"In this tour-de-force, Classen explodes the myth of the medieval chastity belt, but he also does more. He reveals how the myth came into existence and how it grew over time. In doing so, he has written a witty and fascinating piece of intellectual and social history which transcends the boundary between the medieval and modern and is exemplary in its scholarship and balance." - WilliamChester Jordan, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Princeton University

"What a delight! With humor, erudition, and afine sense of history's changing mind-sets, Classen takes the reader on a wonderful and surprising journey into a realm where academics often fear to tread. Many amodernscholarmay be a bit chagrined by Classen's research and results, but wholly captivated; and the medievalist will surelysmile." - G. Ronald Murphy, SJ, Georgetown University

"The chastity belt is a bizarre product of the modern imagination, which tirelessly dreams up medieval weirdnesses. Classen's book is a riveting odyssey through the grand-guignol-visions and museum fabrications inspired by the idea of the chastity belt. Classen's research is superbly thorough, his prose readable, the subject endlessly interesting. This book reveals more about the modern imagination than medieval barbarity." - C. Stephen Jaeger, University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign"Classen s book is a great accomplishment. His argumentation demonstrates not only a profound knowledge of a large corpus of sources in multiple languages, but also a high methodological level of reflection. One can only hope that medieval scholarship will produce more studies like this one that in the best sense of the word serves scholarly enlightenment." - Wissenschaftlicher Literaturanzeiger