Cuckold Communities in the Kinky Early Modern

[print edition page number: 61]

And if you like, you can sit in the corner of the
room and watch. Make yourself comfortable and
enjoy the show. After all, this is what you wanted.
You orchestrated it, in fact.
— Dennis DiClaudio, The Deviant’s Pocket Guide to Outlandish Sexual Desires Barely Contained in Your Subconscious

What is left to say about the early modern cuckold, a figure so often discussed so as to seem commonplace?^[1] As perhaps the best-known kinky figure of the Renaissance, cuckolds have typically been discussed in terms of what they might reveal about normative gender roles and heterosexuality, with scholars generally arguing that early modern cuckoldry primarily functions in literary texts as a representation of the fears of familial legitimacy and feminine duplicity. That is to say, the study [62] of early modern cuckolds has thus far largely been the study of norms that are illuminated and more clearly defined through the exception to them.^[2] But what if cuckolds are to be understood as engaging in a kink that brings them pleasure? Furthermore, what if we were to understand cuckolds not as passive onlookers to their wife’s sexual wiles but as agential participants acting of their own desires? By reading cuckolds and their communities through the framework of kink, I hope not only to open up new modes of thinking about early modern cuckoldry but also to provide insight into and for contemporary kinksters.

Key to my analyses of early modern cuckoldry are repeated representations of communities of consenting “contented cuckolds.” Although critical interrogation into the role of community in current kink circles has only just gained traction within the last decade, community has a long-standing place within contemporary kink. As the theorist Staci Newmahr has argued, community is often about much more than having similar interests; it also “represents shared histories of living on the margins.”^[3] To explore these shared histories as a form of community, I turn to depictions of early modern kink, in particular, the practice of cuckoldry. In this chapter, I examine depictions of cuckoldry within one early modern pamphlet and three early modern ballads to argue that many early modern cuckolds are portrayed not as unknowing or reluctant victims of infidelity but as willing participants in kinky relationships.^[4] [63] Understanding these scenarios through a kinky epistemology allows us to see the subversive pleasure found within these relationships, not only for the partners engaged in sexual activity, but also for the cuckold himself.^[5] Using evidence from these four popular print ephemera about cuckolds, I argue that the key to viewing these cuckold relationships as consensual, positive relationships is the cuckold’s inclusion within a wider community of cuckolds. My interrogation into these depictions of community encourages us to move beyond understanding cuckoldry solely as a shameful act committed against the cuckold by allowing us to read these acts of cuckoldry for what I argue they really are: premodern representations of the kink of cuckoldry.

Cuckoldry is such a common practice mentioned in the study of sexual history partially because we recognize it as analogous to a concept and practice that still occurs today. Furthermore, early modern representations of cuckoldry are so pervasively interrogated because of the sheer number of these representations. Early modern representations of cuckoldry, and especially of the seemingly paradoxical “contented cuckold,” are reminiscent of contemporary kink relationships in which the practice of cuckoldry is negotiated and consensual, a relationship in which a woman has sex with a man other than her husband, and the husband is a willing and eager participant, who is oftentimes watching his wife’s sexual antics firsthand.^[6] (It is imperative to note that cuckoldry [64] is not typically a kink that is practiced by unmarried couples, particularly in the early modern period, as the subversion of the marriage vows and, more importantly, the desire for legitimate offspring necessitates marriage.) Although the male partner consents to this relationship and the subsequent humiliation and degradation that often coincide with cuckoldry, he ultimately has his desires relegated to his partner’s, in that the woman’s sexual pleasure is paramount. What makes this encounter kinky is the acknowledgment that, while the male partner seeks the humiliation of knowing his wife is sleeping with other men, the humiliation itself becomes essential to his own sexual and emotional gratification.

