if not more. And so the king lay with her twice with great passion] Livre D’Artus, p.219
‘if I do not lie with a woman I will die’ - king arthur
I'm glad they specified that he got up to piss, I feel like that was vital to the story
sapientia as a queen suckling two old men
miniature in a series of 'exempla' in the 'wellcome apocalypse' , germany, c. 1420
source: London, Wellcome Library, MS.49, fol. 58v
so what do you think about the legend of saint george slaying the dragon (with the intention of finding out whether you want to be the dragon or the saint later)
let me know who's bringing the sword
this is the winter of our dissed cunt tent
Why are you, as a man, doing battle against another fully armored knight? I mean, you're literally straddling him and trying to thrust into him as deeply as you can
This image is taken from one of Paulus Hector Mair's treatises on armored fighting and I gotta say there's a lotta great images in here tbh
The ol' stomp n' bonk
Ye olde BDSM
Oh Knight Butt, we're really in it now
Genuinely amazing pose to draw your rival characters in for maximum possible sexual tension like I was already drawing rival characters in this pose before I even learned it was historically viable
🥫🍑👀
So hot 🔥🔥🔥
Presumably we have all noted that the first image is Fig. 69
I've seen a post you've reblogged and added to, among many things about women showing nipples. Can you recommend any ref material (articles, videos, etc.) are share your knowledge about this? Cause I'm curious about that, as nowadays going out in a shirt without a bra makes you indecent, while in like 90s it was okayish? I wonder how it was in previous centuries.
There is a really cool academic paper about bare breast dresses in 17th century England specifically. I think anyone can read it by creating a free account.
Abby Cox also has a good video about the cleavage during the past 500 years in which she goes through also the nip slip phenomena.
I don't have other sources that specifically focus on this subject, though many sources about specific decades touch on it, but I do have my primary source image collection, so I can sum up the history of the bare nipple.
So my findings from primary source images (I could be wrong and maybe I just haven't found earlier examples) is that the Venetians were the first ones to show the nipple for courtly fashion. At the same time in other places in Europe they sported the early Elizabethan no-boob style that completely covered and flattened the chest. In the other corners of Italy the necklines were also low but less extreme. Venetian kirtle necklines dropped extremely low as early as 1560s and they combined extremely sheer, basically see-through partlets with their kirtle. First example below is a 1565-70 portrait of a Venetian lady with the nipples just barely covered waiting slip into view with a movement of arm. There was an even more extreme version of this with the kirtle being literally underboob style, still with a sheer doublet. Though I believe this was not quite for the respectable ladies, since I have only seen it depicted on high class courtesans. They were not exactly respectable ladies, but they did have quite good social position. The second example is a 1570s depiction of a courtesan, which is revealed by the horned hairstyle. By the end of the century this underbust style with only see through fabric covering breasts, had become respectable. In the last example it's shown on the wife of the Venetian doge in 1597.
Around the same time, at the very end of 1500s, the extremely low cut bodice fashion enters rest of Europe. The low cut style was present in the bodices of all classes, but the nipple was really only an aristocrat thing. The lower classes would cover their breasts with a partlet, that was not sheer. Bare breast was ironically from our perspective a show of innocence, youthful beauty and virtue, and to pull off the style with respect, you also had to embody those ideals. Lower class women were considered inherently vulgar and lacking virtue, so a nipple in their case was seen as indecent. Bare boobs were also a sort of status symbol, since the upper class would hire wet nurses to breastfeed their children so they could show of their youthful boobs.
Covering partlets and bodices were still also used in the first decade of 1600s by nobles and the nip slip was mostly reserved for the courtly events. The first image below is an early example of English extremely low neckline that certainly couldn't contain boobs even with a bit of movement from 1597. The 1610s started around 5 decades of fashion that showed the whole boob. The first three were the most extreme. Here's some highlights: The second image is from 1619.
Here the first, very much showing nipples, from c. 1630. The second from 1632.
The neckline would slowly and slightly rise during the next decades, but nip slips were still expected. Here's an example from 1649 and then from 1650-55. In 1660s the neckline would get still slightly higher and by 1870s it was in a not very slippable hight. The necklines would stay low for the next century, though mostly not in boob showing territory, but we'll get there. But I will say that covering the neckline in casual context was expected. Boobs were mostly for fancy occasions. It was considered vain to show off your boobs when the occasion didn't call for it and covering up during the day was necessary for a respectable lady. You wouldn't want to have tan in your milk-white skin like a poor, and also they didn't have sun screen so burning was a reasonable concern.
1720s to 1740s saw necklines that went to the nip slip territory, though they didn't go quite as low as 100 years earlier. The nipple was present in the French courtly fashion especially and rouging your nipples to enhance them was popular. Émilie Du Châtelet (1706-1749), who was an accomplished physicist and made contributions to Newtonian mechanics, was known in the French court to show off her boobies. An icon. Here she is in 1748. Here's another example from this era from 1728.
The Rococo neckline never got high, but in the middle of the century it was less low till 1770s when it plunged into new lows. In 1770s the fashion reached a saturation point, when everything was the most. This included boobs. The most boob visible. There was a change in the attitudes though. The visible boob was not a scandal, but it was risque, instead of sing of innocent and did cause offense in certain circles. I think it's because of the French revolution values gaining momentum. I talked about this in length in another post, mostly in context of masculinity, but till that point femininity and masculinity had been mostly reserved for the aristocracy. Gender performance was mostly performance of wealth. The revolutionaries constructed new masculinity and femininity, which laid the groundwork for the modern gender, in opposition to the aristocracy and their decadence. The new femininity was decent, moral and motherly, an early version of the Victorian angel of the house. The boob was present in the revolutionary imagery, but in an abstract presentation. I can't say for sure, but I think bare breasts became indecent because it was specifically fashion of the indecent French aristocracy.
Here's example somewhere from the decade and another from 1778. The neckline stayed quite low for the 1780s, but rose to cover the boobs for the 1790s.
The nipple didn't stay hidden for long but made a quick comeback in the Regency evening fashion. It was somewhat scandalous by this point, and the nipple and sheer fabrics of the Regency fashion gained much scorn and satire. The styles that were in the high danger nip slip territory and those that allowed the nipple to show through fabric, were still quite popular. The sleeves had been mid length for two centuries, but in 1790s they had made a split between evening and day wear. The evening sleeves were tiny, just covering the shoulder. Showing that would have been a little too much. Like a bare boob? A risque choice but fine. A shoulder? Straight to the horny jail. (I'm joking they did have sheer sleeves and sometimes portraits with exposed shoulder.) But long sleeves became the standard part of the day wear. Getting sun was still not acceptable for the same reasonable and unreasonable reasons. Day dresses did also usually have higher necklines or were at least worn with a chemisette to cover the neckline. Fine Indian muslin was a huge trend. It was extremely sheer and used in multiple layers to build up some cover. There were claims that a gust of wind would render the ladies practically naked, though because they were wearing their underclothing including a shift, which certainly wasn't made from the very expensive muslin, I'm guessing this was an exaggeration. Especially though in the first decade, short underboob stays were fairly popular, so combined with a muslin, nipples were seen. Here's an early 1798 example of exactly that. The short stays did disappear eventually, but in 1810s the extremely small bodices did provide nip slip opportunities, as seen in this 1811 fashion plate.
Victorian moralizing did fully kill the nip slip, though at least they were gender neutral about it. The male nipple was just as offensive to them. In 1890s, when bodybuilding became a big thing, bodybuilder men were arrested for public indecency for not wearing a shirt.
Some cartoons highlighting the scandalous gowns of the 18th century and Regency eras:
