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The Medieval Chastity Belt carries three debunked facts in this atlas, under three different properties. Read in order, they are the claim, the evidence against it, and the verdict, one debunking told in its natural three parts rather than three separate disputes.

The Claim, the Evidence, and the Verdict

The-claim states what is popularly believed: that crusading husbands locked metal belts on their wives to guarantee fidelity while they were away, and that the practice was an ordinary feature of medieval marriage. Manufacture-evidence states what actually dates the surviving objects: the specimens held in museum collections have been dated to the early modern period and most often to the nineteenth century, when they were made for collectors and for exhibition. Scholarly-verdict draws the two together: no authenticated medieval specimen exists, and no medieval legal, medical or chronicle source treats the practice as real; the motif enters the record through satire and polemic. This atlas's own description names what the object actually documents: the Victorian appetite for a barbarous Middle Ages, not anything about medieval marriage.

Where To Read More

• The Medieval Chastity BeltOther ArtifactsThree properties, one debunked object: a Victorian fabrication documenting Victorian appetite, not medieval marriage