Codpieces: the Renaissance Bulge

Men often try to draw attention to the size of their sex organs.  Athletic supporters -- ostensibly to keep them from flopping around, but also serving the function of creating an eye-catching bulge.

Football players' cups -- for protection, and to enhance their erotic appeal?

During the Renaissance, they wore codpieces ("cod" is the Old English word for scrotum).

Originally the codpiece was simply a triangular piece of cloth placed over the sex organs.  By the 1520s, it was getting cotton enhancments to better accentuate the basket.

During the codpiece craze of the mid-16th century, men tried to outdo each other with the biggest, boldest, most elaborate designs.

This is Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545-1568), painted by Alonzo Coello.  Did he really walk around like that?

Guidobaldo II, Duke of Urbino (1514-1574), painted by Agnolo Bronzino, wears a huge ball-shaped codpiece.  I don't think his sex organs would really fit in there.

The codpiece was out of fashion by the time of Shakespeare, but fortunately, most modern directors don't know that, and push their actors into them anyway.

Today you can sometimes see codpieces at Renaissance Faires.    But not often. Modern men feel too exposed wearing them.

Summer Beefcake at the Renaissance Faire

In 1963, Los Angeles teacher Phyllis Patterson and her husband hosted a week-long "Renaissance Pleasure Faire" in Irwindale, California, modeled after the "Living History" exhibits then popular in historic sites.  People walked around pretending to actually be living in the Renaissance, wearing the costumes, performing the crafts,  talking the lingo.

The practice gained momentum during the Medieval mania of the 1960s and 1970s, when thousands of hippies, organic food devotees, and Tolkien-philes longed for a cleaner, simpler, more colorful world.

Where gym-toned guys took their shirts off.

I'm not sure where in Renaissance Europe these dancers came from.

When I dated a guy from the Society for Creative Anachronism, they told me that their character could be anyone who could have been in Europe from 500 to 1500 AD.  So no Native Americans or Pacific Islanders, but East Asians and sub-Saharan Africans were ok.

Maybe these guys are from Renaissance India.

Renaissance Faires are not popular in Europe: when there's a castle on every hillside, and your house dates from the 16th century, you don't really need to evoke the Renaissance.  It's already there.

But there are hundreds in the United States.  Some draw as many as 500,000 visitors per year.

I studied the Renaissance.  They had lice and fleas, bathing was infrequent, dinner consisted mostly of bread, and the homicide rate was ten times what it is today.  You were likely to be burnt at the stake for being Jewish, Catholic, a gypsy, or a sodomite.

And without modern nutrition and bodybuilding techniques, there were few physiques like this around.

But the Renaissance Faires are about the Renaissance we wish existed.

They tend to be a bit on the heterosexist side, all about men and women gazing into each other's eyes (heterosexuals never believe that gay people existed in the past).  But they're worth it for the beefcake, the food, and the costumes.

See also: Codpieces