From - Sun Aug 31 08:53:17 1997 Received: from MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU (murray.fordham.edu [150.108.2.3]) by nico.bway.net (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id UAA25893 for ; Wed, 5 Feb 1997 20:57:27 -0500 (EST) X-UIDL: 855838710.005 From: HALSALL@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 21:01:06 -0500 (EST) To: halsall@BWAY.NET Message-Id: <970205210106.20643e31@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU> Subject: Gay Richard Discussion Status: RO X-Status: X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 15-NOV-1996 00:38:16.03 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 00:19:41 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L I am not sure why the many academic posters on this list have been quite as of late. Perhaps we have solved all the problems; or perhaps we just needed a rest. Nevertheless, with every bit of elitism I can muster, I must insist that this obsessive discussion of easily ascertainable details about various glamourous kings and queens in the past has nothing whatsoever to do with the middle ages; rather it amounts to a projection of people's Disneyland fantasies on to a period of European history which is crucial in understanding the development of the modern world, and which in its own terms created a vibrant and complex culture. If people really want to discuss Kings and Queens, (as opposed to the much more interesting topics of Kingship and Queenship), I am in no position to prevent such a discussion. But there are proper forums for doing so - the various SCA lists for example, and perhaps the new posters with the JUNO and AOL accounts, but no apparant exposure to the serious academic study of the middle ages, would do well to take their fantasing there. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"kt6%st-andrews.ac.uk@NJE.RL.AC.UK" 15-NOV-1996 05:21:01.58 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 10:20:38 +0000 (GMT) From: Kris Towson X-Sender: kt6@psych To: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" In-Reply-To: <199611150521.FAA02891@nje.earn-relay.ja.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks for sending this message, you have saved me a bit of typing! Cheers, Kris P.S. if you happen to run into Dr.Gyug today, tell him Kris says Hi ______________________________________________________________________________ Kris Towson Dept. of Mediaeval History University of St Andrews From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 15-NOV-1996 08:44:36.24 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 08:42:53 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L This list has been a little quiet of late [perhaps the actions of the University of Minnesota have so outraged Prof. Bachrach as to render him -- justifiably -- speechless?], but I am afraid that I do not share the view that this sort of forum [by far the largest collection of easily accessible professional medievalists] can or should function as a medium of education for the Gibson-entranced. Such places do exist [for instance the soc.history.medieval newsgroup], but if a pattern of repeatedly answering the same simple questions was established, I forsee rapid baling out. Many lists, to counter such problems, develop FAQs. As it happens this list has generated what may be considered -- in a sense -- the most extensive and ambitious FAQ on the net -- ie ORB [the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies] at http://orb.rhodes.edu Orb is of course being improved and extended in both content and usability all the time. It is also specifically directed at all levels of interest and exposure to the middle ages. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"HPGV80D@prodigy.com" 15-NOV-1996 16:09:46.84 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" Message-Id: <199611150647.BAA19136@mime3.prodigy.com> X-Mailer: Prodigy Internet GW(v0.9beta) - ae02dm02sc06 From: HPGV80D@prodigy.com (MISS PATRICIA M HEFNER) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 01:47:15, -0500 To: HALSALL@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU Date: 15 Nov 96 To: HALSALL@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU Subject: Re: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii -- [ From: Patricia M. Hefner * EMC.Ver #2.5.1 ] -- > > > If people really want to discuss Kings and Queens, (as opposed to the much more > interesting topics of Kingship and Queenship), I am in no position to prevent > such a discussion. But there are proper forums for doing so - the various SCA > lists for example, and perhaps the new posters with the JUNO and AOL accounts, > but no apparant exposure to the serious academic study of the middle ages, > would do well to take their fantasing there. > > Professor Halsall--I'm an SCA member with a baccalaureate in history, and I agree with you. I'm tired of these dumb notes that are just taking up space in my e-mail connection. ---Patricia Hefner > -------- REPLY, End of original message -------- From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 16-NOV-1996 08:59:08.62 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 08:56:31 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Medieval History is Not a "folktale" To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Ronald Schilling, I for one have found the responses to my post more interesting than all the fooling around with Kings and Queens. [Indeed, as I mentioned to one correspondent in private, I was beginning to fear a discussion of just how hot the poker had to have been.] I can see no justified reason for finding medieval history "interesting" and "lovable" and late Roman history as uninteresting. Just what do you think were the cultural foundations of the Western middle ages? And while I will, in contrast to some here, defend Tuchman as a writer, "Ivanhoe" is only worthy of study as an artifact of 19th century Romanticism. And that is my problem: I am just as Romantic as the netx person, but the confusion of history with Romance is problematic. Perhaps we should just discuss 'The Hobit'. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 17-NOV-1996 07:42:58.11 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 07:42:06 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Valerie Eads Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <01IBXB4QIAW200B270@GAUDI.GC.CUNY.EDU> At Kazoo a couple of years ago John Boswell pointed out that with all the verbiage devoted to Eleanor's amours, no one had ever tried to study Richard's. I remember Boswell's references to Richard in his first book as being very straightforward and conservative enough to please the most curmudgeonly among us. But has anyone followed up on this suggestion? Is the entire notion based on little Phil? [My chronology may be off, but this political seduction took place when Rich was about 19 and Phil was a 12-year-old if I remember it right.] Anyway, I suggest adding to the list of usual suspects 1) Humphrey of Toron and 2) Sancho the Strong. Any more? Val Eads From: SMTP%"jparsons@chass.utoronto.ca" 17-NOV-1996 11:33:03.02 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 11:33:38 -0500 (EST) From: John Carmi Parsons To: halsall@murray.fordham.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII While I was composing my previous message to you, the notice came up that two new msgs from you had been received. Talk about overkill. I realize now that trying to engage in discussion here is not going to get either of us very far. To answer one of your points, however, I have examined Duby's *Chivalrous Society* p. 115 and the passage from Orderic quoted there. It seems entirely possible that since Orderic seems to be dealing with a religious conversion on the part of Roger and his fellows (and again I'm going to have to wait to check the full original passage, so please don't hold me to this) he could well have tossed in the reference to Sodom as a rhetorical flourish to emphasize the contrast between Roger's past life and his new one. As you say, Orderic is obsessed with sodomy; this in itself would lead me to treat anything he says with caution because (like Jesse Helms, Phyllis Schlafly, Phil Dornan and a host of others) his obsession could have led him to see or suspect the same in situations where it didn't exist. (This is not to say that it didn't exist at all.) JCP From: MURRAY::HALSALL 17-NOV-1996 13:48:53.57 To: SMTP%"jparsons@chass.utoronto.ca" CC: HALSALL Subj: Re: Richard I did check out John Baldwin's book on Philip II and his government. He cites the English sources. Chaplais has of course been well complimented on his command of diplomatics. And he certainly has expanded the discussion. But his grasp of social history, and the history of gender, seemed to me, when I was reading his book, somewhat tenuous. For instance he discusses the "brotherhood" rituals without any awareness whatsoever that both specific Christian texts, and cross cultural data, repeatedly use "brotherhood" language for "homoerotic" relationships. Boswell of course argues that these constitute "marriages". I think he is wrong, at least if that is a bald statement [although the texts and the relationships they describe are part of the "history" of same sex marriage, just as the Magna Carta is part of the history of democratic government.]