Sodomy, Masculinity, and Law in Medieval Literature
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His contemporary Strabo reiterated this charge, perhaps basing his infor- mation on the same source: “Not only are the Celts fond of picking fights [strife], but among them it is considered no disgrace for the young men to be prodigal of their youthful charms.”23 A century later, Atheneus, clearly familiar with Diodorus’ account, wrote: “Among the Barbarians, the Celts equally, although they have beautiful women, prefer boys by far. And often certain among them will have two favorites who sleep by them upon the hides of beasts.”24 All three comments supposedly find their source in Poseidonius’ now-lost account of his travels in Gaul before the time of Caesar’s conquest.More likely to have left some vestige in medieval folk practices was the Indo-European practice of initiation ceremonies which included some sort of ritualized contact between older and younger men. There is evidence that ancient Greeks’ initiation ceremonies contained a sexual element, as did those of some Germanic tribes.25 Those sons of land holders who passed through the initiation successfully were inducted either into a religious society or a group of warriors. Only one son per family was allowed to marry, and it was also he who inherited the father’s property. The other sons were never allowed to marry for fear of dispersing the family wealth. Consequently, their heterosexual outlets would largely have been confined to prostitutes or women of inferior classes since the behavior of the women of their own class was subject, at least in theory, to strict patriarchal controls. It is supposed that it was within these warrior groups that ritualized pederastic initi- ations were most prevalent. Very similar practices obtained among the Norse and Irish where fosterage ended for boys at age fourteen, after which time they were inducted into fianna in which sexual license and rape, hunting, fighting etc., skills necessary to the future warrior, were common.26 David Greenberg theorizes that pederasty might well have been institutionalized among these peoples as well, though he speculates (problematically) that their priests were probably reluctant to report it.27
Bernard Sergent discusses at some length the antecedents and ves- tiges of these pederastic rituals, calling them “educative, initiatory, and institutionalized.”28 In typically tripartite Indo-European societies, these rituals persisted through time whenever the second order, the war- rior class, dominated the priestly class, as it did amongst the Gauls.29
As in many non-Indo-European cultures, the young men who acceded to warrior status and the consequent privilege of the active sexual role in such rituals, typically spent one year, or perhaps slightly more, serv- ing as passive sexual partners as they apprenticed to their master. As in documented cases from the South Pacific, such rituals served not only to make men of boys but, more importantly, to consolidate male power and privilege by feminizing potential rivals (young men who were completely dependent upon them for their social advancement), and stigmatizing the notion of the feminine.30 It is not at all clear when such rituals ceased to operate in European societies or to what degree they continue to be played out during initiation ceremonies into elitemale groups. Did they disappear as a result of legislation, social change, increased visibility in the media age, or do they simply go on unnoticed in exclusively military or elite homosocial circles?31
Similar questions arise when dealing with literary representations of foster parentage, as in the archetypal relationships between maternal uncles and their charges, the sons of their sisters, that one finds in many twelfth-century texts and in much anthropological work.32 According to Bremmer and Graf, such matrilineal relationships were characteristic of Indo-European peoples and evidence from Vedic texts suggests that the same held true for Indo-Aryan peoples.33 They cite the importance of such relationships among the ancient Hittites, Greeks, Romans, and Germanic tribes and the use of this motif in French medieval literature based on Celtic sources. The instructional apprenticeship at the hand of the uncle, and the initiation rites through which the young man passed on his way to warrior/knight status, might also have included some sort of ritualized sexual acts. As part of ancient Cretan rituals, for example, adolescent boys were abducted in mock-kidnapping raids. They were isolated from the community for a period of months, during which time they learned hunting and warrior skills, and acceded to the role of active, masculine sexuality, after having played the passive partner in sexual acts with their abductors. Boys who passed successfully into this second stage assumed the privileges of men of their class, attained status as warriors, and were expected to marry and reproduce as well as carry on this tradition.34
This brings us to a curious passage in Peter of Abano’s 1310 com- mentary on Pseudo-Aristotle’s Problemata, in which he discusses how pleasure can be remembered and serve as the springboard for desire in the future. Peter takes young children as his example, and mentions that those who experience sexual pleasures before they are physiologi- cally ready to ejaculate are most at risk of constructing their “sexuality” around those memories. Young boys, in particular, are at risk, since “their nature is soft and tender.”35 This leaves them susceptible to imprinted sensual impressions, stored in the memory for future referral. Adolescent boys are also at risk spiritually, according to Peter, since their memories can revive desire with great force, which in turn leads to satisfaction of the desire through repetition and finally to habit. He explains that this is so because boys at the age of puberty are “frequently subjected [supponi]and rubbed around the anus.”36 This, he theorizes, is why many soci- eties outlaw intercourse with boys. Several questions should occur to the suspicious reader of his text and, more broadly, of his era. Though he is writing almost a century after the texts treated in this book, his reference is to the earlier Problemata,a text which circulated in the Latin West after its translation c. 1260 by Bartholomeus.37 The authors are not referring to a new cultural practice but to a practice that is recognizable to them even in the pseudo-Aristotelian account. Why were these boys rubbed, by whom, how frequently, and with whose knowledge? Peter’s concerns hint at a larger complex of cultural anxieties about the use of adolescents for sexual satisfaction and the silence that surrounds such activities.