It is therefore crucial to highlight the distinction between a kinky cuckold relationship in which all partners have actively consented to participate and a relationship or sexual act that is secretive or harmful, in which the male partner is unaware of his partner’s extra-sexual liaisons. Understood through a kinky framework, cuckoldry becomes an act in which the cuckold eagerly anticipates the harm or derision he might receive for his nonnormative position in the sexual hierarchy. Additionally, in contemporary kink cultures and relationships, the cuckold’s humiliation is often public, and it is not a secretive venture.^[7] In many ways, this humiliation is reminiscent of the very public skimmingtons of the early modern period. Skimmingtons were a form of public shame, in which a local community would gather for the procession of a cuckold (or other criticized or stigmatized figure) through the town’s center while his neighbors would jeer at his nonnormative marital arrangement. What differentiates these forms of humiliation is that the humiliation and shaming [65] are pre-negotiated and controlled within the context of the relationship.

As I have established, cuckoldry (whether early modern or contemporary) traditionally carries a strong negative stigma. This narrow understanding of early modern cuckoldry has caused critical stagnation regarding the early modern cuckold, as Kellye Corcoran points out: “Familiarity has bred an uncritical view of the attitudes toward cuckoldry — it is all too easy to dismiss the concept as a homogeneous cultural concept.”^[8] This “uncritical view” has left many potential interpretations of early modern cuckoldry unexamined, and, as I aim to demonstrate, is not an accurate portrayal of the heterogeneity of early modern cuckold depictions. For example, Thomas Middleton’s city comedy A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (c. 1613) is a common focal point for scholars interested in portrayals of cuckoldry because of its overt display of queer and nonnormative relationships, including cuckoldry. Although the play focuses on the relationships between four couples, the relationship between the Allwits (a married couple participating in a cuckold relationship) and Sir Walter Whorehound (Mrs. Allwit’s lover) is what draws early modern scholars of cuckoldry to the drama. Although this consensual relationship does fit the parameters of cuckoldry, Allwit’s pleasure in his wife’s dalliances is defined solely by the financial support that Sir Walter provides his family, and by the end of the play, the relationship between the Allwits and Sir Walter dissolves as Sir Walter’s reputation degrades. Allwit is a prime example of a wittol, a husband who is aware of and condones his wife’s extramarital partners; Jennifer Panek investigates portrayals of the wittol and argues: “By taking control of his wife’s adultery and using it to his own ends, this wittol paradoxically [66] evades the stigma of the cuckold.”^[9] Panek analyzes the relationship between wifely virtue and consumerism by articulating the ways in which husbands effectively wield power over their wives by using these extramarital relationships for their financial benefit.^[10] Because the scope of Panek’s analysis is largely limited to the fiscal, it does not include men who actively and eagerly seek out participation in cuckold relationships for the sake of sexual pleasure — men who derive pleasure, not merely financial gain, from their wife’s dalliances.^[11] Additionally, the scholarly focus on premodern cuckoldry also centers primarily on the individual character (Allwit, Master Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor, etc.) as a type on his own or within the privacy of a marriage; my primary focus in this chapter is to understand the cuckold outside of any one relationship and instead to establish that the cuckold is often situated within a larger community of cuckolds, which is essential to the demonstration of the cuckold’s gratification.

Communal Contribution

Many of the representations of early modern cuckoldry are found within plays and ballads; much has been said about the portrayals of cuckoldry within early modern drama, though the distinct generic conventions between the two allow for quite different representations of cuckolds, necessitating further exploration into the cuckolds of ephemeral texts. Several extant cuckold ballads focus on preparations for Horn Fair, [67] a celebration that occurred annually on the eighteenth of October in the parish of Charlton in Kent.^[12] This festivity was “treated as little more than an excuse to engage in publicly sanctioned debauchery”^[13] and was only very loosely linked to the practice of cuckoldry itself. Many of the specifics of this annual event are lost to history, but Douglas Bruster recounts two potential origin stories for this fair.^[14] The more prevailing narrative is a story about a miller who discovers King John kissing his wife. King John gifts him all the surrounding land as recompense, though the miller must annually adorn himself with horns and walk to the place where his newly gifted land ends, which becomes known as “Cuckold’s Point.”^[15] Despite the tenuous links that the fair has to the actual practice of cuckoldry, the abundance of ephemeral popular materials related to Horn Fair can help us understand the specifics and subtexts of early modern cuckoldry and allow us glimpses into these cuckold communities in ways that are not as perceptible in the drama of the period.

