The way that we have perceived, described, and understood sexual desire has changed dramatically over time and across cultures. This collection brings together a group of experts from a variety of disciplines to explore the history of sexual desires and the transformation of sexual ideas, attitudes, and practices in premodern Europe. Among the topics considered are the visibility of sexual offenses and the construction of passions; the geographical range extends to Great Britain, with extended attention also to France as well as Northern and Eastern Europe. The result is a groundbreaking volume that adds significantly to our understanding of premodern European history, history of sexualities, gender studies, religious history, and many other fields.

The book offers a comprehensive model of religious culture of peasants of the Lesser Poland in the early modern times. Its principal research topic is the influence of religion on the life and attitudes of peasants in the period of religious and social transformations resulting from the introduction of the Tridentine reform of the Catholic Church in the period starting from the peak of the Reformation movements in Poland to the Enlightenment reforms and the fall of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. Due to the fact that the study focuses on an illiterate group, its issues primarily concern the so-called external religiosity of peasants as a group, discussing its social, communal, and economic aspect, along with its impact on the formation of social ethics and individual morals, beliefs, and folk rituals.