Sex and love

A portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer, who modern scholars credit for turning Saint Valentine into the patron saint of love.

Saint Valentine Who was the patron saint of love and lovers?

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Valentine's celebrations in history From fertility festivals to the first cards

Lettice Knollys

A Tudor love triangle: Elizabeth I, Lettice Knollys and Robert Dudley

Charles and Camilla, 1979

Charles and Camilla A history of their romance

Victorian wedding, circa 1900: A wedding group poses in the garden, 1900. (Photo by F J Mortimer/Getty Images)

Living in sin: unmarried relationships in Victorian Britain

Claire Foy as the Duchess of Argyll in A Very British Scandal (left); Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (right)

The Argyll divorce: the society scandal that rocked 1960s Britain

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HistoryExtra Masterclass: Tudor Royal Women with Tracy Borman

Tudor Royal Women with Tracy Borman The Private Life of Elizabeth I . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Katherine Harvey discusses whether attitudes to sex in the Middle Ages were really so different from our own. (Image by Getty Images)

Sex lives of medieval people . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Chaucer reading his work to the court of Richard II

Katherine Swynford: the scandalous duchess and ancestress of royal dynasties

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From the courtesans of Edo Japan to the mollyhouses of Regency London, Kate Lister discusses the long and varied history of sex work. (Image by Getty Images)

Sex work: a brief history . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sir Lancelot of the Lake and Queen Guinevere seen embracing by King Arthur in a medieval illustration

Tudors in love: what were the dynasty’s romantic secrets?

(Illustration: Clair Rossiter for BBC History Magazine)

Beans, ale & ‘windy meats’: surprising 17th-century aphrodisiacs

A medieval miniature depicts a monk and a woman in a bed.

Sex in the Middle Ages: have attitudes really changed?

A mosaic that shows two Roman women exercising, one holds a flower and another holds a leaf

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Roman women

An ancient Greek vase depicting sexual intercourse

A brief history of sex and sexuality in Ancient Greece