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Paul Halsall:
The Experience of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages
Preface
The following is a paper written in 1988. I would change some, perhaps many of
the conclusions, and certainly the theoretical approach. In particular I would
emphasis the position of large aggregates of human beings [i.e. cities and
monasteries] as
a necessary but not sufficient pre-condition for homosexual sub-cultures.
It should also be noted that this paper stands firmly against the social
constructionist model of homosexual cultures. It sees, in Western culture at
least, the persistent existence of recognizably homosexual sub-cultures which
recur whenever
opportunity presents itself. I am now much more open to constructionist
arguments, but would insist that the free variation some aspects of
constructionism seems to posit, does not exist:- in fact a small number of
formulations recur repeatedly.
The bibliography on medieval homosexuality in the ten years since this paper
was written has grown enormously. There is an up-to-date online bibliography
available. Anyone seriously interested in this topic needs especially to get
hold of the
following (full citations in the online bibliography):
Michael J. Rocke: Forbidden Friendship
James Brundage: Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe
John Boswell: Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe
Mark Jordan: The Invention of Sodomy
Bernardette Brooten: Love Between Women
Let me stress this was a term paper by a graduate student. It may still have
some interest, but it does not represent my current ideas, or what I would
regard as publishable material.
Paul Halsall
Halsall@murray.fordham.edu
Homosexual sex was widespread in the Middle Ages and there is abundant
information on what church writers and secular legislators thought about it.
Shoddy or partisan scholarship and a distinctly modern disdain of homosexuals by
scholars until recently marked
much of the discussion of the history of this medieval homosexuality. Since
1955, and especially since 1975, much work has been done that is of reasonable
quality [1]. The concentration has tended to be on the Church's, or society's,
attitude to homosexuality. This
paper takes a different tack and looks at the personal experience in the Middle
Ages of those we would now call homosexuals and the structures in which they
were able to experience their sexuality. Their experience fits in with the
wider experience of sexuality in
Middle Ages and this also will be considered. Naturally, we can say little
about what sexuality felt like for individuals, but a possible framework for
their experience can be reconstructed from existing sources. This will be,
necessarily, a framework for the experience
of homosexual males for significant information exists only about men and boys
[2].
The main focus of the present paper will be on the experience of homosexuality
for individuals and on what can be gleaned about the subcultures or other kinds
of social networks homosexuals belonged to in diverse medieval periods. There
are theoretical issues to
face in this inquiry, about the concept of homosexual and homosexuality, and
the overall place of homosexuality in the study of medieval sexuality. Only
after looking at these will we move to a consideration of sources and the uses
that can be made of them. A
examination of the often ignored issue of why people engaged in homosexual
activities will help us to focus better on the core of this paper which will be
to consider those medieval societies in which we have knowledge of
homosexuality and to see if they fit into any
typology. The typologies looked at are of the types of homosexuality we can see
present and at the social contexts in which this sexuality was expressed.
Use of Terms
Michel Foucault opened up the serious investigation of the history of sexuality
[3]. His view was that sexuality is socially constructed in a way similar to grammar,
and so to talk about homosexuality in the past would be a solecism; for
Foucault the experience of a
modern western gay man is incommensurable with same-gender sex in other periods
or cultures [4]. This distinctive perspective has become orthodox for many
writers [5]. John Boswell led the attack on Foucault's thesis [6], although his
own theory that there have
always been homosexual subcultures [7] does not seem to be verifiable. Other
authors not attached to structuralist theory, such as Guido Ruggiero [8], are
now joining Boswell. The core issue is did homosexual behavior exist before the
modern period as the affective
preference we call homosexuality? The word homosexual is a nineteenth-century
invention, and it is often suggested that one alternative, sodomy, had too
varied a meaning in the Middle Ages to substitute for it. Self-conception is
surely important in defining a
person's sexuality, but we need not be too realist about it: a thing does not
need a name to exist. Homosexual acts existed and even though the meaning of
the word sodomy has been much discussed for the Middle Ages, and it could be
applied to acts such as anal
intercourse between married people, in the majority of cases it refers to
various sexual acts between men [9]. A working definition is that
homosexuality, the desire for at least sexual contact with someone of the same
gender, is a perquisite of a person practicing
homosexual acts on a regular basis, even though as this paper makes clear, the
social framework may vary greatly.
