What were bad words in the Middle Ages? In her book, Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, Melissa Mohr takes a look at curse words from the ancient Romans to the modern day. Like with many aspects of medieval society, the way they swore was much different than ours.
Focusing on medieval England, Mohr immediately recognizes that people back then did not have much of an issue with describing bodily functions in ways that we might find less appropriate. Going into a city you might find a street called ‘Sh!twell Way’ or ‘Pissing Alley’. Open a school textbook for teaching children how to read and you might find the words a r s e, sh!t or fart. If you saw ants crawling around you would most likely call them ‘pisse-mires’. Even some names, like Rogerus Prikeproud or Thomas Turd, seem to have acceptable to medieval men and women. Mohr explains, “generally, people of medieval England did not share our modern concept of obscenity, in which words for taboo functions possess a power in excess of their literal meaning and must be fenced off from polite conversation…Medieval people were, to us, strikingly unconcerned with the sh!t.”
Here are a couple of examples of words that we might not use when chatting with our parents, but seem to have been okay in a medieval setting
read on
By God’s Bones: Medieval Swear Words
Melissa Mohr "Holy Sh*t" - YouTube
Focusing on medieval England, Mohr immediately recognizes that people back then did not have much of an issue with describing bodily functions in ways that we might find less appropriate. Going into a city you might find a street called ‘Sh!twell Way’ or ‘Pissing Alley’. Open a school textbook for teaching children how to read and you might find the words a r s e, sh!t or fart. If you saw ants crawling around you would most likely call them ‘pisse-mires’. Even some names, like Rogerus Prikeproud or Thomas Turd, seem to have acceptable to medieval men and women. Mohr explains, “generally, people of medieval England did not share our modern concept of obscenity, in which words for taboo functions possess a power in excess of their literal meaning and must be fenced off from polite conversation…Medieval people were, to us, strikingly unconcerned with the sh!t.”
Here are a couple of examples of words that we might not use when chatting with our parents, but seem to have been okay in a medieval setting
read on
By God’s Bones: Medieval Swear Words
Melissa Mohr "Holy Sh*t" - YouTube
