late historian John Boswell has written books about Church toleration, if not sanction, of homosexuality in this period. His views remain extremely controversial and continue to stir up much debate over the issue. In his writings, Boswell discusses Christian same-sex unions in both canonical texts and in secular laws as they had been previously sanctioned by the Church. It has been argued, however, that “not a single Christian father, Penitentialist, Scholastic or Canonist, Protestant Reformer or Catholic Counter-Reformer or even any Orthodox, Coptic, or Nertorian ever wrote even a neutral, much less kind, word about sodomites.” (Johansson & Percy, p.179). Many scholars of medieval art and history agree that Boswell has distorted our understanding of Christian marriage in that he attempted to make a modern-day gay marriage out of the medieval practice of asexual same-sex spiritual bonding.
The earliest examples of homosexual sacred marriages are Byzantine devotional pictures of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, both Roman soldiers martyred around the year 300. Many icons were produced depicting the two together as physically and spiritually united. By the 600s the couple enjoyed a huge cult following in the eastern (later Orthodox) church. Sergius and Bacchus were the best known of several “paired saints” whose mutual devotion epitomised the ideal of self-sacrifice. These couples are often shown in tender embrace and are essentially a transposition of the pagan theme of committed lovers like Harmodius and Aristogeiton or Achilles and Patroclus onto a Christian image. Such pairings at times also included women like Perpetua and Felicitas.
The biographer of Saints Sergius and Bacchus wrote that “being as one in their love for Christ, they were also undivided from each other in the army of the world” (quoted in Saslow, p.61). When Bacchus refused to recant his beliefs, the emperor ordered him flogged to death. Sergius lamented his lost comrade as a “brother”, a term then charged with sexual potential. Later, Bacchus appeared to Sergius in a vision, prophesising that after Sergius’ death he would receive Bacchus as a heavenly reward for this suffering.
The blessing of Sergius and Bacchus was invoked in a religious ceremony performed frequently throughout the Middle Ages. The ceremony between two people of the same sex paralleled heterosexual marriages in that its purpose was also the joining together of two people in a sacred bond of mutual affection and support. After the ceremony, each would set up house and share their lives together (Saslow, p.61). Boswell has discovered dozens of texts verifying the existence of such same-sex unions. Some of these texts describe the rituals as involving certain aspects that resemble contemporary heterosexual orthodox marriages. The Greek ritual manuals for these ceremonies were widely copied, some well into the fifteenth century. Some accounts record that same-sex unions were even performed in Renaissance Italy until they were outlawed in the 1600s.
Same-sex unions in the Byzantine world stimulated in the West a similar ambiguous conflation of spiritual and physical desire. In the year 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne attempted to revive a Christianised “Holy Roman Empire” with its capital at Aachen in Germany. He modelled his new empire on Byzantium. Charlemagne’s courtiers wrote lyrically about male friendships. Many of their stories were full of quotes from classical authors recounting nostalgic moments of temptation by pederasty (Saslow, p.62). As a result of this return to Latin sources for inspiration, these authors began to blur the boundaries between what was permissible and what was forbidden in terms of the physical expression of same-sex love. The medieval church continued to grapple with issues concerning the carnal expressions of these lofty desires.
44. Jonathan, David and Saul from Somme le roi.
Illuminated manuscript. The British Library, London.
Between the time of Charlemagne to the year 1000, Western Europe had recovered from most of its social and economic problems resulting from internal and external strife, invasions and anarchy.
Food became more plentiful once again, wealth expanded, and populated urbanised centres sprang up. During this period, homosexuality was more widely reported among all classes of society – nobility, clergy, and commoners. Increasingly, the urban centres began to rival the aristocracy and the monastery as centres of culture. In the cities, same-sex social networks developed. Secular urban authorities cultivated an atmosphere of liberty and tolerance, turning a blind eye to an increasingly visible subculture of male prostitutes, bordellos, and taverns. By the twelfth century, there was an unprecedented flowering of homoerotic poetry, mostly written in Latin.
Most of these authors were churchmen who, in addition to writing on standard religious themes, also wrote works boldly celebrating love between men. Although a significant amount of literature resulted from this homosexual subculture, very little visual art was produced. Saslow has suggested that this was due to differences in patronage and audience for visual material, for whereas poems were private (easier to hide), inexpensive, and more accessible to the average sympathetic reader, paintings and sculptures were costly and required collective workshops that functioned in public view (Saslow, p.63). Moreover, the majority of artists were patronised by the church and any visual expression of homosexual feelings would have been frowned upon. An exception to this, however, is found in Romanesque architectural sculpture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The best known carving of this period containing homosexual content comes from the pilgrimage church of La Madeleine at Vézelay, built between 1096 and 1137. A capital from one of the church’s nave pillars shows the rape of Ganymede story (Saslow, p.64).
In addition to the designs on the church of Saint Madeleine at Vézelay, other architectural sculptures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in both France and Spain provide additional graphic illustrations of homosexuality.
In Romanesque Spain and at Sémalay in south-western France, for example, there exist architectural details showing male couples performing sodomy. At La Chaize-le-Vicomte, a column capital shows a pair of copulating monkeys to symbolise the bestiality associated with sodomy. At Châteaumeillant, another sculptured capital depicts two bearded men embracing and kissing, one with his erect penis exposed. Carved above this latter couple is the Latin phrase bac rusticani mixti (loosely translated as “Look at these crazy peasants”). At Cahors, sodomy is among the sins depicted in the blocks carved over the door ways. All of these works are unique compared to other medieval sculptures and have long intrigued and puzzled scholars (Saslow, p.65). Because these images were all depicted in pilgrimage churches leads many to believe that they most likely functioned as moralising sculptures intended to warn pilgrims against such sins.
45. David and Jonathan, 13th century.
Illuminated manuscript. The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
Despite church invectives against it, sodomy had become so visible by the late 1100s that church and state authorities felt compelled to root it out entirely. A series of heavy-handed reforms followed. In 1123, the Roman Catholic Church formally demanded celibacy of all the clergy who had, by that time, gained a notorious reputation for engaging in sodomy. The Third Lateran Council of 1179 specifically condemned sodomy and decreed excommunication for any member of the clergy or laity found guilty of this “crime against nature”. Heterosexual marriage was also strictly regulated and divorce was forbidden. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council required every believer to make regular confession to a priest. The Papal Inquisition was made permanent in 1233 to target all heretical acts and beliefs. By 1300, a slew of new civil laws decreed the death penalty for sodomy. Also, homoerotic poetry almost entirely disappeared. Art during these trying times was used primarily as propaganda in reinforcing the anti-sodomy message.
There were several forces besides religious and moral ones that contributed to the crackdown on sodomy during this period. For example, there was a growing fear of low birth rates and diminishing population. Hence an intolerance of non-procreative sex resulted. Another force was religious
