OPINION
If you’ve never seen the 2011 series The Borgias, you’re missing out. Like Game of Thrones, with less exploitation hackery and more historical accuracy, the show doesn’t shy away from the sordid realities of mediaeval Italy (so, all the nudity and violence you could want), while packing in powerhouse performances from veterans like Jeremy Irons and then-newcomers like Holliday Grainger and Sean Harris.
In one particularly excruciating scene, to avoid annulling their marriage, young Lucrezia Borgia is forced to prove her husband’s potency by performing her wedding-night duties in front of witnesses from each family. Yes, it’s as messed-up as it sounds. But did it really happen?
In the case of the Borgias, no. But, in fact, mediaeval husbands, invariably from the nobility, were sometimes required to publicly demonstrate their virility. In France, it was known as epreuve du congres, or ‘trial by congress’.
It was that familiar nightmare of realising you’re standing at the front of the classroom in your undies, times one million.
As thousands of spectators shrieked with laughter, the Marquis de Langey struggled with every fiber of his being to develop an erection. He was not having fun; this sex was a test of his manhood, not a joyful romp. The Marquis de Langey knew that if he was unable to get aroused at this exact moment, everyone would find out about it: not just the crowd howling raucously at his humiliation, but his family, his friends… every single person he knew, in fact, plus the entire nation of France on top of that. With his very identity as a man on the line, the Marquis de Langey tried as hard as he could to become aroused.
He failed.
How could anyone be forced into such humiliation? Because it was one of the few ways a woman could secure a divorce. Women, amirite? Divorce was mostly prohibited, except in rare circumstances. One of these was that if a man was unable to perform his marital duty to father children, he was depriving his wife of her duty of being a mother.
Proving it was the, ah, rub. So to speak.
Medical technology was, well, mediaeval. So, such a divorce trial would begin with testimony from each party and a physical examination by physicians or midwives might take place. Eventually, though, some cases got down to bare boning.
“They had to perform the act of copulation in front of a judge and members of a jury,” [Jacob Gaines] explained as he painted a picture for Salon. “In that case, they would go behind either a thin cloth or into another room adjacent to where the judge and the jury were sitting and attempt to have sex. And whether or not that was successful or not, they’d give them an hour or two. Then they would have them go and do a physical exam of the wife, as well as the man and bedsheets, to see if they had had sex or not.”
Such trials were, unsurprisingly, usually the prerogative of wealthy women. This brought in an extra dimension: whether they were real man or not.
As [historian] Julie Hardwick [must… not… laugh… – LDB] and others have shown, the status men enjoyed as fathers, husbands, heads of household, etc, were contingent on the performance of normative masculinity that was simultaneously assertive and disciplined. A husband who was unable to have sex with his wife was at risk of being cuckolded and running an inharmonious household, threatening the very fabric of the social order.
But the trial of the aforementioned marquis was something else: a veritable celebrity sex scandal of its day.
While most trials by congress occurred in ecclesiastical courts, de Langey was a Protestant and as such the trial was held in the High Court of Paris. de Langey was also a celebrity by the standards of the time; women regarded him as a sex icon, and he was described by most of his peers as handsome and charming. While many trials by congress had become the subject of popular gossip, that of the Marquis de Langey swept France by storm. Bets were placed and, just as Marquis de Langey was adored, Madame de Langey was despised.
The tables turned after the trial, naturally, with Madame de Langey publicly reveling in her vindication and the disgraced de Langey not only divorced but legally banned from ever getting married again.
But the marquis was nothing if not a trooper. At least, when not on public display.
Defying that edict, de Langey remarried anyway – and then, in a development that shocked France, went on to have seven children.
Salon
Assuming none of them bore a notable resemblance to the gardener or the facteur, impotent the Marquis clearly was not.