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BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:276649@gayout.com
DTSTAMP:20260921T233535Z
DTSTART:20260921T130000Z
DTEND:20260921T143000Z
SUMMARY:Enslaved Women and the Church in the Late Medieval Mediterranean
DESCRIPTION:Given the prodigious writings of churchmen on sexual sins and
  all things related to sex\\, it may come as a surprise that the medieval
  church was quite reticent about sex with the enslaved. If the church’s
  prohibition against all sex outside of marriage covered carnal relations
  with the enslaved\\, why did church authorities not enforce their own la
 ws? This talk discusses how legal scholars skirted the issue of sex acts 
 with the enslaved and addresses where church law and secular law aligned 
 and diverged in respect to the testimony of slaves. It argues that while 
 canon law and secular laws in Europe did not explicitly recognize the rig
 ht of Christian male owners to have sex with their enslaved women\\, it w
 as not only culturally permissible and socially accepted in the Christian
  societies of the Mediterranean but also integrated into men’s ownershi
 p rights. Since church law denied slaves legal personhood\\, episcopal of
 ficials were able to avoid publicly prosecuting owners for sex outside of
  marriage. This approach avoided alienating the merchant capitalists and 
 elites who made up the largest group of slave owners and whose wealth pro
 vided resources for church building projects and supported the mendicant 
 orders in Mediterranean port cities. It also allowed church authorities t
 o avoid drawing attention to members of the church elite who owned enslav
 ed people and would be implicated in the very practices the church refrai
 ned from prosecuting.\\nhttps://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states/r
 ochester/events/enslaved-women-and-the-church-in-the-late-medieval-medite
 rranean-2026-09-21
LOCATION:events.rochester.edu
URL:https://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states/rochester/events/enslaved-women-and-the-church-in-the-late-medieval-mediterranean-2026-09-21
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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