. I would be interested in seeing the EHR review. If you would send me a copy, my address is Paul Halsall History Dept. Fordham University, Bronx NY 10458 Cheers. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 18-NOV-1996 09:34:37.13 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 10:37:42 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Paul is surely correct that understanding "public morality" is of importance but for the historian this must be done through surviving texts and these texts were generated by individuals, preserved, and or copied by other individuals. The methodological problem is a difficult one in trying to go from a limited body of texts generated etc by individuals to create a construct now of public morality then. My point regarding antiquarianism, however, was simply pointed at those today who "out" one or another historical figure to put them on a list of one kind or another and who do not pay close attention to the source or sources that provide the information which they use as 'evidence' to do the 'outing'. List making of this type is at best antiquarianism and at worst a political club to do things with such as to claim that homosexuality and homesexuals caused the fall of the Roman empire. B.Bachrach U. of MN From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 18-NOV-1996 11:15:46.54 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 10:27:55 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: flcheyette@AMHERST.BITNET Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <01IBY83W9EO2AC3259@amherst.edu> Paul: The passage from Higdon that you quote noting Richard and Philip in the same bed has an important following statement that you do not quote, to the effect that Henry II abandoned his plans to return to England and looked after his fortifications. That is, the king did not look at this love of his son and the French king as a sexual act but as an important and threatening political act. Stephen Jaeger has a very important commentary on this text in his article "L'amour des rois," published in the _Annales_ a number of years ago. Sharing a bed did not necessarily have the same meaning in the m.a. as it does in our own day. Note in passing the frequent representation of the Magi sleeping three to a bed. Are they to be made homosexuals as well? Fred Cheyette From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 18-NOV-1996 13:38:18.39 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 11:38:56 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Prof Cheyette writes >Paul: The passage from Higdon that you quote noting Richard and Philip >in the same bed has an important following statement that you do not >quote, to the effect that Henry II abandoned his plans to return to >England and looked after his fortifications. That is, the king did not >look at this love of his son and the French king as a sexual act but as >an important and threatening political act. Are you referring to the Roger of Hoveden passage? I do not see how a political interpretation by Henry precludes other interpretations. And I do not see that the "sodomy" charge publically made against Richard can be discounted. "Sodomy" certainly included a variety of condemned practices, but usually condemned "unnatural" sexual practices. The use of the word with this meaning seems, a/c Brundage, to have been prevalent in the late 12th century. I would be interested to know what Prof. Brundage thinks now, btw. >Stephen Jaeger has a very >important commentary on this text in his article "L'amour des rois," >published in the _Annales_ a number of years ago. If I can work out how many years ago, I shall check it out. >Sharing a bed did not >necessarily have the same meaning in the m.a. as it does in our own day. This point has been made a number of times. >Note in passing the frequent representation of the Magi sleeping three to >a bed. Are they to be made homosexuals as well? Fred Cheyette Given Zoroastrian hostility towards homosexuality, it would seem to be unlikely. PBH From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 18-NOV-1996 14:43:11.07 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 14:20:19 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: flcheyette@AMHERST.BITNET Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <01IBZNS685WYAC32V7@amherst.edu> Sorry, yes it is Hovedon, not Higden. At my age, short-term (as well as long-term) memory starts to go.... Jaeger's point in that article is a simple and obvious one, that the discourse of love in the 12th c. can be political as well as erotic. I have found good grounds for arguing that in Occitania it was political _before_ it was "romantic"/erotic. Indeed one need only look at the trajectory of the Old Germanic word "druth" (in its many variants) meaning "military follower," to the use of "drut" in troubadour poetry to mean "lover." We must be careful about the language of gestures as well. Fred Cheyette From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 18-NOV-1996 14:53:07.53 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Returned mail: Host unknown (Name server: ukanvm.bitnet: host not found) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 14:15:06 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: John Peltier Subject: Returned mail: Host unknown (Name server: ukanvm.bitnet: host not found) To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L At 10:27 AM 11/18/96 -0500, Fred Cheyette wrote, in part: >Paul: The passage from Higdon that you quote noting Richard and Philip >in the same bed has an important following statement that you do not >quote, to the effect that Henry II abandoned his plans to return to >England and looked after his fortifications. That is, the king did not >look at this love of his son and the French king as a sexual act but as >an important and threatening political act. I think this demonstrates the real point in discussing whether one historical figure or another was a homosexual, bisexual, or whatever deviance one wishes to imagine. In Richard's case I believe there is important historical evidence to indicate he did possess one or more of these characteristics. In addition to the evidence recently posted, one might also consider how Queen Mother Eleanor felt obliged to persue her son on his way to the Third Crusade with Berengaria of Navarre in tow to effect their marriage and perhaps gain a male heir for England before Richard got himself killed in the Middle East. One might also consider the implied finality or resignation to death without issue evidenced by Richard when he named his nephew as his successor in the Treaty of Messina (although political opportunism admittedly is just as good an explanation for this retrospectively unwise action). Richard's military engagement of Henry II probably would not have succeeded without the military support of Philip II, and it appears Henry's assessment of the significance of his son's relationship with Philip squarely hit the mark. However, Philip II did not gain entre' to English internal affairs as it appears he hoped he would by exploiting the rift between Richard and Henry with military aid to Richard. Richard's early rejection of his alliance with Philip seems to imply that Richard in fact exploited Philip rather than the reverse situation. To the extent the homo- bi-sexual relationship between two kings-future kings affected the acceleration and assurance of Richard's accession to the English throne and the exclusion of the French from English internal afffairs renders it historically significant and not just tabloid junk. John Peltier jpeltier@mindspring.com ftp://ftp.mindspring.com/users/jpeltier/incoming John Peltier jpeltier@mindspring.com ftp://ftp.mindspring.com/users/jpeltier/incoming From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 18-NOV-1996 15:02:20.63 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 11:20:50 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Crawford Subject: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Paul Halsall: (There are so many Pauls on the list--maybe we should all go by our last names only!) >>Besides, Richard I's current biographer, John Gillingham, doesn't accept >>the idea that Richard was even gay. Neither does Christopher Tyerman. >Well I don't think he was "gay" either. Nor do I think he was "straight". >Both concepts seem to be amazingly modern. I will concede that "gay" as a lifestyle label is a very modern concept.... What I meant, as you know, was that Gillingham doesn't accept the idea that