Chastity Belts and Iron Maidens

I’ve been talking about medieval myths for some time now, that is, those tired saws that many people believe about the Middle Ages. And they keep showing up, even on Bluesky. Two of my personal favorites have got to be chastity belts and iron maidens. Though they sound like something that would go together, trust me, they don’t.

First, let’s talk that ultimate of contraceptive devices, chastity belts.

We owe the Victorians a lot for what they preserved of the medieval period. They were in love with it, partly due to authors like Sir Walter Scott for his tale of knightly chivalry, Ivanhoe (not a favorite of mine for all the inaccuracies. Even Mark Twain hated his writing. Which was why it is said that he coined the invective “Great Scott!” for his A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. But beware. There are numerous origins for the phrase, so no one is truly certain where it comes from), and partly because the chivalric code came to mean a lot to proper Englishmen of the time, especially when they marched to war.

Archaeological digs turned up new and interesting finds. Architecture in the form of castles, monasteries, and churches were preserved from permanent decay (although the last of the riotously painted interiors of cathedrals were permanently scraped of their paint. Too vulgar to the Victorian mind). With this surge in interest in all things ancient—including an abiding interest in the classical—the Middle Ages became the next target, and many histories were written.

Sometimes these histories were quite valuable with new insights and impeccable research (and there are even some that are still used by scholars today). But many more of these “histories” were romanticism at best, pure fantasy at worst. Their “idea” of the Middle Ages as a sweepingly romantic period run by Dutch-boy coifed Arthurian knights meeting maidens gowned in velvet with pointy sleeves in sunlit meadows—a veritable Rivendell of sunbeams and blossoms—often tipped the scales into the absurd.

Along with this (and with the Victorian ideals of marriage and fidelity) comes the Crusaders in need of keeping the home fires burning…but not burning quite that much! To dampen a few of these home fires, knights, it was said, created these metal devices in which to encage their wives to ensure their fidelity. Like a Maidenform girdle…in metal. This might discourage anyone—except for, perhaps, an enterprising tinker—from giving it a go with the knight’s wife.

Later Renaissance devices in leather were created to discourage masturbation. But we are not going there.

But think for a minute about this. Just the unsanitary nature of it probably would have killed women. And what rich woman wouldn’t hire a blacksmith to get her out of it?

Even the British Museum was not immune from being deceived. They had a chastity belt on display up until the ‘90s, placed there originally in the 1840s…which is probably when it was made! A museum spokesman was reported saying about the item in question, “It is probable that the majority of existing examples were made in the 19th century as curiosities for the prurient or jokes for the tasteless.”

But that’s not the only iron maidens we have to discuss. The one I’m talking about now is supposed to have been a torture device (not that the other one wouldn’t have been!) These iron maidens were wooden cabinets with iron spikes inside. They were shaped rather like large bowling pins with the image of the Virgin’s face on the head part. Closing the hapless victim inside would pierce him in innumerable holes all over the body. Blood loss, possible asphyxiation, and the horror of it, could cause death.

Except that it didn’t exist in the Middle Ages. It doesn’t appear to have been invented until the late 18th century, and even then it was all in the mind. The earliest account of this device can be found in 1793, but even that was a hoax! It was possibly confused with a “cloak of shame”, something that was used in the Middle Ages. But this was more of a portable stocks, a barrel that one was forced to wear, humiliating oneself by walking around town, letting everyone know that you had been naughty, where citizens could hurl ridicule as well as rotten vegetables at you (where were folks keeping all those rotten vegetables they are always throwing at people?)

So there you are. Two myths laid to rest, I hope. As disappointing as that might be. Perhaps next we’ll investigate the rotten vegetable conspiracy.