The medieval body and the modern eye : a corporeal reading of the old French Fabliaux

Representations of the human body are never, in any socio-cultural context, incidental. The purpose of this paper is therefore, firstly and foremost, to rescue the study of human sexuality from the simplistic biological and functionalist explanations that have become part of popular consciousness through that broad shift in Western attitudes known as the sexual revolution. Our aim will be to present an interpretation of sexuality in medieval France that emphasises its uniqueness as a complete system of meaning, as a corporeal culture vastly different from our own and indeed entirely contrary to the stereotypes commonly held about the Middle Ages as a 'flesh-hating' civilisation, dominated by a clear body/soul dichotomy. This paper's claim to originality lies in its attempt to suggest such a vision on the basis of a largely neglected source for the study of the medieval concept of the body: the genre of comic, ribald poetry, popular throughout the North of France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, known as the Fabliaux.