Theological and Ecclesiastical Responses
Any attempt to survey how accusations of sodomy were used in the Middle Ages must begin with those reformers within the Church who were advocating more active control of behavior. What had once been regulated indirectly, in the form of moral teachings and penance after the fact, would, in the twelfth century, become subject to active enforce- ment. Preemptory warnings, threats, regular examination of conscience are all part of the program. This progressive incursion of the Church into private and domestic spheres reflects increased militancy at the end of the eleventh century on a number of fronts. The intent of Rome was to confront and contravene the traditional right of civil authorities to govern certain areas of social behavior and to combat a longstand- ing unofficial tolerance for married clergy.38 The Investiture Contro- versy of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries led, in turn, to resolve on the part of Church reformers to solidify control by claim- ing that even secular customs, such as the investiture ceremonies of knights, should fall under their jurisdiction.39 The Gregorian reforms of the late eleventh century already included opposition to clerical mar- riage as well as simony.40 Peter of Damian’s Book of Gomorrah can be seen as part of this larger “reform” movement, as can the conflicts in England at the turn of the century between Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Kings William Rufus and Henry I over the issues of lay investiture, clerical marriage, non-celibate priests, hereditarysuccession, incestuous marriages, long hair on men, and, of course, sodomy.41
In 1102, Anselm ordered King William (Rufus) to hold a Council on the reformation of morals and correction of abuses in the kingdom, an order that the King refused to honor.42 Anselm persisted and in 1102, at his instigation, the Council of London issued its acta, declaring that sodomy should henceforth be confessed as a sin.43 Such decrees imply political posturing as much as pressing moral concern for the welfare of individual souls. When Anselm presente
d to the King his objections to sodomy, incest, proper dress, etc., William is reported to have asked: “What are you getting out of this?”44 A few years earlier, Anselm himself, when pressed to take action against sodomy, had justified his reluctance to prosecute by claiming that the practice of sodomy among the clergy was so prevalent that it defied any serious effort at reform.45 Many, he intoned, were so accustomed to its presence and its public acceptance that they did not even realize it was wrong.46 Despite his public refusal to ordain men accused of sodomy (or the sons of married priests) and his call to all those so inclined, already within the clergy, to desist from their actions, Anselm did not support Peter Damian’s calls to mount a concentrated effort, spearheaded by Rome, to extirpate those guilty of sodomitical relations from the clergy and monastic communities.47
This has perplexed some scholars while others have pointed out that he, himself, had probably had some experience with highly emotional same-sex friendships.48
Marriage became the principal ground on which this battle between secular authorities and the Church hierarchy took place.49 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a marriage that satisfied consanguin- ity regulations was considered valid once two requirements had been met: an exchange of vows and consummation (copula carnalis).50 The presence of a priest and witnesses was therefore not technically required; two persons could marry themselves and their own oath was considered binding.51 Nonetheless, the role of the clergy grew over the same period and they began to de-emphasize sexual consummation as the ultimate sign of marriage in favor of the more essential feature: that the oath be freely given and the consent publicly declared.52 This strategic move had the effect of supporting the liberty of the individual to choose his/her fate, even in the face of seigniorial control, thus driving a wedge betweenthe individual subject, secular authorities, and family.53 There were two major effects of this change. Greater attention was focused on the man as an individual, still part of, but also independent from, the group; and on women’s choice, in what had heretofore been a simple exchange contracted between men.54 The priest gradually came to dominate the marriage ceremony and it was his presence and control of discourse that was definitive, rather than the traditional formalized exchanges between families.55 Though marriage would not officially be made a sacrament for another two hundred years, it began to be listed amongst the other six sacraments over the course of the twelfth century.56 Further incursions into the control of marriage occurred in the form of increased attention paid to levels of consanguinity and the regulation of periods during which sexual relations could and could not be entertained.57 Evidence of the success of these initiatives can be seen in Hugh of Saint-Victor’s declaration that it is the verbal pledge that seals the marriage contract (obligatio verborum) and the love of the two parties that serves as the sacramentum of marriage. It goes without saying that these changes did not come easily.