Richard engaged in homosexual activities. I forgot for a moment that there is a faction out there who has advanced descriptions for these things; I merely used the popular term in the common way. >On the other hand, Gillingham is singulalry unconvincing, although >amusing, in his various efforts to "de-gay" Richard. Well, I'm glad you derive mirth from Gillingham's conclusions, I guess. I still find them quite convincing (with all due respect and apologies to Prof. Brundage, who I think does not agree, and whose erudition I could never match in several lifetimes of study). And as I said, Christopher Tyerman also finds no real evidence that Richard was particularly interested in sexual activity with other men. He writes: "Richard can be considered negligent in failing to produce an heir after eight years of marriage to Berengaria of Navarre, but there is little evidence to support accusations of homosexuality. These reflect misunderstandings of medieval habits, where sharing a bed, which Richard is said to have done with Philip II, was a symbol of brotherhood, of a contractual rather than erotic relationship. In any case, almost nobody suggested Richard was a homosexual until the mid-twentieth century. A maverick hermit in 1195 accused him of 'illicit acts' and reminded him of the fate of Sodom, but other observers criticised his voracious appetite for girls, even on his deathbed. Richard's one acknowledged bastard was sufficiently well-known for Shakespeare to give him the leading role in _King John_...." (Christopher Tyerman, _Who's Who in Early Medieval England_, London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1996, p. 258). >Perhaps this is merely a story of political intrigue, although Richard's >encounter with a Hermit urging him to give up the sin of Sodom... >...means, I think, that no-one > making wild claims in supposing that Richard was sexually active with >men and women As John Parsons has explained (thanks, John), and as Gillingham points out, "the sin of Sodom" did not, in the Middle Ages, necessarily refer to homosexual activity, so the accusation is by no means conclusive. And anyway, it does not seem to have been made more than once against Richard during his lifetime, and even then by a dubious authority. As to the "astonishment" observers felt at the behavior of Richard and Philip: that's perfectly explainable from political, not sexual, motives. (You may recall that in the 1980s there was some astonishment at the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan appeared to have become personal friends.) The astonishing factor seems to have been the bridging of great political differences. Given the way that homosexual activity was so sharply condemned, what is astonishing is the suggestion that, if everyone was convinced that Richard's and Philip's behavior involved homosexual activity, they were not widely and immediately denounced for it. As I'm always trying to tell my students, don't apply modern constructions and mores to medieval people. Sometimes, "to sleep with" might mean just that, and nothing more. Or rather, something other than what it means today. >>idea that Richard... >...was in love >>with the devout Muslim Saladin strikes me as, well, fantasy of the wildest >>kind. >Is the implication here, Paul, that Muslims are particulalry resistent to >same sex activity? No. The implication is that _Saladin_, an especially pious and orthodox Muslim, was likely to have been "particularly resistant" to it. The mere fact that he was to some degree connected with Islam would not have prevented "same sex activity" any more than mere identification with Christianity prevents it. >Gillingham has published considerably more on this..., >...arguing -- strangely -- that since >this interpretation of Richard's behaviour is rather recent, it must >be false. It may or may not be false, but how recently it has >been advanced is neither here nore there. To repeat: I think Gillingham's point is that, given that homosexual activity was generally viewed as a very serious sin, and given that Richard had plenty of enemies, it would be very odd indeed if A) Richard had been generally known to have homosexual proclivities, but B) no one except a crazy old hermit ever bothered to tax him with them. In this case it is very much "here or there" whether the accusation was widely made at the time. >my interest here, I must insist, is more to >with with how we interpret past constructions of gender rather than >one particualr English king ...Don't think I can subscribe to the "constructions of gender" bit, but we can probably agree that the issue is of interest in determining general social attitudes about sexuality. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Paul Crawford History Department University of Wisconsin-Madison From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 18-NOV-1996 15:34:48.45 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard/ Homosexuality as anachronism Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 14:22:52 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: King Richard/ Homosexuality as anachronism To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Ellen Godfrey writes >Surely the question, raised by an earlier poster but >ignored in the subsequent debate, about that validity >of using this concept to categorize medieval figures >needs to be dealt with first. >Did the concept of homosexuality, as a fixed condition, >exist at the time in question? >While the church regarded having sex with someone >of the same sex a sin, it regarded adultery as a sin, etc. >This doesn't clarify the matter. There is no concensus on this issue. None. Some theorists argue, with considerable evidence, the there is a genetic basis for sexual orientation. People who argue this may be conventionally "liberal" or "conservative". Other people argue, again with cnosiderable evdience, that understandings and practices associated with sexuality vary so considerable from culture to culture, that sexuality is necessarily learned (here there is a split between "liberal" and "conservative" views: writers such a Jonathan Ned Katz argue that both "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" are learned; whereas certain proponents of "cures" of homosexuality seem to believe that "heterosexuality" is inborn, but that homosexuality is learned.) >I cannot remember the source, but I have read several >well-documented studies suggesting that this concept >of a fixed sexuality that is a condition of being -- >that you ARE either homosexual, >heterosexual or bi-sexual is relatively recent. Some awareness of possible "sexuality" can be found in both elite and popular sources in the past. Skimmimg rather roughly over time and geography one might note the view in Plato's _Symposium_ that love originates from original "dual" creatures - some of whom were male-male, others female-female, and yet other male-female. Marlowe's play _Edward II_, also sees a commonality (perhaps in behavior only?) in the various past Kings and scholars and their male favorites. Michael Rocke, a dedicated social constructionist, nevertheless shows sodomites in Renaissance Florence banding together in a way that reveals some awareness, surely, of an "identity"? In other words, a number of reputable scholars would be willing to use the word "homosexual" [and "heterosexual"] without much qualification about past societies - eg. John Boswell, Amy Richlin and now, apparently, Bernardette Brooten. >To discuss this question, it might be more appropriate to >ask if the the two men in question had sex with one another >as part of their 'passionate love'. But then, if the idea that >you either get the stigma of homosexuality stuck on you or >not, depending upon whether you ever, or from time to time, >sleep with your own sex, is anachronistic, then the significance >of whether the two men had sex appears to diminish greatly. Since this entire thread is a side issue (from an original post about why Kings are not important!), I have to agree that invetigation of what labels were used, and how, rather than about which individuals, is what I fond most interesting. Methodologically, however, if what seem to be the clearest uses -- about kings! -- are completely unreliable, or can be interpreted away, then even that invesitistigation becomes problematic. >Could you really be debating about whether Richard >( or any other historical figure) deserves >to have a label stuck on him, labelling him with a condition >that has been only recently 'invented'? As indicated, there is no concensus on this. >And while, as a novelist, I am commenting about the appropriate >use of language, and how it can distort historical perception, >may I ask you practicing historians if the use of the word >'gender' to mean sexual orientation has become accepted. It >gives me the shudders. I thought nouns had gender and people >had sex. No people have gender too - usually defined as the "social significance given to sexual difference". But it does not mean, nor has it been used, to mean "sexual orientation". The conceptual debate around the connection between sexual orientation [defined in modern times by "object choice"] and gender [defined by situation in the array of meanings of male and female] remains intense. Until the middle of this century the primary modern understanding of "homosexuality" in the US seems to have revolved around gender identity. In such circumstances, men who had sex with men, as long as their masculinity was not challenged [be specific sexual activity or by dress and mannerism] could think of themselves as "normal". The more recent emphasis on object choice as the basis for "queer sexuality" effectively closed off male-male sexual activity for many men. [Andrew Sullivan notes in his recent book that the single greatest decline in homosexual activity may have been caused by the 'Gay Liberation Movement'!]