Probably everyone knows what chastity belts are - those devices that look like ‘iron knickers’ - with a lock!

 Well, the story goes that the chastity belt was invented in the middle ages by some paranoid Crusader who didn't want to leave his wife 'fully functional' at home while he was busy butchering people in the Holy Land . . .

 Naturally, all his Crusader pals thought this was a good idea, and had chastity belts manufactured for all their mistresses, daughters and wives (in that order, most probably).

As plausible as it might sound, the chastity belt is not however a medieval invention - the romantic stories outlined in the paragraph above are nothing but a product of the over-active ‘19th Century’ imagination.

 There are, in fact, no genuine chastity belts dating from medieval times - all known 'medieval' chastity belts have been produced in the first half of the 19th Century.

 The fake-medieval chastity belts are too heavy and the workmanship, apparently, are too crude -  even for medieval standards . . .! lol

The oldest design for a chastity belt that can be taken seriously, dates from the 16th Century - but it's just a design, with no real working models believed to have ever been constructed. The concept of a chastity belt itself is a lot older, but it was usually used in poems in a ‘metaphorical’ sense.

 Most of the 'medieval' chastity belts on display in museums have been tested to confirm their actual age.

 Despite the common misconception, the use of the chastity belt was not usually imposed by men on women in order to force them to be faithful.

 If we use medieval poetry as a reliable source, we discover the use of the chastity belt in these poems is a metaphor for a pledge of fidelity. No locks or iron parts are ever mentioned - these ‘metaphoric chastity belts' are usually made of cloth. Real chastity belts became available later, and the majority of chastity belts were bought in the 19th Century, in England, by women. Often they would use the apparatus to avoid the consequences of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Looking at chastity belts from a ((very – lol)) safe distance, and with these thoughts in mind, it ends up losing its rough, yet kind of romantic, historic touch. It also defuses the notion that the average medieval bloke would force his lover to use this apparatus - even though some men might have sympathised with the idea . . . !

 So, in conclusion, chastity belts and their usage are rather recent phenomena, and in the vast majority of the cases, women were not forced to use it.

 In the 19th Century it was mostly used to avoid sexual advances of horny employers!!!