Ms. Newman notes that both of these monstrosities are nineteenth century inventions regarding the Middle Ages that are rejected as fabrications by all serious historians. Nevertheless, they are still "fixed in the public imagination as prime examples of medieval cruelty and subjugation of women."
There is no manuscript or archaeological evidence for chastity belts or "the lord's right," but Ms. Newman builds an even more interesting case against them by showing that such things would be contrary to the very societal structure of Middle Ages.
But the real problem with the chastity belt and the lord's right, is that they presume women were property. In the nineteenth century, under law in many countries, women were treated as children, without reasoning capacity. Medieval women were not. Of course there were barriers in law. They couldn't be priests or war leaders (but don't tell Matilda of Tuscany) and, while women made most of the beer in Europe, they couldn't be official beer tasters. Go figure. But women could inherit, buy and sell property, and speak for themselves. And a lot of them did at all levels of society.
Now this First Night nonsense also assumes that peasants were slaves. Depending on the time and place, their lot wasn't great, but any lord saying that he would get to sleep with a bride from his village on the wedding night would not have lasted long. "The peasants are revolting" is not an idle phrase. A wonderful example is from the miracle stories of St. Cuthbert. It seems that a Scottish lord once decreed that all his female field hands work naked. In Scotland? According to the story, the next morning the lord was found dead "pecked to death by crows". Sure. It doesn't matter if the story is true; it makes clear what the twelfth century thought of high-handed noblemen and implies that peasants didn't take such things lying down (so to speak).Prima nocta in the Middle Ages is clearly an invention of men like Mel Gibson--although to cut him some slack, it also features over and over again in the works of historical novelists. (Ken Follett comes to mind.) It not only didn't happen in the Middle Ages, it probably couldn't have happened in the Middle Ages. The sort of world where "the lord's right" could be exercised with impunity is the ancient Babylonian world of Gilgamesh--and even then men like Enkidu would stand up to say "This is wrong!"
Reading this blog post by Ms. Newman has made me curious to read more of her work. Her latest book is titled The Real History of the End of the World where she "digs into end of the world theories and shows us that whether it's aliens, natural disaster, or the Rapture, our civilization has been there and done that." Sounds like a fun read!
