Joan of Leeds Is Basically the Patron Saint of Horny People Everywhere

If you think you’re horny, you’ve got nothing on medieval Benedictine nun Joan of Leeds, who in 1318 actually faked her own death, all in the name of horniness.

When Joan of Leeds made the personal decision that a life without sexual intercourse — due to the pact of celibacy she’d made as a nun — just wasn’t going to work for her, she escaped her convent. And to do that, she faked her own death.

Now, we don’t know all that much about Joan of Leeds, and what we do know comes courtesy of a note written by archbishop William Melton in Latin, found in the margins of an old tome. Referring to the story of Joan as a “scandalous rumour,” here’s what he wrote:

Joan of Leeds “impudently cast aside the propriety of religion and the modesty of her sex,” and “out of a malicious mind simulating a bodily illness, she pretended to be dead … crafted a dummy in the likeness of her body in order to mislead the devoted faithful and she had no shame in procuring its burial in a sacred space amongst the religious of that place.”

“Seduced by indecency, she involved herself irreverently and perverted her path of life arrogantly to the way of carnal lust and away from poverty and obedience. Having broken her vows and discarded the religious habit, she now wanders at large to the notorious peril to her soul and to the scandal of all of her order.”

That’s right: this sly nun pretended she was gravely ill, made a human dummy (we imagine like teenagers do in the movies when they sneak out of the house and need to fool the ‘rents) and escaped from the nunnery — all to have sex. Glorious, raunchy sex (we want to believe).

One of the investigators at the University of York who worked to uncover this amazing tale, Professor Sarah Rees Jones, has said of Joan’s story that it’s “like a Monty Python sketch.”

Unfortunately, we don’t know what came of horny nun Joan of Leeds. Did she ever find that “carnal lust” she was seeking? Was she returned to the convent to live out her days as a celibate servant of god?

One thing’s for certain, though: Joan is a testament to the importance of living our sexual truth! Don’t let others tell you what kind of sex or how much sex you should be having — as long as you’re not hurting anyone, enjoy life and all the sex and joy that comes with it!

Were you familiar with the story of horny nun Joan of Leeds?

This article was originally published on November 4, 2020. It has since been updated.