Medieval Sexuality
A study of homosexuality fits into the wider history of sexuality in the Middle
Ages. Discussions of sex dating from the period are almost all ecclesiastical,
while current scholarly interest is with the sexual lives of lay people. This
requires an oblique use of sources
similar to that needed with the history of homosexuality.
Late antique thought in general had turned against sexuality [10]. The revival
of transcendence in philosophy downgraded the body and exalted rationality as a
path to divinity. Christian theologians took up the theme with gusto. In the
West, St. Jerome and St. Ambrose
conceived of sex as a way of tying the spirit to carnality [11]. St. Augustine
took up another platonic theme, that passion derogated from reason, and argued
that, while procreation was a virtuous end for sex, attempts to gain pleasure
were unnatural since rationality
was inevitably compromised [12]. His views set the tone for western
Christianity. Sex was permissible only within marriage and when it aimed at
procreation, and only then if you did not enjoy it too much [13]. This general
theme was particularized in discussions of
what was allowable between married people [14]. Masturbation was out, as were
anal and oral sex; all were pleasurable and did not lead to procreation.
Vaginal intercourse also was permitted only in what has become called the
"missionary position" and there was an
extended discussion of the sinfulness of having the woman on top, of entry from
behind and anal sex [15]. Eventually many commentators came to the conclusion
that any unusual coital positions were unnatural, although it was never agreed
exactly what was
permitted and the concept of "natural" proved to be flexible [16].
Clearly the theories of ostensibly celibate authors did not accord with the
practice and types of sexual activity practiced by heterosexuals. The
discussions of possible sins by theologians indicate that some people were
committing those sins; there is some evidence that
users of early medieval penitentials inquired into what sins a penitent had
committed [17] and so the penitentials do reflect practice as well as
churchmen's concerns. After the institution of compulsory confession at the
Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the practices of
the laity resulted in a new consideration of ethics by theologians; Bishop
Grosseteste of Lincoln, for instance, worked on Aristotle's Ethics, and new
handbooks for confessors were produced. This evidence shows that heterosexuals
in the Middle Ages practised a wide
range of sexual activity. As well as procreative sex in the missionary
position, heterosexuals seem to have enjoyed sex with the woman on top, in the
"doggy position" [18], and oral sex [19]. Heterosexuals also had anal
sex [20], and this seems to have been used as a
form of contraception along with coitus interruptus. In periods when marriage
was delayed we can also be fairly sure that masturbation was an outlet [21].
Other evidence, apart from conventional love literature, makes it clear that
people also loved each other on
occasion [22]. People do seem to have had psychological defenses against the
ecclesiastical onslaughts on their sexuality; there was a popular belief that
sex between married people was always without sin [23], and there was a phrase
si non caste, tamen cauts
[24].
This wider world of medieval sexuality includes homosexuality, and we have been
looking at it to establish that homosexuals were not alone in having their
sexuality negated by ecclesiastical ideology. Turning now to how historians
have approached this aspect of
medieval sexuality, we find that three themes predominate; biography, church
and society's views of homosexuality, and the persecution suffered by
homosexuals.
The least informative in terms of gaining a historical perspective on the
subject has been the biographical approach. There are numerous biographies of
St. Anselm, St. Aelred, William Rufus, Richard I and various renaissance
homosexuals. Little context has been
given to their sexual lives, and the goal is often prurient or to
"prove" that homosexuals are as good or better than heterosexuals
[25].
Another approach has been to look at society's view of homosexuality. This
takes into account church views and secular laws. Bailey's work [26] is well
known in this area, and the results of this sort of study have been
informative. The goal has often been to change
contemporary opinion.
