The Affairs of the Flesh. The Intimate Lives of Medieval People in the Space of Judicial Polemics

Olga Togojeva — a Russian historian specializing in medieval history, particularly the history of medieval France. She holds a Doctorate in Historical Sciences and is a senior researcher at the Institute of Universal History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This book discusses what historical sources usually remain silent about — the private lives of people during the Middle Ages and the early Modern period, their personal experiences, marital love and infidelities, unrequited feelings, friendships, grievances, and their attempts to resolve family issues either independently or with the help of official authorities. The characters in the stories collected here are the most ordinary citizens, who were almost never mentioned in chronicles, theological writings, didactic treatises, or artistic works. These people could only come to the attention of historians if they were involved in various crimes and began to attract the interest of the court. The materials from criminal investigations conducted in the French kingdom over many centuries allow us to partially penetrate the intimate secrets of its inhabitants, to hear how and what they spoke about the most intimate moments of their lives, to learn what was acceptable for them to discuss publicly and what was not, and to understand the legal and cultural notions they followed. The book is aimed at historians, legal scholars, philologists, cultural scholars, and a wide audience interested in the history of everyday life and private existence.