He Couldn’t “Perform” and People Still Laugh 700 Years Later

Back in the Middle Ages, there was a guy named John.

Okay, well there were probably a lot of John’s back then, but the one specifically we’re taking a snapshot of here is John Saundirson.

Now, John had a problem. Well, more accurately, his wife Tedia Lambhird took umbrage at the fact he could not, or would not, perform in the bedchamber.

Being impotent was really important.

This was a big deal back then. In those days, impotence meant you could not father a child and, to the court (and subsequently, The Church), the entire purpose of marriage was to produce offspring. While everyone back then was just as lusty and bawdy as now, the idea of “having fun” in the bedchambers was not something the pious allowed.

Being unable to foster offspring meant the marriage was insufficient, and that alone was warrant enough to allow for divorce.

Tedia filed against poor John and took him, and his flaccid member, to trial.

In order to win the divorce proceedings, she needed proof. Just to claim impotence wasn’t enough. She had to prove he wasn’t “manly enough” to give her what she needed.

Offspring. We’re talking about heirs here.

Enter her witness, Thomas, son of Stephen.

Thomas testified to the church court that he was privy to knowledge about poor John’s schlubadub. He said he saw Tedia and John trying to make whoopie in a barn one fine spring morning. Though they seemed to apply themselves with great zeal, their act of “carnal intercourse” wasn’t doing the trick.

“John’s rod was lowered and in no way rising or becoming erect,” he stated in court records.

Added to that, Thomas said his brother, too, bore witness to the whole affair, even going so far as to wander into the midst of the two trysting and gave John a good few strokes to see if he could make something happen.

So, here this wretched dude was doing his best to have some good old-fashioned early morning barn-sex with his wife, in front of two strange guys who were doing their best to stick their noses into the middle of it all. How would you perform under those circumstances?

In the end, the testimony from Thomas was devastating, and Tedia won her case.

Poor John.

The Middle Ages were a lot more open about sex than you’d think.

The interesting thing regarding sex in the Middle Ages is how open and frank people really were about it all. In cases where someone was accused of impotence, there would not only be witnesses to the events, but full-on investigations into the allegations.

In one case, for example, they ordered a man declared impotent by his wife to undergo inspection by a “Congress” of women. These women, mostly elders in the communities the Congresses took place in, would, by the church-court orders, strip in front of the man, play with him in any way they thought would “get him going,” and run him through the gamut of things to turn him on.

They would then testify to whether or not he gave responses, including, in some cases, declaring his member “utterly useless.”

One must wonder if those inspections led to surreptitious affairs later.

If you were to look at the court records of the time, you’d find instances where family members, friends, neighbors, and sometimes entire communities were involved. Men would compare and contrast their storied units with each other and, contrary to what you’d see in courts today, even undergo church-court sanctioned hand jobs right there in the middle of the sanctuary.

It’s still an issue today, isn’t it?

Some states in the USA still have laws on the books allowing for divorce based on impotence. Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, and Georgia all allow for lack of performance being cause enough to annul a marriage.

Thankfully, the proof for those cases must be medical instead of putting it into the heart of Town Square.

The Middle Ages were definitely not as prudish as one might perceive, and because of it, we’re still able to pity poor John and his failure to “get it on.”