The persecution of homosexuals has been the greatest concern of many writers on
the subject. Gay writers in particular have seen the origins of modern
oppression in Christian Europe [27]. The two major themes have been the growth
of intolerance and actual
persecution. John Boswell [28] argues strongly that Christianity only became
hostile as it absorbed the effects of social changes which had nothing to do
with religion. Furthermore, it was only in the thirteenth century that
condemnation of homosexual activity became
a major theme. Boswell sometimes overstates his case [29], but he is on to
something; churchmen become much more consistent after the mid-thirteenth
century in their condemnation at the same time that in the secular sphere
capital punishments begin to be handed
out [30]. Various writers have drawn links between the treatment of Jews,
lepers, heretics and homosexuals [31]. Each group tended to be scarred with the
stigma of the others. Physical persecution followed the increase in
intolerance. The burnings began when the
secular lawmakers took up the ecclesiastical themes [32]. Their motives were
explicitly religious; fear of the divine vengeance meted out to Sodom was often
given as a reason for the new laws. Why these laws and punishments were made
only in the thirteenth
century is disputed. Gay activist writers tend to see Christian morality
entering the laws, but equally important was that it was only in the thirteenth
century that secular laws were made in great numbers and law makers looked to
Roman Law which since Justinian had
explicitly condemned homosexuality.
If physical persecution was a factor in the lives of homosexuals only in the
late Middle Ages, it was not the only way they might have felt attacked. They
were constantly aware, if they had contact with the church, that their sexual
desires were sinful. There has been
a tendency to see homosexuals as unique in this respect, but as the discussion
of sexuality in general made clear, almost all sexually active people were in a
similar position. Heterosexuals were allowed at least some sexual expression
and the whole orientation of
society towards marriage gave them a way of coping. Homosexuals' social
networks will be examined to see if they provided a similar mechanism [33].
Sources
There were earlier studies of the history of homosexuality, but the work of
Derrick S. Bailey [34] marked a new departure in the use of sources. Bailey's
sources were canon law, secular law such as Justinian's Code and the barbarian
codes, and some writings of the
church fathers and their medieval successors. Bailey's work was constantly
referred to by many of the other writers in following two decades [35]. John
Boswell [36] also uses these sources, although with a broader knowledge, but
due to his determination not to look
only at negative attitudes to homosexuals, he introduced evidence from sources
such as troubadour and other poetry and writings of monastic authors such as
Aelred of Rievaulx. Boswell also took care to look at the context in which, for
instance, canons were issued,
and was able to question Bailey's interpretations [37]. In this way and by
taking medieval discussions of friendship as relevant to homosexuality, Boswell
has widened considerably the evidence available for discussion.
It is important to look at these sources because both Bailey and Boswell are
interested in a global understanding of medieval homosexuality; Bailey is
mainly interested in the Church's view while Boswell also attempts to
comprehend the lifestyle of homosexuals. The
problem with both is that their sources are discontinuous [38]. There is much
information, but we are talking about a thousand years of history on a diverse
continent. Canon law and commentaries, along with theological and spiritual
writing do allow a fairly continuous
analysis of the views of the clerical elite. The need to jump from Spain to
France to Scandinavia [39] does not allow a similar analysis of the actual
situation of homosexual people. Law codes, canons and scholarly commentaries
are difficult to tie to what was
happening in particular places to particular individuals. They necessitate that
the authors who use them talk about "medieval culture" and
"Christian attitudes" over large areas and long time periods. The
hermeneutical difficulties of using such contrasting sources as
seventh-century Visigothic codes and twelfth-century monastic writing to say
anything consistent about medieval homosexuality are immense.
There has been an increase since 1978 in the number of studies looking at local
areas. Ruggiero, Goodich, Gade, Krekic, Roth [40] and others have used local
inquisition records, court records and poetry to present the history of
homosexuality from such diverse local
areas as Norway and Dubrovnik to Venice and Florence. The opportunity is now
available to use these local records to come to refine more general
conclusions. Many of the sources already used on a global basis can also be
used as local evidence, for instance St.