. The full impact of these ideas may be seen in the case of the 'Lesbian Transexual' - born-males whose "gender identity" is "female", but whose object-choice remains women. This is a rather common phenomenon. Now it may be that the modern age is simply confused, or that it it has clarified past confusion in a universally true way. That does seem unlikely, however... Since a good proportion of the Byzantine female saints I study are described as having "manly souls" or a "male soul in a female body", I must say I find discussions of this sort fascinating, although not necessarily enlightening. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 18-NOV-1996 16:07:28.67 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 15:53:05 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Paul Crawford writes citing me >>>Besides, Richard I's current biographer, John Gillingham, doesn't accept >>>the idea that Richard was even gay. Neither does Christopher Tyerman. >>Well I don't think he was "gay" either. Nor do I think he was "straight". >>Both concepts seem to be amazingly modern. > >I will concede that "gay" as a lifestyle label is a very modern concept.... I am not sure about "lifestyle". That is something for Sunday Magazines, and although there are, I suppose, men with frosted hair who spend their days listening to Judy and Barbra before going out each night dressed in leather to dance away to Abba and the Village people, and top the evening by retiring to sleep with another anonymous contact; such does not describe most gay people. "Gay" now refers to "sexual orientation". >What I meant, as you know, was that Gillingham doesn't accept the idea >that Richard engaged in homosexual activities. I forgot for a moment that >there is a faction out there who has advanced descriptions for these >things; I merely used the popular term in the common way. >>On the other hand, Gillingham is singulalry unconvincing, although >>amusing, in his various efforts to "de-gay" Richard. >Well, I'm glad you derive mirth from Gillingham's conclusions, I guess. I >still find them quite convincing (with all due respect and apologies to >Prof. Brundage, who I think does not agree, and whose erudition I could >never match in several lifetimes of study). >And as I said, Christopher Tyerman also finds no real evidence that Richard >was particularly interested in sexual activity with other men. He writes: >"Richard can be considered negligent in failing to produce an heir after >eight years of marriage to Berengaria of Navarre, but there is little >evidence to support accusations of homosexuality. These reflect >misunderstandings of medieval habits, where sharing a bed, which Richard is >said to have done with Philip II, was a symbol of brotherhood, of a >contractual rather than erotic relationship. Well, brotherhood can be quite erotic. The chroniclers do not only mention the action, they also describe "feelings". Now, whether the chroniclers were accurate as to feelings, I concur, is an open question. I think that suggestions that the Chroniclers did not mean some sodomitical illicit actions were going on are really wide of the mark. >In any case, almost nobody >suggested Richard was a homosexual until the mid-twentieth century. A >maverick hermit in 1195 accused him of 'illicit acts' and reminded him of >the fate of Sodom, I suggest that your comments here simply do not stand up. Why call the hermit a "maverick". Hoveden devoted some space to the Hermit [Vol 2, p 356-7] and suggestd that Richard paid attentiona also for, as Hoveden add, after and illness Richard called together religous men "and was not ashamed to confess the guiltiness of his life, and, afte receiving absolution, took bakc his wife, whome he had not known fro a long time; and putting away all illicit intercourse, he remained constant to his wife and they two became one flesh". I take it - not I think with any twisting of the text, that the unlawful actions criticised by the Hermit, were sexual (the "illicit intercourse" Richard put away). Now sodomy could relate to all sorts of activities, but was not used I think, as byword for simple adultery or fornication. It was used for homosexual activity. The hermit in question was not the only one to warn Richard, by the way. A priest named Fulk accused Richard of having "three daughters" - pride, avarice and "sensuality" [Hoveden, Vol 2. p. 448]. >but other observers criticised his voracious appetite >for girls, even on his deathbed. Richard's one acknowledged bastard was >sufficiently well-known for Shakespeare to give him the leading role in >_King John_...." (Christopher Tyerman, _Who's Who in Early Medieval >England_, London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1996, p. 258). Much as I like Shakespeare....What voiced criticism *specified* that Richard's "sensuality" was directed at women. [When men like "girls"...] >>Perhaps this is merely a story of political intrigue, although Richard's >>encounter with a Hermit urging him to give up the sin of Sodom... >>...means, I think, that no-one >> making wild claims in supposing that Richard was sexually active with >>men and women >As John Parsons has explained (thanks, John), and as Gillingham points out, >"the sin of Sodom" did not, in the Middle Ages, necessarily refer to >homosexual activity, so the accusation is by no means conclusive. And But it *usually* did. Furthermore, its use in moral manuals and legal texts needs to be distinguished from its use by Chroniclers and as a slur. In the later cases -- I think, but am open to correction -- it usually means homosexual activity. Legal texts in the modern US use "sodomy" for a variety of activities. Future historians may want to speculate as why. There is no doubt, however, that if someone is called a "sodomite" he is being accused [usually by enraged baptists from Topeka] of being homosexual. Similalry, it would be a mistake to think that the Rev. Iain Paisely's infamouse 'Save Ulster from Sodomy' campaign of a few years ago amounted to a Presbyterian campaign against oral sex. >anyway, it does not seem to have been made more than once against Richard >during his lifetime, and even then by a dubious authority. Depends how you take Fulk's charge, or even the considerations of the chroniclers... >As to the "astonishment" observers felt at the behavior of Richard and >Philip: that's perfectly explainable from political, not sexual, motives. >(You may recall that in the 1980s there was some astonishment at the fact >that Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan appeared to have become personal >friends.) The astonishing factor seems to have been the bridging of great >political differences. Given the way that homosexual activity was so >sharply condemned, what is astonishing is the suggestion that, if everyone >was convinced that Richard's and Philip's behavior involved homosexual >activity, they were not widely and immediately denounced for it. As I believe Boswell did show, the degree of this condemnation varied rather considerably over time. >As I'm always trying to tell my students, don't apply modern constructions >and mores to medieval people. Sometimes, "to sleep with" might mean just >that, and nothing more. Or rather, something other than what it means >today. This is true. But you set up some many of your own constructions, that I am at a loss to imagine *any* form of words which would convince you that anybody ever had homosexual sex in the middle ages. [deletions] >>prevented "same sex activity" any more than mere identification with >>Christianity prevents it. > >>Gillingham has published considerably more on this..., >>...arguing -- strangely -- that since >>this interpretation of Richard's behaviour is rather recent, it must >>be false. It may or may not be false, but how recently it has >>been advanced is neither here nore there. > >To repeat: I think Gillingham's point is that, given that homosexual >activity was generally viewed as a very serious sin, and given that Richard >had