Chapter 2 – Homosexuality in the Middle Ages

      Unlike antiquity, the Middle Ages has been the period least studied for signs of Western homosexuality in art. The rise of Christianity and the increasing influence on the daily lives of people accounts for the near invisibility of homosexuality in the art of this period. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 381 under Theodosius the Great (346–95). Emperor Constantine (274–338) had legalised Christianity in the fourth century AD. The death penalty for male homosexual acts was first imposed in 342 by Emperors Constantine and Constans, and then again by the Theodosian Code of 390 (Warren Johansson and William A. Percy, “Homosexuality,” in Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage, eds., Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, New York, Garland Publishing, Inc, 1996, pp.160–61). Theodosius decreed death by burning for homosexuality. Lesbian behaviour had been similarly proscribed in the Middle Ages through a law in 287 AD imposed by Diocletian (245–313) and Maximianus. The death penalty for both male and female homosexual acts was not repealed in civil law until the late eighteenth century in most Western European countries.

      The extreme measures taken by these rulers were justified by theological rationalisations on sexual ethics ranging from Saint Paul to Saints Augustine and Jerome. Of all the church fathers, it was Saint Augustine who held the longest influence over sexual attitudes in the Christian West. Around 400 AD, Augustine launched an attack against classical myth and attempted to ‘correct’ its immoral pagan aspects. Relying heavily on the Old Testament, he insisted that all non-procreative forms of sexual gratification were wrong because their sole goal was pleasure and not propagation of the species.

      Between the fourth and fifteenth centuries, most art was produced under church patronage, and even private commissions were often mandated to have religious themes (Saslow, p.56). All representations of sexual acts, especially homosexuality, were discouraged and later attacked by the church. Christian intolerance against homosexuality resulted primarily from reaction to the hedonistic legacy of Greco-Roman paganism where homosexual practices were, in many instances, encouraged. Christianity set out to deny the body and all forms of earthly pleasures. When erotic themes do appear in medieval art, they tend to be couched in “solemn spirituality and ineffable mysteries” (Saslow, p.56). During the medieval period, homosexuality was split into two polarised camps: the classical ideal of amicitia (a chaste, intimate friendship), and sodomia (an unstable term condemning a range of sexual acts from anal sex, to masturbation and bestiality) (Saslow, pp.56–57). As invading ‘barbarians’ (mainly Germans and Celts) increasingly overwhelmed the Western Empire, many of the stringent anti-homosexuality measures initiated by Christian emperors became impossible to enforce.

      Those who eventually took control remained respectful of Christianity but were less inclined to invest so much energy into criminalising homosexuality. The last of the Church fathers, Pope Gregory the Great (590–604), did attempt, however, to convert the barbarians and came up with new ways to enforce the previous ban on homosexuality. One of the more effective means was through issuing penitentials, or manuals designed to instruct and aid priests in giving spiritual guidance to the laity. Penitentials first appeared in Ireland and England, and later spread to the European Continent. These manuals categorised sins according to their severity and assigned specific penances for absolving them. Without exception, all of the penitentials condemned sodomy, intercrural intercourse, and masturbation. Although the penitentials stressed penance over punishment for most sins, they did treat homosexuality more severely, especially where oral and anal sex were involved. Under Charlemagne (768–814), penances for sodomy were applied to the laity, but its practice was condemned and deemed unpardonable for monks (Johansson & Percy, p.166). The penitentials were primarily directed at men since lesbian sexual relations in general were scarcely mentioned.

      40. Lucas Cranach the Elder, Fountain of Youth, 1546.

      Oil on lime panel, 122.5 × 186.5 cm. Staatliche Museen, Alte Meister, Berlin.

The Unspeakable Vice

      During the Middle Ages theologians applied the term ‘sodomite’ to those whose sexual acts went “against nature”. Homosexuality was not, however, the only unnatural sin. Bestiality and all heterosexual acts that did not lead to procreation were also included. The legal definition of a sodomite was restricted to anal intercourse with a man or woman, or vaginal penetration of an animal. The sodomite was also reviled because he committed sacrilege in terms of marriage and did not honour his vow of chastity. The connection between sodomy and bestiality was a carryover from antiquity – times in which Christians associated pagan practices with sodomy and satyrs. In several encyclopaedias of animal lore (called Bestiares), science was used to condemn sexual variety. These books were very popular and drew upon authoritative classical writers such as Aristotle or Pliny, both of whom described the unusual sexual traits of certain animals. Church fathers associated these deviations in nature with homosexuality. The most reviled creatures in this lore were the hyena and the weasel, the former of which was believed to have the ability to change its sex and grow alternate genitalia once a year (Saslow, p.60).

      Once theologians defined all sexual relations between partners of the same sex as “sins against nature”, condemnation and repression by clerical and civil authorities followed. Sodomy was deemed more than just sinful, it was downright criminal.

      Along with Christianity, Judaism also played a role in criminalising homosexual acts and behaviours. The Old Testament books of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, as well as Deuteronomy 22:5 and 23:18, were interpreted as expressly forbidding male homosexuality, transvestism and prostitution (Johansson & Percy, in Bullough and Brundage, p.160). In the early church, before tradition or canonical texts became fixed, most people accepted the Judaic view that homosexuality, like infanticide, was a very grave sin (Johansson & Percy, p.161). The epistles of Saint Paul, heavily influenced by Judaic thought, comprise one third of the New Testament and are the earliest of preserved Christian writings. In them, Paul was explicit about sexual matters, categorically forbidding all sex outside marriage. He singled out homosexuality, even between females, for special condemnation, as well as transvestism of either sex, masturbation, long hair on males and other signs of effeminacy or softness.

      The early Middle Ages ended with an intense new wave of invasions that resulted in the dissolving of the Carolingian Empire in 817. Around the middle of the eleventh century, the Church reorganised itself and fervent clerics launched a vicious attack against sodomites. As

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