Peter Damien's Liber Gomorrhanius [41] might be looked at for the information
it gives on central Italy in the eleventh century. The goal in this paper is to
direct attention away from the generality and to the variety of homosexual
people's lives.
Motivations for Homosexuality
Given the difficulties of homosexual sex in the Middle Ages, it is legitimate
to ask why people chose to act in this way. No etiology has ever been
established for homosexuality and its expression has varied from culture to
culture; in most it has been tolerated or
approved, but in others it has been absent [42]. In contrast with some
non-European cultures homosexual activity is referred to in such diverse places
and times that it always was an option, a conceivable possibility, in the
Middle Ages. John Boswell thinks it is
basically an urban phenomena, and this is true of anything we can call a
subculture, but the evidence of the Irish penitentials, produced in a land
without cities, suggests that the urban aspect should not be pushed [43].
It might be thought that homosexual activity, seen as personal motivations and
desires, does not fit into any economic pattern. Differing patterns of
heterosexual institutions such as marriage can be linked to economic trends.
Marriage as a means of property transfer
among the twelfth-century French aristocracy was a different institution to
that of marriages between peasants, or between town dwellers. Homosexual
subcultures, however, emerged fully only in urban areas. We can see the impact
of the commercial revolution
here. The growth of towns was connected to the rise in trade. Several factors
resulted from this. First of all, especially in Italy, the cities were large
enough to provide anonymity; social control was shifted to the family and the
magistracy and away from the
community at large. This "gap" in social control is what allows a
subculture to develop. Delayed marriage in late medieval Italian towns also
meant that there were sexually mature young people who might experiment given
the lack of heterosexual opportunity [44].
Men who were by inclination homosexual were also given longer to discover this
before being married. Some reasons for being homosexual, or developing
homosexual traits, do seem to have an economic base.
Another explanation for being homosexual has been suggested, again in the
Italian context, by Herlihy [45]. He takes up the issue of the age
differential, which could be up to fifteen years, between married couples in
Florence. This meant that mothers were often as
near their children's' age as their husbands. Herlihy thinks this affected
infantile development, retarded the age of marriage and produced a
"feminized" society [46]. This is a Freudian explanation of
homosexuality, and apart from being unprovable does not explain why
a "feminized" man should become a distant paterfamilias when he
finally married after the age of thirty.
One of the reasons people have sex is usually overlooked. They find it
pleasurable [47]. There is no sexual activity that is unique to homosexuals,
although some acts may be more frequent. The sources available enable us to say
something about the type of sexual
activities homosexuals practiced. Early medieval Irishmen seem to have
confessed to anal intercourse, interfemoral intercourse [48], and mutual
masturbation [49]. Oral sex including the swallowing of semen [50] was also
noted. We have no information as to whether
kissing was practiced. Flagellation seems to have been a penance rather than a
pleasure. St. Peter Damian thought this constellation of activities was
prevalent amongst his clerical contemporaries in central Italy [51]. When we
hear the voice of homosexual poets
from Spain, Arab writers discuss anal sex but, along with their more chaste
Jewish counterparts, the emphasis is on kissing [52] and its pleasures. Kissing
was about as far as monastic writers in Christian Europe would go [53],
although the Templars were accused of
analingus [54]. Renaissance Florence saw prosecutions for anal sex [55}, and
Ruggiero recounts the trials of a transvestite prostitute and another case in
which the relationship of the two charged parties was sadomasochistic [56].
There was then a variety of sexual
activity practiced by homosexuals and the repertoire seems more or less
complete. It can be noted that discussion of oral sex apart from kissing is
relatively rare, and that interfemoral intercourse is discussed as frequently
as anal penetration. Medieval writers and trial
reports all seem to assume that anal sex was always done from behind. All these
activities were condemned by the Church and society throughout the period. For
people to break such persistent taboos we must acknowledge just how strong the
drive for sexual
pleasure is in many individuals - as strong and sometimes stronger than any
moral precept.
