The 1370s bed trial of Lambhird v. Saundirson offers a powerful example that challenges the simplistic idea of medieval society as patriarchal. This case reveals how men could be legally and socially oppressed by women, demonstrating a complex power dynamic often overlooked in history, from male body shaming to the legally sanctioned sexual assault of men.

Rough timeline of the trial:

Upon trying and trying to consummate, including with the help of friends.

Tedhia Lambhird accuses her husband John Saundirson of impotence, seeking grounds for divorce.

The court orders John Saundirson to prove his potency in order to defend his honor and marital status.

Invasive Testing: John was subjected to humiliating sexual tests, reportedly forced to perform with third parties to prove his ability to consummate the marriage.

three women were charged with doing a physical examination of John, and reported back to the court:

that the member of the said John is like an empty intestine of mottled skin and it does not have any flesh in it, nor veins in the skin, and the middle of its front is totally black. And said witness stroked it with her hands and put it in semen and having thus been stroked and put in that place it neither expanded nor grew. Asked if he has a scrotum with testicles she says that he has the skin of a scrotum, but the testicles do not hang in the scrotum but are connected with the skin as is the case among young infants.

https://www.medievalists.net/2012/08/erectile-dysfunction-in-the-middle-ages/

Outcome: The church annuled the marriage, exposing the legal vulnerability men faced under such statutes.

If medieval society had truly been patriarchal, no legal system would have allowed women to wield such power over men’s bodies and reputations.