plenty of enemies, it would be very odd indeed if A) Richard had been >generally known to have homosexual proclivities, but B) no one except a >crazy old hermit ever bothered to tax him with them. In this case it is >very much "here or there" whether the accusation was widely made at the >time. Hoveden does not present the Hermit as crazy, but as a divine messenger. If Gillingham says this, which I do not recall, even he must be aware of how shakey his argumentation is. >>my interest here, I must insist, is more to >>with with how we interpret past constructions of gender rather than >>one particualr English king > >...Don't think I can subscribe to the "constructions of gender" bit, but we >can probably agree that the issue is of interest in determining general >social attitudes about sexuality. But that is what you ahve been doing all along with your convinction that "medieval mores" aren't ours. Enough of Richard. I would like to see your defence of King Henry IV of Castille 1425-r.1454-1474. I presume his subjects calling him "puta" in the street meant something? Still, perhaps it was just a political charge.... The case of King John II of Castille r.1406-1454 and Alvaro de Luna is, by contrast, genuinely puzzling. The relationship's story just reeks of something queer, but, unlike with Henry IV, no explicit charges were, I gather, ever made. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"Lblanchard@aol.com" 19-NOV-1996 07:45:36.41 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Jane Austen Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 07:45:32 -0500 From: Lblanchard@aol.com Message-ID: <961119074531_1615520038@emout11.mail.aol.com> To: HALSALL@murray.fordham.edu Subject: Jane Austen I thought this belonged off-list: How about "Jane Austen's Masturbating Monkey"? Some newsreaders (e.g., AOL) might abbreviate that to "Jane Austen's Masturbating.....", which would really cause some heads to lift. Carolyn says she'd be happy to have ORB host starter bibliograpy and FAQs for our various "cult figures" or hot topics -- Richard I-III, Edward I-IV, Arthur, Robin Hood, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, the Druids, mobility in plate armor, etc. I doubt that anyone has time right now, but over the holiday break I'll send out a call for volunteers to do one per character. We've already done R3 for the Society, of course Regards, Laura From: SMTP%"Lblanchard@aol.com" 19-NOV-1996 11:06:07.21 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Jane Austen Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 11:05:52 -0500 From: Lblanchard@aol.com Message-ID: <961119110551_1649092560@emout11.mail.aol.com> To: HALSALL@murray.fordham.edu Subject: Re: Jane Austen In a message dated 96-11-19 08:02:19 EST, you write: << ! Someone chided me about this. When I pointed out it was a joke, said person suggested that all jokes need to be marked witha smiley! >> No way! Anyone that needs a smiley to recognize a joke really ought to be kicked off MEDIEV-L [and that's a joke, too.]. Laura From: SMTP%"DIGNITY@AMERICAN.EDU" 21-NOV-1996 03:29:31.09 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages Message-ID: <961120103521.2101fe59@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU> Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 10:35:21 -0500 Reply-To: LesBiGay Catholic List Sender: LesBiGay Catholic List From: Paul Halsall Subject: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages Comments: To: MEDIEV-L%UKANVM.BITNET@UGA.CC.UGA.edu, GLQSOC-L%BINGVMB.BITNET@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu To: Multiple recipients of list DIGNITY Because of the discussion about whether Richard I was "homosexual" on Mediev-l, I was referred to Stephen Jaeger's article on "les amours des rois" in Annales ESC 46 (1991). I think this article really needs to be discussed, and I hope some of the lurkers here will come out of the woodwork and contribute. Jaeger argues that all the homoerotic language (he denies it is homoerotic) used in monastic and court circles in the middle ages is not homoerotic at all -- in any way except that which we dress it with our "Freudian" sensibility. He argues that "sublimated homosexuality" would have been expressed in sublimated ways - but the very frank language used by poets and chroniclers is not at all sublimated, therefore it must have been understood by readers at the time in some other way. The implication then goes something like this:- If no homoerotic language is used, we have no reason to assume and homoerotic meaning; but if homoerotic language is used, we also would be wrong to assume a homoerotic meaning. Since there was universal hositility towards "homosexuality" [evidenced how? - although he is not explicit, Jaeger apparently must agree that anti-sodomitical tracts -- for instance by Peter Damian -- are really about homosexuality.] The "homoerotic " language he argues is an aspect of the language of amity going back to Plato and Cicero. Its open use was meant to dispel any suggestion of illicit sexuality. Now let me state up front, I think he fails: he seems to equate the literary style of Roger of Hoveden with the style of writers of poetry and belles lettres. (It is rather a remarkable feature of Jaeger's article, which demands attention to literary context, that he does not attempt to analyse the genre or nature of the texts in question. He looks, for example at the Hoveden passage about Richard and Philip, but ignores the work as a whole. As a whole, Hoveden, it seems to me has precious little literary pretense.) He also fails to note other suggestions in Hoveden of Richard's sexuality (the Hermit who warns Richard about Sodom, and to whom Richard responds -- eventually -- by giving up "illicit sex" and going back to his wife). The apparently low level of anti-sodomitical concern in the late 12th century is also not addressed by Jaeger - he simply assumes condemnation. He also dismisses any same-sex relationships arising from comradeship in arms as clearly distinct from homoerotism. A truly breathtaking claim. (For arguments about the lack of condemnation in knightly which see Duby's books on _The Chivalrous Society_ and William Marshall; ditto the complex issue of whether William Longchamps, Bishop of Ely and Richard I's chancellor, was a sodomite. Gerald of Wales certainly claimed so - at length -- but he may be a suspect source!) Jaeger does uncover, however, that Hoveden's description of Philip and Richard seems to have been drawn from the words used in the Vulgate about David and Jonathan in 1 Sam 18. [Note: Jaeger uses his David and Jonathan text to remove a suggestion of homoeroticism. Although his hermenuetic would not allow any medieval discussion of David and Jonathan in homoerotic terms, Abelard's poem, cited in Boswell CSTH, 238, on the pair, indicates, surely, an awareness of homoerotic interpretations of the David and Jonathon story?] [Note 2: It is basic to Jaeger and to the accounts by Gillingham that no homosexual interpretation of the "Richard and Philip" text by Hoveden was made before the 1940s. In other words it is a product of our dirty minds, or put more nicely, our "Freudian discourse". Jaeger cites Foucault to show this! I am not so sure about this. Henry Riley, the translator in 1853 -- acceptably pre-Freudian I take it -- certainly seems to have see some danger in these words. This is the Latin text, from Stubbs edition as given in Boswell CSTH 231. "Ricardus dux Aquitaniae, filus regis Angliae, morum fecit cum Philipo rege Franciae, quem ipse in tantum honoravit per longum tempus quod singulis diebus in una mensa ad unum cantinum manducabant, et in noctibus non seperabat eos lectus. Et diliexit eum rex Franciae quasi animam suam; et in tantum se mutuo diligebant, quod propter vehmentem delictionem quae inter illos erat, dominus rex Angliae nimio stupore arreptus admirabatur quid hoc esset." Boswell translates this, accurately I think, "Richard, [then] duke of Aquitaine, the son of the king of England, remained with Philip, the King of France, who so honored him for so long that they ate every day at the same table and from the same dish, and at night their beds did not separate them. And the king of farnce loved him as his own soul; and they loved each other so much that the king of England was absolutely astonished and the passionate love between them and marveled at it". Note that "lectus" does mean bed, couch and nothing else here, and "deligo" is probably best translated as "love" although it could, I suppose, mean "esteem" - clearly a too weak translation here. Riley does this with the passage. "...and the King of France held him in such high esteem that every day they ate at the same table and from the same dish, and at night had not separate chambers. In consequence of this strong attachment which seemed to have arisen between them, the King of England was struck with great astonishment, and wondered what it could mean..." Now, since I