'The best short introduction to medieval sexuality that I have read: a remarkable book.' -Vern Bullough, Reviews in History 'Undergraduate and graduate students will find in Karras' book an extremely helpful guide to what can be a confusing and perplexing body of scholarship. Even established schola[...]

The Middle Ages are often viewed as a repository of tradition, yet what we think of as traditional marriage was far from the only available alternative to the single state in medieval Europe. Many people lived together in long-term, quasimarital heterosexual relationships, unable to marry if one was[...]