One such text is Hey for Horn Fair, which was published in 1674 and depicts a merchant who encounters nine different types of cuckolds. Each of these cuckolds [72] is defined purely by a single adjective that describes him — kind, contented, and jealous, to name a few.^[16] The pamphlet [68] begins by referencing a surprising genre that annually appears at Horn Fair: the sermon.^[17] Though the merchant does mention the sermon, he immediately deviates from this annual tradition: “Gentlemen, this is to let you understand, that I do not intend to make you a Sermon at this merry Fair, according to the custom … Well it is no matter, because I have not a sermon ready for you: you shall hear a Story shall be worth fiftéen.”^[18] Despite the merchant’s assurances, he does not deliver a story; rather, the narration focuses on the merchant’s attempts to engage customers or remark upon cuckoldry more broadly as exemplified by the nine specific cuckolds, who exist simply as flat character types, that pass him in the market. This sort of typological representation of cuckolds is certainly not unique to this text, but I begin with this example because it “shows us the ways in which such performances of social power can simultaneously draw on and disavow their social referents.”^[19] This pamphlet portrays some of the traditional anxieties surrounding early modern cuckoldry, even as it begins to gesture towards the sense of contentedness and communal fraternity I am interested in.

The frontispiece (figure 2.1) reinforces the merchant’s delineation of nine different cuckold types. As evidenced by this imagery, there are many ways to be a cuckold — seven variations of horns are affixed to the staff in the middle of the image. As the merchant narrates the event, he speaks in a stream of consciousness, consistently referring back to the horns he has available for purchase, presumably displayed for sale on this pole. Although the links between Horn Fair and cuckoldry are largely titular only (as the event is more about merriment and fun), the merchant frequently links the two together: “Indeed I am afraid that Horns [69] will be very cheap this Fair, for the Town is full of Horn-makers.”^[20] The term Horn-makers has a bifurcated meaning here. It may be a simple reference to the links between cuckoldry and the market (Bruster, 1990; Panek, 2001; Clark, 2002) that are evidenced by the merchant himself; however, it also suggests that there are plenty of wives and single men who are eager to make cuckolds out of the wives’ husbands. This notion of proudly wearing horns in order to participate in the revelry of the fair is quite a transition from many of the dramatic representations of cuckoldry, such as Arden of Faversham (1592), Much Ado About Nothing (1600), Othello (1604), and even A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, that were proliferating only half a century prior to this, in which the mere mention of horns could incite a husband to rage or violence. This shift is also evidenced by the sheer number of options that this horn pole offers. Just as the merchant distinguishes nine types of cuckolds, there are also different horns for every type — diminutive horns, decorative horns, and ostentatious horns. There is also perhaps a subtle pleasure in using such a phallic object to display wares associated with and for the purpose of advertising cuckoldry. Not only does this staff act as a physical representation of the penetrative sex acts to come, it also hints at the pleasure available to those participating in the community of cuckolds who may find themselves figuratively represented by like-minded cuckolds via the merchant’s staff. On the one hand, the staff serves a pragmatic function to provide the consumer with an option to find the horns that best define or suit him; on the other, it implies that there are others within the community who may use different means (or horns) to the same end.^[21]