do not have immediate access to the Stubbs edition, I am going on what Jaeger and Boswell indicate here: that the Riley transalation is of the passage cited in Latin (I am open to correction). It seems to me that the pre-Freudian Riley certainly saw something going on here!] But Jaeger's article presents a much broader challenge to, in fact, the study of homosexuality in the middle ages, than the minor question of whether Richard I was "gay". He accuses those who read the literature of the time in homoerotic ways of being involved in a closed circle of interpretation [a sort of Popperian charge against Freudians and Marxists] -- even as he fails to see that he is also implicated in just such a tail-chasing circle. So, I am interested in how others responded to Jaeger's article, and, especially, the way in which he uses Foucault and Brian Maguire's work to "de-gay" Alcuin, Anselm, Aelred among others. [Maguire, with all due reserve, has recently agreed that if it is to be used, the term "homosexual" can be applied to Anslem - an argument which has brought him dramatic condemnation in various religiously affliated scholarly journals.] The interest of John Boswell's work was that-- despite its faults -- it opened up the possiblity of the study of "homosexuality" in the middle ages by insisting that the sources on the subject were more extensive that the various law codes and ant-sodomy diatribes of people such as Peter Damian and Bernardino of Siena. Jaeger, when it comes down to it, challenges this. On his account writers do talk about homosexuality when they attack it, but not when they see it as neutral or praiseworthy. Paul Halsall PS: My French is pretty good, but at one point I balked. Jaeger seems to be comparing the history of the "love of the king" to the the history of the "jus primae noctis". Tell me he did not do this. From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 21-NOV-1996 03:46:06.38 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Gender as an historical concept Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 14:41:32 -0800 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Ellen Godfrey Subject: Gender as an historical concept To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In reply to my comment >>And while, as a novelist, I am commenting about the appropriate >>use of language, and how it can distort historical perception, >>may I ask you practicing historians if the use of the word >>'gender' to mean sexual orientation has become accepted. It >>gives me the shudders. I thought nouns had gender and people >>had sex. Paul Hassell wrote >No people have gender too - usually defined as the "social significance >given to sexual difference". But it does not mean, nor has it been >used, to mean "sexual orientation". Okay, I accept this if you say it has become common useage. But it doesn't appear to me to have been used that way in the mediev-l debate. It appears to have been used to mean sex. The deeper problem here is that our idea of homo-hetero-bi- sexuality implies an identity. A quality that defines your nature and which permeates your being: you either 'are' or 'aren't'. Comments here have drawn attention to the biological determinant issue. But so what? From a historical point of view, the question is how these acts were viewed at their time. We 20th C people put all kinds of labels on people to identify them in a huge array of different ways. Has current thinking completely unraveled the older view of the middle ages: that everyone had a fixed station: social, religious, sex (or should that be gender) and family, and that was about it? One could not, as in our time, find oneself socially beyond the pale by being discovered to have been a homosexual, or a supporter of the wrong political party, or suddenly landless or money-less. These were shifting conditions not related to your fundamental qualities. If from time to time, through love or faute de mieux, you had sex with someone of your same sex, would that not have been a sin on the same level as adultery or usury? Your enemies might attempt to insult you, denigrate you in the eyes of posterity by drawing attention to your less than ideal behaviour. But could they stick a category on you that didn't exist at the time? WE interpret their insults that way, but . . . ellen --------------------- Ellen Godfrey email ellen@pinc.com -- fax: +1 250 477 5958 -- Victoria, B.C, Canada From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 21-NOV-1996 07:26:29.52 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Let's talk about IMPORTANT stuff Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 01:47:24 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "Lynn H. Nelson" Subject: Let's talk about IMPORTANT stuff To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L such as whether current seed/yield estimates are in error because peasants held back grain payments. 8^) I would find such a discussion fascinating, while many readers would perhaps be bored to tears. It's important, though, to remember that nothing should be regarded as unimportant when one is trying to reconstruct the past. One should approach the records of the past much as a detective story fan approaches a new novel and be aware that it's very easy to overlook the important clues to understanding the plot. What difference does it make whether the English court spoke English or French? Well, many legal records were kept in "Law French" until quite a late date and so were inaccessible to the average subject of the Crown. England was one of the first of the western European states to develop a written vernacular literature, but, since the rest of the world did _not_ read or speak English, this precocious development would have cut it off from the rest of European culture had the court not provided a patron and audience for English literature in French. Besides, England was for much of the period only one element in an empire in which the residents of the other element spoke and wrote in varieties of French. How and when did French penetrate common English as "elegant" speech -- dine for sup, veal for calf, beef for cow, mutton for sheep, and so forth. At what level did administrators _have_ to be bilingual? The matter of homosexuality is a complex one, but, if Richard _was_ a homosexual as well as troubadour, why didn't he write love songs about Philip? Are there any homosexual or bisexual troubadour lyrics? What about other literature? Was medieval homosexuality associated with misogyny? Wouldn't people have gotten upset with a misogynist ruler who might very well not provide them with a successor? Where does asexuality come in? Alfonso el Batallador was reported to have turned down a couple of captured virgins, saying that these were tough times, and a man should sleep with his head on his saddle, not on a woman's breast. Was he only justifying his own asexuality? Was this why Urraca left him after less than six months of marriage? And had his nobles already made plans for his successor, figuring that he wouldn't take care of the matter himself? I could go on, but I would suggest that, although there _may_ be things unimportant to an understanding of the past, it would be a mistake to decide at the outset that anything is irrelevant or inconsequential. Big questions usually demand lots of little answers. Lynn From: SMTP%"DIGNITY@AMERICAN.EDU" 21-NOV-1996 09:30:46.16 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Message-ID: Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 08:27:17 -0500 Reply-To: LesBiGay Catholic List Sender: LesBiGay Catholic List From: "Anthony R. Franks" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages To: Multiple recipients of list DIGNITY In-Reply-To: <961120103521.2101fe59@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU> Since this is only an immediate response, I will limit myself to a general observation on both translating medieval (and classical) texts and the publication of original texts. In prep school, we learned very quickly about Anglo-American censorship of "improper" subjects: certain words simply were not included in Latin-English and Greek-English dictionaries. One had to use French, German, or Italian dictionaries of those languages. The problem extended even to grammars: certain constructions were likewise passed over in silence. In college, when I started paleography, I learned something worse: critical editions of texts routinely altered pronouns to avoid same-sex references. I will not name any names; some of this intellectual dishonesty is covered in an earlier book of John Boswell's. It seems, from Paul's retelling of S. Jaeger's article, that this academic blindness has found a new tactic: since it is dishonest (and, nowadays, with the dissemination of texts, impossible) to alter the actual text, one simply denies that the text says what it says and attacks the personal motives (not professional credibility) of opposing