During medieval times, sodomy was punishable by death. By definition, sodomy did include all acts that would not directly lead to (healthy) procreation, such as bestiality, homosexuality, incest - and also cunnilingus and fellatio (afaik only between unmarried couples).
My question: Is there any record of an actual execution of someone because of what we nowadays might call "mere" forplay activities? Did the church / the authorities really bother enough about maidservant Hildegunde sucking off stable boy Diethelm after getting drunk at the local fair to execute them?
Medievalist here, who's studied medieval gender as a minor interest.
"Sodomy was punishable by death". When and where are you referring to? Medieval penitential manuals were books read by priests that helped them figure out appropriate "penitence" for various sins. In some cases, in some places, sodomy was punished less than even non-sexual crimes. For example, in the 8th century, Pope Gregory denoted a year of penitence for Sodomy among monks; a monk that went hunting (another forbidden act) got three years of penitence.
Over the course of the later Middle Ages (14th century) sodomy was transformed into a crime that could be punishable by death, according to Boswell; but before that it generally wasn't.
And that doesn't preclude the fact that these things often happened behind closed doors and that the legal systems of Medieval Europe were difficult to deal with, byzantine in nature, and had much more important things to deal with. I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted for foreplay.
In the end all of it depends on the location. Maybe some local ruler had a law against it, and could/would prosecute people for it. But the more I've read about medieval sexual practices, the more I've found it to be similar to our own, if not slightly more liberal.
In the Anglo-Saxon penitentials it's mentioned that fellatio should be "punished" with life long repentance because it's the most vile act. In contrast most homosexual acts are only up to 15 years and that's for the more extreme stuff.
Source: http://www.anglo-saxon.net/penance/?p=TOEI190_368
I'm not an expert though and i can't read old english so i may be misinterpreting it.
As long as we're close to the subject, any information on medieval people being into farts?