[70] If Hey for Horn Fair represents a sort of liminal space for early modern cuckoldry, as the cuckolds appear to be in on the joke, at the very least,^[22] the ballad “Cuckolds all a-Row” is a much more standard summons [71] for Horn Fair, at least on the surface. As this particular summons addresses the cuckolds as a unified group, it emphasizes the importance of the community of cuckolds. The ballad is addressed to “all Henpeckt and Hornified Tradesmen in and about the City of London” and requests “their appearance at Cuckolds-Point.”^[23] This ballad requests that cuckolds gather prior to the fair in order to prepare a traversable and safe path for their wives and their wives’ lovers to be able to attend the annual Horn Fair, a common occurrence in many iterations of these summonses. In addition to providing a general summons for the cuckolds, this ballad also gives the men some directions about how to appear:

For if you come not decently drest,
they’ll scoff at you all for your labour;
The Brethren will think you some intruding Guest
that has borrowed your Horns of your Neighbor.^[24]

These lines indicate the importance of conforming to standards of dress for the events preceding and during Horn Fair. In particular, these lines demonstrate the importance of conformity for the sake of the community of cuckolds, as the narrator subtly threatens that they risk not being acknowledged by their cuckold peers if they fail to participate according to the standards laid out by the Master Cuckolds, the authors of this summons. Not only do they risk being scoffed at for their infraction, they risk being labeled an intruder and a guest — essentially, an outsider to the community. To reinforce this opposition between the cuckolds and outsiders, the summons even refers to members of the community as brethren, a clear indication of the communality of these cuckolds.

As previously established, Horn Fair is not an event solely for cuckolds — it is a place for camaraderie and pleasurable depravity. Because many attendees may opt to don horns as a sort of caricature of cuckoldry, following the given instructions helps to cement one’s status as a true cuckold and not as an impostor. For these men, wearing the “Horns of [one’s] Neighbor” indicates a lack of true cuckoldry and shows to all that they do not really belong within the community. This vague threat is clearly not about the sex act at all; rather, it is about the potential for a lack of communal connection. In other words, the kinkier pleasures of being a cuckold might be as much about participating in communal fraternization as experiencing sexual infidelity. Both of these texts help to contextualize the importance of community for these early modern cuckolds, though both still present cuckoldry as a largely negative cultural phenomenon, particularly because the festivity surrounding Horn Fair occurs but once a year and can therefore be perceived as an acceptable and controlled anomaly; however, the next two ballads offer a marked distinction in that they both portray cuckoldry as something to revel in regardless of the time of year.

Communal Contentment

The undated broadside ballad “The Catologue of Contented Cuckolds,” likely published in the late seventeenth century, depicts ten self-proclaimed cuckolded men, all of whom have gathered in a tavern in order to seemingly discuss their matrimonial relationships. Following traditional generic conventions, the ballad recounts the vocations of these men, which vary from a brewer to a tailor to a surgeon. Much like the cuckolds in Hey for Horn Fair, the cuckolds here are distinguished from one another, only to be unified by their cuckoldry. The twelve-stanza ballad devotes ten stanzas to the men: one cuckold per stanza. However, the two stanzas that frame the men’s individual monologues are important in order to make clear that two things unite these men: “These [73] [are] good honest Tradesmen,” and they are “all Cuckolds in grain.”^[25] The assertion that these are “good honest Tradesmen” is a subversion of the traditional perception of the cuckold who is seen as weak, effeminate, and fiscally irresponsible. The ballad depicts these cuckolds as productive and confident members of society. Furthermore, the wide range of their vocations indicates the ubiquity of cuckold relationships; cuckolds are not merely tailors (an occupation often deemed effeminate or delicate); they are also cooks and surgeons.^[26] What is most noteworthy, however, is the phrase cuckolds in grain, a sure reference to the nature of gathering to drink. This phrase, which concludes both the first and last stanzas of the ballad, has an additional layer of meaning embedded here. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online defines in grain as: “downright, by nature, pure and simple, genuine, … indelible.”^[27] This layered reading makes clear that these men are not only connected through their love of drinking, but that they also share something much more intimate: an innate, or ingrained, sense of being a cuckold. This is a fairly progressive assertion, as it contends that cuckoldry is not merely a sexual practice for these men; it also functions as an identity, which then becomes the basis for their communal bonding.