Types of Homosexual Activity in Medieval Europe
Discussion of medieval homosexual sex has brought us to one of the major themes
of the paper - the types of homosexuality we can see in medieval Europe.
Randolph Trumbach [57] has suggested one way of understanding the variety. His
thesis is that there are
homosexually-oriented men in most societies, but equally that there is usually
horror at the idea of an adult male playing a passive role in sex, the
so-called "women's role". He suggests that two strategies have
normally [58] been adopted to cope with the conflict; the
first allows men to have sex with adolescent boys, who are allowed to be
passive for this period of their lives, or there are fully accepted adult male
transvestites. These were strategies to retain the masculinity of one partner.
For Trumbach, Christian society is unique
in rejecting both active and passive homosexual activity, and because of this
there is the phenomenon of homosexual subcultures in West. He thought that
because of this there must always have been homosexual subcultures in the West.
Trumbach is wrong - there
have been long periods in western history without any discernible homosexual
subculture [59]. Trumbach was also at fault in not distinguishing between types
of sexual activity and types of social networks or subcultures; the two are not
necessarily connected. His
discussion of types of sexual activity raises the legitimate question of why in
some societies we observe homosexual relations between equals, and in others
the adult/adolescent pattern [60]. This is not reducible, as Trumbach supposes,
to whether or not there was a
homosexual subculture. There were societies such as Spanish Jewry which show
signs of a conscious subculture but where all the evidence points to
adult/adolescent activity, and places where the opposite seems to hold.
Trumbach's theory is far too rigid, but has
value in raising questions about the variety of forms homosexuality takes. This
variety is the subject now under consideration.
This section will look at those societies [61] in which we can see the first
type of pattern of sexual activity, that between men and boys, or where one
partner played a definitely passive role in sex. There were real variations
within this pattern.
Scandinavia has left a little evidence in law and literature about homosexual
practice [62]. A single regulation of 1164 survives against all homosexual
activity, but does not seem to have been enforced [63]. The literature makes it
clear that homosexual acts were
acceptable as long as a man played a "male" role. There was a word
"argr" or "ragr" used to insult men who had played a
receptive role; the indication is that anal sex was the activity imagined [64].
Gade asserts that homosexual relationships existed in Norse society
[65], but offers no proof of this from either law or literature. Old Norse
society seems to have been one where it was acceptable for most men [66] to
express homoerotic desire, especially with slaves, but where no evidence of
homosexual social networks survives.
The sex in question is usually described as between men; a strong distinction
between active and passive roles does not here reflect any emphasis on
pederasty.
Medieval Hebrew/Spanish culture has left a more varied record of homosexual
activity than Scandinavia [67]. Maimonides took a strict view of homosexual
activity and admonished both partners, but seems to have been more lenient when
one of the partners was
under nine years old [68]. Although this would be a young age to have sex, this
Rabbinic view has some links with the Hebrew/Spanish literary culture whose
poets wrote many beautiful verses dedicated to the love of boys. The most
notable poets of the period wrote
on the theme, and there seems to have been no question of them copying ancient
Greek forms, although Arabic ghazal poetry was known to them. The allusions in
the poetry were distinctly Jewish:-
Like Joseph in his form,
like Adoniah his hair.
Lovely of eyes like David,
he has slain me like Uriah [69].
The sexual activity referred to by Jewish poets, unlike Muslims, did not go
beyond kissing [70] and fondling. There were themes and images that recurred in
this genre of poetry from the eleventh to thirteenth century. The poets knew of
each other's work, were widely
read, and were integrated in society [71]. There was here then, the same
active/passive pattern of homosexuality as in Scandinavia, but there the
similarity ends. Amongst Spanish Jews homosexuality was a question of sex with
boys, but it was also surrounded with a
halo of romance. The boys suffered no disgrace, although sex with bearded
youths was despised, and there was a literary and social network of those who
were attracted to other males.
