Painful pleasures: Sadomasochism in medieval cultures

by Christopher Vaccaro (editor)

This timely volume ventures into the subject of sadomasochism in varied aspects of medieval life. Saint’s Lives and mystical treatises provide evidence of failed sadism and empowering masochism. Literary culture in the form of epics and courtly tales preserve stories of eroticised power. These exciting chapters join together to form a picture of medieval culture that is kinky in its practice and deeply psychological at its core.

400 pages, Hardcover

Published July 12, 2022

About the author

Christopher Vaccaro (Ph.D, City University of New York (CUNY), 2003) is Senior Lecturer in English at the Univerist of Vermont.