The Allure of Medieval Men: Dirt, Danger, and Dysfunction in Chainmail on Mosher Mag

Let’s start with a confession.

You’ve imagined it. Don’t lie.

Him: hair damp with sweat, cheek cut from battle, blood, not all his, dried into the seams of his tunic.

You: trembling in a stone hallway, bodice barely laced, a single candle guttering between you. He doesn’t speak. Just kneels. Reverent. Like you’re the altar, and he’s come home to worship.

Why are we like this?

Why does the medieval man, with his cracked knuckles, unwashed hair, and divine right to commit murder, still slip under our skin?

There’s something deeply wrong with being attracted to a man who’s bathed once this month, speaks six words of French badly, and thinks an “apology” is letting you sit at the feasting table instead of the pig trough.

And yet, there we are. Yearning. Posting Tumblr gifs of some chainmail-clad brute who calls you "my lady" before casually beheading his cousin.

This is a thirst that lives in the bones.

Not sanitised Renaissance fair roleplay. Not TikTok boys in polyester capes. No, we’re talking about medieval men.

Raw, flawed, and fanged. Kings, knights, monks, fools.

Each a walking paradox of brutality and tenderness.

The kind of men who’d die in battle for your honour, but also cheat on you with a kitchen maid named Aelfgifu.

Let’s unpack that filth, shall we?

Knights were never noble. At least not by modern standards. They were blunt instruments of war wrapped in holy PR. Sanctioned murderers blessed by priests and paid by kings.

Most knights were second or third sons with no inheritance, given a sword and a horse and told to die in someone else’s name. They drank too much. Raped when no one was watching. Burned farms for the thrill.

They killed for honour, land, and coin. They pillaged under the sign of the cross. And yet, somehow, we can’t stop fantasising about the knight falling to his knees, battered and blood-soaked, offering up his sword and his soul.

Why?

Because there’s a sick romance in loyalty. Even when it’s misplaced. Especially when it’s violent. Knights weren’t sexy because they were good. They were sexy because they were devoted. To a cause. To a lady. To a god who demanded their suffering. And in that suffering, they became sacred.

Medieval kings were not your Netflix antiheroes. They were petty tyrants with gout and concubines, ruling over swamps and sheep with divine entitlement.

Most medieval kings were disasters.

Louis the Fat. Charles the Mad. Henry the Whore. They were walking contradictions, men given godlike power who couldn’t even read. They shat in golden pots and drank themselves into seizures. They executed their own nephews over dinner.

But they had power. Absolute. Unchecked. Disgusting.

And that’s hot, isn’t it?

The fantasy of the king is the fantasy of being chosen. Elevated. Desired above all else. Of being the one he whispers to at night while his kingdom rots, the only softness in a world of brutality and betrayal.

But it’s not just the romance. It’s the rot.

The sense that the closer you get to the throne, the more poisoned you become. The velvet’s soaked in blood. The crown’s lined with bones. And still, you’d kneel. You’d let him call you “his.” You’d feed him figs while the executioner sharpens his axe.

Medieval kings were paranoid, obsessive, possessive, emotionally constipated tyrants with abandonment issues. And that’s precisely why they keep showing up in our dreams.

Modern men ask for your consent.

Medieval kings take it, and somehow the monster becomes myth.

You’re not his wife. You’re his weapon. His prophecy. His ruin.

Ah, the jester. The fool. These were the only men in the entire feudal food chain allowed to laugh at kings, mock priests, tell the truth while dressed like a drunk magpie.

They were queer-coded chaos agents. Satirical prophets in bells and bloodstains.

And they’re deeply, uncomfortably attractive.

The jester doesn’t fight wars or rule kingdoms. He watches. He remembers. He drinks with the soldiers, sleeps in the stables, fucks the cooks, dances with the plague, and still knows every secret in the castle. He’s clever. He’s unhinged. He’s one bad day away from stabbing someone with a lute string.

There’s something magnetic about a man who laughs through collapse. Who sees the horror and plays a tune anyway. Jesters were truth-tellers dressed as clowns, and their modern descendants are the disaster bisexuals and art-school dropouts who read Tarot and kiss like it’s a dare.

The jester will hurt you. But you’ll thank him for it. Eventually.

Let’s not forget the quiet ones. The scribes. The monks. The failed acolytes who once kissed a chalice and now kiss you instead. These are the men who’ve spent years in silence, praying in Latin and starving for salvation, and when they finally break? It’s catastrophic. Holy. Devastating.

The fantasy here isn’t aggression. A man who’s denied himself every pleasure suddenly taking you like sacrament. Not because he can. But because he can’t not.

They wait in candlelight, fingers stained with ink, reading Latin while praying not to think about your mouth. They fast. Flagellate. Speak only to God, and eventually, to you.

They look soft. But they’re haunted. Not by battle, but by belief.

Imagine a man who’s read every sacred text and still wants you more than heaven. A man who traces your skin like it’s vellum. Who writes your name over and over in the margins of a forbidden book.

Monks were celibate in theory, but we all know theory breaks down under pressure. And you? You’re pressure incarnate.

There’s a reason medieval erotica was written by nuns. They knew what unholy love looked like.

So why the obsession?

Why do we swoon for men who reek of blood and candle wax? Why do we romanticize plague-doctors and executioners and brooding bastards in stolen crowns?

Because medieval men are raw masculinity, unprocessed and unrepentant.

Modern masculinity is a performance. The medieval version was a blunt-force instrument. And in a world of manicured, safe, emotionally available men who can’t change a tire without calling their therapist, the medieval man is a howling return to something primal.

They're the Id in armor. They’re not pretending to be progressive or palatable. They’re the skeleton under the skin, the kind of masculinity modern men try to ignore, but we still find lingering in our daydreams and search histories.

And maybe it’s not even about them. Maybe it’s about us.

Maybe we want to ruin something sacred. Or be ruined by it. Maybe we want to be seen as divine by someone doomed. Maybe we want to be protected by someone who’s never been safe. Maybe we want the impossible, tenderness inside a monster.

So yes, fantasise about the knight with blood on his sword. The king with tremors in his crown. The jester who jokes because he’s already broken.

There’s no shame in the craving, just don’t confuse the fantasy for reality.

Real medieval men were awful. Dirty. Violent. Miserable.

But the ghosts of them? The myths? They’re eternal.

And sometimes, that’s all we really want: a myth with hands.

Calloused, cruel, reverent hands. For the freaks, by the freaks.

Thanks for reading. Stay strange.

✦ moshermag.com