Clerical celibacy, a second area of major concern, was imposed and reinforced at the First and Second Lateran Councils (1123, 1139) and was claimed as definitive doctrine by 1148. Thereafter the Papacy issued regular decrees warning people not to attend Masses read by married priests or priests with concubines.58 There was considerable opposi- tion on the part of the clergy to enforced celibacy and the riots of 1074 indicate that the opposition was also popular.59 Once again, it was several generations before many of the Church’s innovations were thoroughly accepted.60 As late as 1194, Duby notes, a rare account of a marriage ceremony included in the Historia comitum Ghisnensium (History of the Counts of Guˆines) includes the information that the (married) priest was accompanied to the bedside blessing of the couple by another priest and his own two sons.61 Nonetheless, over the next two centuries, many clergymen continued to live with concubines as openly as they had in the eleventh century, before the reforms. They could no longer be married, and synod lawmakers continued to insist that the official policies on celibacy be upheld, but neither effort was sufficient to end a long tradition of tolerance of clerical marriage.62 The unrelenting pressure to impose a code of chastity on the clergy had theeffect of erecting yet another disciplinary model of hide-and-seek, in-or- out; and, along with the attention given to marriage as a holy sacrament subject to ecclesiastical regulation, contributed indirectly to the growth of homophobic and misogynistic discourse during the same period.63
As late as 1380, in John Wyclif ’s De simonia, we find a statement that seems to reflect a longstanding popular opposition to celibacy: “the law of continence,” he declares, “annexed to the priesthood, that was first ordained against women, induces sodomy in all holy church.”64 John Boswell notes that there was even tension over who should be attacked first: married, heterosexual priests, or those suspected of sodomy. As evidence, he cites a Latin poem from the period in which a married cleric bemoans the actions taken against his kind while sodomites are left unpunished (“Quid pena vitas urgere gravi sodomitas?”).65
Sodomy is the third area that attracted great attention and, as we have seen, it surfaces already in the other two. In 1203 Innocent III launched a formal investigation into the practice of sodomy within the clergy in the Maˆcon region of France, a harbinger of the Inquisition to come. Sodomy was already seen as an adjunct of heresy, an accusation to be disproved or punished.66 At the Council of Lyons, in 1245, Innocent IV read to the dignitaries assembled in the cathedral a list of Emperor Frederick II’s crimes, in which he included the accusation that the Emperor took Saracen lovers, both male and female. The Council was called as a forum in which to declare war on the imperial ambitions of Frederick II, reiterating Gregory VII’s assertion that the Church has the divinely sanctioned right to interfere in secular and political matters. The charge of sodomy is but one among the many that were leveled, but its presence indicates that such charges operated even at the highest levels of political intrigue.
Mid-twelfth-century compilations of canon law (Gratian) and theol- ogy (Peter Lombard’s Sentences) made virtually no mention of sodomy or “unnatural” sex, except as it pertained to the use of women in het- erosexual sex.67 But at the Lateran Council of 1179, the practice of sodomy within the clergy was raised (“that incontinence which is against nature”), along with the issue of clerical marriage. It was decreed that clerics found guilty of that sin should forfeit clerical status or be restricted to a monastery. Laymen should be punished with excommunication and be driven from their communities.68 Both sodomites and married clergyshould be condemned and the guilty parties ordered to do penance and suffer loss of rank. The Councils of Paris (1212) and Rouen (1214) also addressed the issue of sodomy within the clergy while ignoring the ques- tion of its prevalence or the appropriate punishment amongst the laity.69
Between the Councils of 1179 and 1215 there appeared Peter Cantor’s Verba abbreviatum,a text intended for practical use by clergy and which proved quite popular.70 It provided for a new generation of scholars the most complete compilation of the arguments in favor of active con- demnation and persecution of sodomy.71 By the time that the Lateran Council of 1215 was called, Pope Innocent III, a former student of Peter, was vocal in his support for measures that would significantly increase the disciplinary power of the Church hierarchy over the faithful.72 It was accepted, for example, that secular authorities, as well as the clergy, should be allowed to impose penalties on sodomites for having had sex- ual relations. Such relations were now not only morally objectionable, but also criminally disrespectful of an increasingly rigid system of spiri- tual and civic regulations. Uniting regulation of marriage with control of non-Christians, the Council also stipulated that to avoid the possibility that a Christian might unknowingly have sexual relations with Jewish or Saracen women (or vice versa) “all these people, of either sex, and in all Christian lands, and at all times, shall easily be distinguishable from the rest of the populations by the quality of their clothes; especially since such legislation is imposed upon them also by Moses.”73 Civil statutes were to follow over the course of the next century, the firs
t recorded being from Bologna.74
By the late thirteenth century, homophobic discourse was institution- alized and sodomy had taken on mythic dimensions within the works of some theologians. Sodomites were now demons as well as sinners. In a Dominican compilation of scriptural glosses from the 1230s, Peter Cantor is credited with having told the story that at the moment of Christ’s birth all those guilty of sodomy died at once, unable, as “enemies of nature,” to “endure the advent of the author of nature himself ” (see quotation at the head of this chapter).75 Paul of Hungary, in his Summa of Penance, dedicates no more than three lines to any one of the other forms of luxuria (including incest) but sodomy merits three hundred lines of virulent denunciation!76 And yet, sodomites themselves were still not subject to extensive persecution. No one was convicted of sodomy atthe French courts of Louis IX (1226–70) or Philip IV (1285–1314) and only one trial and one execution are noted during the reign of Philip V (1316–22).77 This tolerance, or indifference, was soon to change across Europe. In 1288 the statutes of Bologna were revised once again, and this time the penalties imposed upon those convicted of sodomy moved from the simple fine imposed in 1250 to death by fire. Similar stringent measures were adopted across Portugal, in Sienna and Tortona.78