This ballad amplifies the communality found in Hey for Horn Fair, in which the cuckolds are united by their individual encounters with the merchant. He, not their cuckoldry, is what unites their narratives. Here, the cuckolds appear to have established this community of their own accord. The communal atmosphere created by these men who appear [74] to have nothing more in common with each other than their cuckoldry is further exemplified by the ballad’s full title: “The Catologue of Contented Cuckolds: Or, A Loving Society of Confessing Brethren of the Forked Order, etc. who being met together in a Tavern, declar’d each Man his Condition, resolving to be contented, and drown’d Melancholly in a Glass of Necktar.” Considering this full title, it seems remiss to refer to these men simply as a catologue. Instead, though they are presented as a list of professional types, the second part of the title, which refers to them as a loving society and part of the Forked Order, gives them a kind of group legitimacy, where what legitimates them is their shared forked, or horned, status.^[28] The ballad also utilizes the word brethren, which we have previously seen in the ballad “Cuckolds all a-Row.” However, here the cuckolds are not merely brethren; they are confessing brethren, an important distinction. The adjectival connotation is that these are men who fully embrace and tout not only their cuckoldry but also their inclusion in a wider group of cuckolds. Additionally, the full title refers to these men’s cuckoldry as a condition. Although one reading of this suggests an ailment or medical condition, this can also be interpreted as an inherent quality or state of personhood. This reading reinforces my understanding of the phrase cuckolds in grain, as the usage of condition only bolsters the sense of identity these men experience regarding their cuckoldry. The group is marked by its openness — the men in this forked community speak openly about their status as cuckolds, rather than hiding it in shame, and their gathering can be perceived as both community building and public shaming. This public shaming differs from traditional depictions of cuckold shaming, with skimmingtons being the most notorious example of this. Whereas skimmingtons are an example of a complete lack of agency,^[29] the men in these depictions appear to be [75] actively participating in a cuckold relationship and defining the meanings and connotations of being identified as such.

Using one’s agency to this end seems paradoxical, especially in a culture that insists on a husband’s ability to control his wife and the assurance that his children are truly his own offspring. I have already established that the wittol is one type of cuckold that justifies this arrangement through financial compensation. And though the trope of the wittol applies to certain contented cuckolds, such as Allwit in Middleton’s drama, the majority of the men in “The Catologue of Contented Cuckolds” do not appear merely contented, so much as pleased by the tales they share. One such account reads:

My Wife, quoth the Brewer, is charming and fair,
She will ramble a broad, but I never know where;
Yet at midnight sometimes she returns with a Spark;
Nay, I sometimes have found her at Put in the dark[.]^[30]

While put in the fourth line may simply be referring to the contemporary card game of the period, it is unlikely that this game would be played in the dark or that it would be salacious enough for the husband to remark upon it here. This innocuous reading is supplanted by a secondary meaning of put, which, according to the OED Online is “an act of thrusting or pushing,”^[31] which certainly fits the sexual nature of the ballad better. This particular stanza is of special importance because it gives the wife agency much in the same way that contemporary cuckold relationships do. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick claims that cuckoldry is “by definition a sexual act, performed on a man, by another man,”^[32] largely reducing the woman to a mere participant. However, the brewer in this ballad returns the agency [76] to the wife, for she is the one actively seeking out extramarital partners, and, more importantly, it is not her partner the brewer finds doing the thrusting, but the wife herself, positioning her as the sexual dominant. In this depiction, the male sexual partner is the one reduced to irrelevancy, and the wife and the husband become the active agents of their own sexuality, despite the fact that they are not having sex with each other. The additional partner simply becomes the conduit through which their sexual arrangement works.