There are numerous references to homosexual activity in literature in
twelfth-century Christian France. Here the evidence of the type of sexual
activity is mixed. The poetry of the homosexual bishops Baudri of Bourgueil
(1046-1130) and his friend Marbod of Rennes
(1035-1123) [72] reflects the situation of Jewish Spain with an emphasis on
pederasty and some awareness by the poets of each other's work. The bishops
were even less forthright about the sexual activity they envisioned than the
Jewish poets. However, pederasty
probably was not all that was going on; Ivo of Chartres, at the same period and
in the same region, discusses sodomy and fellatio distinctly from pederasty
[73], and Peter Damian, who wrote at the same period although in a different
place, mentions mutual
masturbation, interfemoral sex and "the complete act against nature"
[74] without making a special complaint of pederasty or one partner being
passive. For the poets however, pederasty, and by implication an active/passive
distinction, was the norm but this might have
been a literary topos reflecting an awareness of Roman literary themes [75].
Trumbach's first type of homosexuality, where a great distinction is made between
active and passive roles is made, does then appear to have occurred in medieval
Europe [76]. In the instance where the strategy was most clearly to preserve
the masculinity of one
participant, Scandinavia, pederasty does not seem to have been an issue. Where
we find pederasty as the pattern of active/passive activity our evidence comes
from individuals who do not stress their own masculinity. So while
passivity/activity is a fair way to typify
sexual activity, more than just the desire to preserve masculinity was at
issue; in the Jewish case, Mosaic law was slightly less harsh on pederasty and
Christian intellectual poets had classical models to consider. Trumbach's
theory may be correct for "primary"
cultures, ones that do not have to come to terms with previous cultural norms,
but in Jewish and Latin Christian societies constant referral to earlier
classical formulations requires that anthropological data and theories be used
with care.
Homosexual activity where there was not an active-passive pattern would, in
Trumbach's theory, be unique to the West and related to the subculture he
thought always existed. Here we are talking about the possibility of reversing
sexual roles in a given culture, or
where no strategy was deliberately adopted or expected by society to preserve
masculinity. In every culture there would be some who preferred an active or
passive role, but the strategy, if it could be called that, would be the agreed
pleasure of the participants. Was
this sort of sexual pattern evident in any time or place in the Middle Ages?
Early medieval Irish confessors, as reflected in their penitentials, were not
worried by pederasty and made no great distinction between active and passive
activity. They do distinguish between men and boys and talk about sexual acts
that are mutual [77] and do not fit
into the active/passive paradigm. The penitential of Cummean (c. 650) in
particular talked about boys having sex together [78] and Columban (c. 600)
instructed that a sodomite should never be housed with another person [79]
without mentioning the age of either
person. Sex between monks was condemned frequently, and here also there was
some equality in that sexual activity was between men of similar status. So in
early Ireland [80], where there is no evidence of any homosexual subculture,
there may well have been the
option of sex on an equal basis. In this case Christian condemnation of both
parties may ,as Trumbach predicted, have led each partner to act for pleasure
rather than to preserve social status. The only problem concerns the degree to
which we can trust the
penitentials to reflect social reality.
Monastic writing on love and friendship in the twelfth century represents some
of the earliest evidence we have of the views of homoerotically inclined men.
Unlike Baudri of Bourgueil's musings over pretty boys, writers such as Anselm
and Aelred of Rievaulx wrote
to other monks. The objects of their affection were younger men but they
envisioned lifelong and exclusive relationships, such as the affair Anselm had
with the young monk Osbern [81]. It is not clear what part sex played in these
relationships; although it is not
mentioned overtly by the writers they were attracted to males and all their
emotional life centered on men [82]. In this milieu also we can perhaps allow
some sort of equality in the activities of homosexuals [83].
Contemporary with these loving monks, there was a very different society of
young fighting men, the aristocratic elite of northern France. Duby described
the life of aristocratic youth and thought it possible that they had sex
together [84]. Possibly the education of
knights in all-male groups, for many years with little prospect of early
marriage, would have encouraged homosexual activity [85]. Certainly Richard I,
who embodied twelfth-century kni