If not chastely, at least Cautiously

No one gives any credit to the distant past. Many older scholars have painted the period as one filled with "cheerless children" and "woeful women." It's no wonder that everyone believed that contraception strictures were followed to a T (if you're Catholic, you might be seeing some similarities here!). So, how have scholars proved that contraception was used?  Medical books or pharmacy books might provide some clues. So does the rise in population exponentially in the course of the 10th through 13th century! But how does one prove coitus interruptus, perhaps the most successful birth control method of the past. Keep in mind that some very common things, like bread recipes, just don't exist--not for a lack of existence, just because it was so common.

In his article on "Birth Control in the Medieval West," Pete Biller, a professor at the University of York, proves that the Church and society was aware of sexuality being practiced for non-procreative purposes. Sorry, Augustine, you are going to lose that battle! Biller includes a quote from a fourteenth-century Dominican, where he relays the usual response about the Sacrament of Marriage being for the procreation of children. Then he cautions: "And some married couples intend an end for marriage which is other than that intended by God . . . lust. . . and if one pays attention to their abuse of the sexual act, it is no wonder that they lack marriage's due end and reward, off-spring" (15). What! Just when we thought it was unprovable, an invisible act, it becomes a bit more clear that this church father had probably noticed that some couples were not conceiving.

Are there other areas of evidence? Biller uses penitential manuals to suggest that women should be punished for trying to avoid the pains of childbirth, to preserve or beauty, or to protect from the economic expenses of not having children. And then there are the marriages declared null and void by Pope Gregory IX, between 1226 and 1234, when there was an intent by married parties to avoid having offspring.  There is a modern phrase, "if you can't be good, be careful" and medieval satire, poems, and perhaps even one priest's manual from Passau recommended this as well, thus the title above. It's odd that one chronicle records that among prostitutes "they seem to be more sterile" (18). Biller concludes by recounting the direct words of Peter de Palude, writing around 1310. He practices coitus interruptus, he says, to avoid having children "whom he cannot feed" (25). To add to the complexity, Biller suggests that Parish priests may have counseled family planning (he does not, however, suggest that women may have passed on this knowledge, which seems likely). By examining some of the words of actual texts from the Middle Ages, it allows us to see a disparity between prescriptive texts that demand certain actions and those participants in history who frequently ignored the call for sex plus babies. In this way, we are including the participants in the past to see how they acted with agency to shape their future, rather than dwelling simply on what they were being told.