In the brewer’s first four lines, his tone is rather objective about his wife’s extramarital encounters, reiterating them merely as fact. However, the concluding couplet of this stanza, which each cuckold repeats with minor variations throughout the ballad, seems at odds with his initial neutral tone, as the brewer hints at the emotional difficulties in navigating and maintaining a cuckold relationship:

Yet I swear by this Glass of rich sparkling Wine,
I will now be contented, and never repine.^[33]

Moreover, the couplet indicates that the cuckolds find solace in the shared communal action of drinking together. Although their contentment may not be entirely organic and may be bolstered from the drink, this communal declaration indicates that they actively participate in this community.^[34] The importance of community to these men is furthered by the sailor’s narrative in stanza nine of the ballad, in which he addresses his fellow cuckolds as brothers, a common term of endearment amongst the cuckold communities we have analyzed here. Newmahr addresses the importance of communal acceptance to the contemporary kink community: “As much as community membership is derived from [77] identification, it is defined by drawing boundaries between people who belong in a group and those who do not …. In drawing these boundaries, the community reinforces and legitimizes group identity, and creates a safe social space for participants.”^[35] Although Newmahr is particularly interested in the discourses and communities surrounding sadomasochism and, more specifically, exchanges of pain, this taxonomic difference does not preclude the usefulness of applying a similar lens to cuckoldry, particularly as early modern cuckolds were certainly living on the margins of acceptable marital relationships.

Communal Celebration

The cuckold communities we have analyzed are taken to their zenith in the ballad “A General Summons for those belonging to the Hen-Peckt-Frigat, to appear at Cuckolds-Point, on the 18th of this Instant October.” Despite the connotation of the title’s hen-peckt (a common phrase applied to cuckolds), the ballad itself describes a group of men who appear quite happy to do their wives’ bidding. Before the ballad itself begins, a brief argument is laid out: “Your presence is required, and are hereby lawfully Summoned (as belonging to the Hen-Peckt-Frigat) to appear at Cuckolds-Point (being the antient Place of our Randezvous).”^[36] Two things are worth noting here. First, the summons for the cuckolds to appear is presented as overly legitimate by the phrase lawfully summoned. Such contractual language amplifies the legitimacy of the summons that we have already seen hinted at in “Cuckolds all a-Row.” The argument concludes by once again referring to the (presumably fictitious) legality of the cuckolds ’ [78] participation in the event: “whereof you are not to fail, under the Penalty of a Garret-Correction, and the Forfeiture of all your Goods and Chattels.”^[37] Secondly, the summons legitimizes cuckolds as a group by giving them historical context and a shared history by referring to “the antient place of our Randevzous,” though this is not unique to this summons. Recall that the location Cuckolds Point became essential to the mythos surrounding Horn Fair; therefore labeling this location as antient establishes the longevity of their gathering, while the entirety of the summons solidifies their legitimacy both as individuals and as a community by giving these cuckolds historical context for their sexual and communal identities. [79]

The ballad itself echoes many of the summonses we have previously seen, by asking cuckolds to gather and prepare for the fair. However, what is most remarkable about this ballad is the woodcut preceding it, which, because of its impeccable quality and specificity, was likely created for this ballad. This woodcut, depicted in figure 2.2, has many noteworthy aspects, though I wish to focus primarily on the setting, which recalls the tavern scene in “The Catologue of Contented Cuckolds.” Although both ballads do contain a woodcut, the woodcut in “The Catologue of Contented Cuckolds” merely portrays a standard tavern scene, with no cuckold paraphernalia in sight. Additionally, the woodcut used is a common one, appearing in nearly a dozen other ballads. The reusage of this woodcut does not indicate apathy on the part of the publisher; rather, it was “an incitement to engagement and debate” as “viewers had to work hard in order to locate or manufacture meaning.”^[38] However, the woodcut in “A General Summons” requires no work on the part of the viewer. Meaning does not need to be located or manufactured here, as the woodcut, which depicts a tavern that appears to be occupied solely by cuckolds, clearly reinforces the textual theme and tone.

It is first helpful to orient the layout of the scene. The two men in the foreground appear to be outside of the tavern, while the two men in the background are situated within the tavern itself, emphasized by the shading and the sign displayed outside the tavern. The gentleman handing out the summons carries a rather phallic staff that is adorned with horns, reminiscent of the staff utilized by the merchant in Hey for Horn Fair. Because of his staff, the summons, and his centrality in the image, it is possible he may be one of the Master Cuckolds depicted in many other summonses. The gentleman in the middle of the woodcut who stands at [80] the threshold of the tavern noticeably has no horns, and it is likely that the ballad’s admonishment to “remember your Foreheads adorning”^[39] is both a literal and a figurative reminder to this man. It is possible that this gentleman’s hand is extended to reach for the summons; however, the directionality of his hand indicates that he is reaching out as a form of greeting.^[40] Furthermore, the two men in the background are smoking and conversing, the horns on their heads seemingly an unremarkable adornment. Additionally, the sign on the outside of the tavern depicts a pair of horns, a clear indication of the clientele they are trying to attract, though whether this is on account of the occurrence of Horn Fair or is a more permanent fixture is unclear.

The ambiguity of this woodcut adds a layer of complexity to what is otherwise a straightforward ballad about Horn Fair. Christopher Marsh notes that “the appeal of a ballad lay not only in its textual content but also in the interaction among the words, the images, the melody, and the performance.”^[41] This interaction amongst the constituent parts is especially important considering this particular woodcut does not appear to accompany any other ballads, and it is likely that the publisher intentionally had this image created to coincide with the text. Let us first address possible interpretations of the woodcut on its own. One potential reading suggests that Horn Fair is occurring in the immediate moment — that the tavern’s sign, the gentlemen’s horns, the summons and staff held by the most prominent gentleman, and their gathering are simply part of the celebration and have little to do with true cuckoldry. Another reading blurs the lines of linear temporality and suggests that the two men outside of the tavern later retreat into the tavern, and the men depicted inside are merely the same two gentlemen after the one has been admonished and adorned with his horns. This reading improves upon the previous [81] because it gives preeminence to the practices of cuckoldry and communality, as the admonishment of the summons is respected. However, both of these readings neglect to consider the confluence of the text and image. As I have mentioned, many of these summonses command the presence of the cuckolds to clear a path for their wives and their wives’ lovers to safely traverse to Horn Fair, though many of them also remark upon cuckoldry more broadly. However, half of “A General Summons” is dedicated to outlining specific instructions regarding the cuckolds’ gathering. These instructions include the time and place to convene, the necessary items to bring, and the intended usage of these items. Such specificities are uncommon in other summonses, and, read in conjunction with the image, suggest that the scenario depicted in the woodcut occurs prior to Horn Fair and that the presumed Master Cuckold is ensuring compliance before the event occurs. Read in this light, the tavern potentially takes on a sense of permanence for this cuckold community that other readings neglect. This interpretation showcases the importance of community for these cuckolds and demonstrates their willingness to display their kinky lifestyles in ways in which the previous texts we have encountered do not.

Though all of these representations of cuckold communities portray the importance of community in different ways and to different degrees, it is clear that these are depictions of kinky people coming together to form communities with like-minded people in order to participate in and celebrate their shared interests and to renounce (or perhaps actually to revel in) their place on the margins of normative society. In contemporary kink spaces, one is often not considered a true participant in kink if one does not have some level of community involvement, which is a testament to how necessary community is to the practice of kink. I have only begun to outline the importance of community to premodern kink through these glimpses into early modern cuckold communities, which allow us to draw parallels between kink in the early modern period and [82] the twenty-first century. These depictions help legitimize contemporary kinky practices by providing historical evidence of these shared identities — the same objective that “A General Summons” has for its cuckolds.