interpretations. At the basis of this is one of the most deplorable elements of scholarship: the past is not studied in its own context, and for its own value. It is redone in terms of the current polemic, having modern values, practices, and word meanings read into it (the past). Anyone who has worked with a text in any field (Shakespeare, if any of you still reading this want a non-theological example) predating the 19th century can supply examples of this. I think, one of the things I'm trying to say is, that although nowadays for the most part, we can trust most editions of older texts, we really can't trust most older translations to be clear as to their meaning. Generally, there is a sore subject or two which is quietly cleaned up by the editor-translator. Even Edward Gibbon, or possibly his publisher, who delighted in retelling the decadence of the Byzantines, quailed at the thought of reproducing some of Procopius' delicious slanders against Theodora in anything other than a Latin translation (helpful indeed to the classics challenged) or in the original Greek. At one time I did a great deal of work on the use of erotic language and imagery in mystical writing. I think, that if one approaches a text *in context* and with an open mind, one does discover that there are texts in which nothing sexual is going on--not even sublimation. There are also texts in which sexual desire is being sublimated. And, finally, there are texts in which Richard I is emulating his ancestor, William II, by having it off with the king of France. I suspect, by the way, that what troubled people at the time who thought about it at all, that, in the case of Richard and Louis, the problem was, not so much the nature of their relationship, but the fact that, considering the mention of Richard's wife, it was adulterous. ***************************************************************************** * Anthony Franks * * Library of Congress * * afra@loc.gov * * franks@mail.loc.gov * * * * A personal opinion not the official position of the Library of Congress * ****************************************************************************** From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 21-NOV-1996 16:41:24.67 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Why King Richard... and Saladin? Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 11:01:08 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Crawford Subject: Re: Why King Richard... and Saladin? To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Dear Mr. Stewart: I wasn't going to post on this subject anymore, but.... >Um... I know that this is scarcely the point at issue, but the best >reason I can come up with for it being unlikely that Richard and Saladin >were lovers is that they never actually met.... Actually there's a good bit of "point" to this observation, and I should have made it myself. I was assuming that everyone would know this anyway, and I shouldn't have. Thanks for bringing it out. It may not be the best reason against the notion, but it's a very good one. >al-Adil's piety is less well attested than is that of his big-brother; >mind you, this isn't saying much.... Not sure how you mean this. Saladin's piety is quite well attested, and (inasmuch as anyone can judge anyone else's piety, especially after 800 years) it seems to have been thoroughly genuine. For one thing, Muslim writers emphasize it (see Beha ed-Din, for example), whereas there's much less evidence for piety on the part of Zengi or Baibars (with good reason, I think). For another, Saladin's conduct towards his enemies, both Muslim and Christian, shows a strong bent towards mercy and justice. Admittedly this was combined with a burning desire to wrest the Holy Land from its Christian guardians and subject it again to the rule of Islam--but this too seems to me to prove his piety. I highly recommend reading Beha ed-Din--he's fascinating, and he presents a careful picture of Saladin's religious side. For those of us who don't read Arabic, he's available as _The Life of Saladin by Beha ed-Din_, trans. C. W. Wilson and C. R. Conder, London, 1897. It's part of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society publications and has been reprinted more than once (most recently by AMS, I think). One of the reasons Saladin, and Nur ed-Din before him, were so successful in leading the Islamic counter-crusade, was that they created a wave of enthusiasm for orthodox Islamic piety amongst the Muslim population. Admittedly they might have done this without being themselves devout--but the evidence suggests that they thoroughly believed in Islam. Don't forget that deep and real piety can easily co-exist with an interest in territorial aggrandizement. It certainly did in many Christian crusaders, as Jonathan Riley-Smith has demonstrated repeatedly. >Is the story about Richard and "Saphadin"? No. It's only a very late 20th c. story, and it's not true. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Paul Crawford History Department University of Wisconsin-Madison From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 21-NOV-1996 20:49:22.76 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 22:45:38 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Richard Kay Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L After all these posts about Richard and Philip sharing a bed, I was amused by a similar case treated in the latest number of the _Times Literary Supplement_ (Nov. 15, p. 34), where Euan Cameron reviews the latest number of The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies_ and is particularly put out by an article by Karen Newman, concerning the correspondence of Lord Lisle (16th c.). Seems his stepson wrote home from the University of Paris complaining that he had been "lodged with his [tutor's] servant and other boys." Author Newman opines that this implies homosexual misconduct, but critic Cameron points out that the family had the situation investigated and was relieved to find that the "servant" was in fact a "gentleman's son." Cameron concludes: "Sex worried James Bassett [the boy] and his mother not at all: the issue was class and status." Richar Kay / History / UKansas Richard Kay Department of History University of Kansas Lawrence, KS USA 66045-2130 skipkay@falcon.cc.ukans.edu From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 21-NOV-1996 21:39:44.41 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: 2 to a bed and other things Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 11:53:46 -0800 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "Richard E. Barton" <6500reb2@UCSBUXA.UCSB.EDU> Subject: Re: 2 to a bed and other things To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <9611211633.AA28627@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> Having come to this thread late, I hope I'm not repeating old ground. Still one thing about this discussion has surprised me a bit, aand that is that no one has talked (at least since I've joined) about the extremely public role of the royal bed and bedchamber. Regardless of the sexual proclivities of the kings in question, the fact is that royal bedchambers were not the places in which to exchange intimacies - there is a growing literature about the importance of the physical space of the palace and the social importance of the king's bed as a site for dispensing justice, making decisions, and generally acting kingly (I'm thinking of Paul Binski's book on the Painted Chamber of Westminster, David Starkey's book of essays on the early Tudor Court, and an important essay by Paul Hyams given at the Haskins conference several years ago which discusses the public role of the royal bedchamber, especially in shaping the royal temperament). On the social and political meaning of "love" (including dilectio), see Michael Clanchy's important essay entitled "Law and Love in the Middle Ages," in *Disputes and Settlements: Law and SOcial Relations in the West*, ed. John Bossy (Cambridge, 1983), 47-68. Thus, putting aside the (interesting) question of whether Richard was gay or not, it strikes me that given a) the very public and social role of the royal bedchamber and b) that professing love to another man often meant merely that you were allied with him (ie., not at war; see Clanchy), this particular text probably tells us more about the political situation at the end of the reign of Henry II than it does about homosexuality. Rick Barton UCSB From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 01:01:37.51 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: 2 to a bed and other things Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 11:29:31 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "Ed (Edgars) Smits" Subject: 2 to a bed and other things To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L I've been reading this thread on King Richard and his sleeping habits and admire many of the arguments and theories that have been proposed. As an interested but un-educated by-stander I wonder if the simpler answer or explanation may simply be that central heating and insulation wasn't readily available in those days, and we do know that those old castles were very drafty. I know that at our un-winterized cottage we quite often sleep in "odd" combinations, simply to stay warm. As well. could the masturbating monkey simply be scratching his fleas? This could then be understood to be allegorically referring to the fact that proper hygiene was considered important even in those days. Anyway, thank you for letting me listen in on your conversations. I teach history at a part-time Latvian high school in Toronto and have gained a lot of valuable information from this list (Teutonic knights, feudalism etc.). From: SMTP%"stephen=jaeger@rz.hu-berlin.de" 22-NOV-1996 06:06:54.73 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: ...no subject... Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 10:59:54 MET Message-Id: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) To: From: "Stephen Jaeger" Subject: ...no subject... Dear Prof. Halsall, A student just forwarded your message on my Annales. I'm in Germany for the year and dropped my subscription to Mediev-l for the year. I'll answer you in detail and ask you to post the reply, but just wanted to respond initially in private. In general, I believe that Alcuin, Aelred, Richard I, Philip-August, Anselm, were men who loved other men. It is also possible that they were gay -- though I'd balk at the term homosexual, just as I would at the terms democrat, liberal, feminist, which are modern inventions with a restricted context that distorts the medieval sense. Nothing in my article addresses the sexual preferences of these men. It is lost in the private sphere, and neither you, I nor John Boswell are going to get at it. I would argue that the discourse at work in Roger of Hovedon's description of the love of the two kings, in Alcuin's letters and poems, in Anselm's letters and meditations, doesn't reveal sexual preference. I would be curious if you believe that it is possible for men to love each other passionately in a completely non-libidinous way. I do. If you believe this, I think we might come to an understanding of each other's positions. If not, then probably we won't. If, as Freud thinks, all friendship is libidinous, then my question is naive. My question to you is of course also entirely private, but it does seem to me decisive for our discussion. While I thinhk about your comments a bit more, I would ask you to consider the following information, which I do cite in the article: Alcuin wrote many passionate letters and poems to men, which were public documents, probably read to communities. At the same time he participated in formulating laws against "sodomy" which prescribe harsh punishments. He also wrote a letter to a former student warning him against his affairs with other men. (I don't have the ref. at hand, but it's in the Annales article.) Boswell quite distorts this letter. It is as harsh and decided a language as Alcuin ever uses. He warns the man that he is in danger of forfeiting his social position and his salvation. How is it possible to square this with the idea that Alcuin's own love letters and poems might have been read by a contemporary audience as indicators of homosexuality? I hope you will distinguish me from Brian McGuire. McGuire started by arguing that Anselm et al were probably not homosexual. THis is a much cruder position than the one I have taken, which invites the reader to reconstruct a discourse founded on a love that is not sexual. It is a discourse -- don't I say this in the article? -- that permits the entire range of sexual activity to go on behind it, in the private sphere, a discourse that in fact probably favored sexual relations between men who were, in our narrower sense, homosexual, but that is badly misunderstood, distorted, reduced, if taken to be an indication of sexual desire or preference. So, what I'm saying is partly, the documents aren't only part of the dossier on homosexuality in the Middle Ages. They pose more complex problems of interpretation. The tone of your message was pretty strongly polemical. If we are to have a public slug-fest, I do hope you will read my article as an attempt to restore a lost sensibility -- an attempt which is, I believe, very positive towards the basic thrust of Boswell's and other gay historians' positions. It wants to refine our understanding of the discourse at work. It would be too bad if the discussion were at the level of "Jaeger is claiming they weren't homosexual; now I'm claiming they were." You are very wrong to claim "Jaeger argues that all the homoerotic language... used... is not homoerotic at all." Or rather, the statement indicates that you haven't followed the argument of the article, but reacted quickly and reductively. You're right, the reference to jus primae noctis is unfortunate, and I could have easily done without it. I don't follow your point about "literary style" and equating Roger of H's style with that of poets. With best regards, Stephen Jaeger From: SMTP%"MEDGAY-L@KSUVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 07:50:51.62 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 08:28:57 -0500 Reply-To: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group Sender: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group From: "Ruth m. Karras" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge X-To: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group To: Multiple recipients of list MEDGAY-L In-Reply-To: <199611200027.TAA30153@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu> Mouthing off w/o having read Jaeger's article: I've been struck, in this whole discussion, by the double standard of proof: that is, with language that sounds to a modern ear homoerotic, we can't assume that it was in the M.A. unless we have other proof, which given the nature of medieval sources is hardly ever forthcoming. But we do not have the same problem with what sounds to us like heteroerotic language; we don't demand the same standard of proof that genital contact took place or was contemplated. But reading Paul's description of Jaeger's article, and thinking about it, made me realize that the situation is the same for several genres of heteroerotic language: some of the very passionate writings of women mystics, for example, or Provencal lyric which is read as being "about" poetry instead of "about" love. So what's really at stake here is a very large intellectual question: how can we know what was erotic (homo- or otherwise) in an "other" culture, without setting up a universal standard? On the narrower issue, it seems to me that the existence of a tradition--and the continuation and further development of that tradition--of passionate male-male friendship is an extremely interesting historical development in and of itself. I recently sat on a dissertation defense of a student in Renaissance English Literature who was discussing this phenomenon in the Renaissance, and pressed him pretty hard on why he was choosing to call it "homosexual" when he wasn't talking about what we would consider the sexual aspects at all. He pointed out that we don't have any problem referring to heterosexual friendships. I think we've all agreed that the question "Was Richard the Coeur de Lion gay?" isn't a useful question, given the problematic nature of "gay" as applied to the M.A., but "Did Richard have a particularly intense and passionate friendship with Philip" is a question that is relevant both to an understanding of the politics of the time on the micro-level and to an understanding of the nature of interpersonal relationships and the boundaries of acceptability. Ruth Mazo Karras rkarras@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu Temple University (o) 215-204-4858 Department of History (h) 215-242-4656 913 Gladfelter Hall Fax 215-204-5891 Philadelphia, PA 19122 http://nimbus.ocis.temple.edu/~rkarras/ From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 08:57:17.72 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 13:29:01 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L The operative word of the paragraph in H would seem to be "honoravit" and all that follows are the means by which R honoravit P and then P response to the fact that he was honoravit and richard's response to P response. H. seems to be saying that because of the strong friendship (vehementum delictionem) that had developed with P the lord king of England was very surprised or exceptionally surprised and he wondered in a positive manner about it, i.e. the strong friendship, that had developed between them. That the king of France, having been honored by Richard, loved in an esteeming manner the English king like he loved his own soul etc. I leave aside how the chronicler got these data on Phil's thoughts or if one would want to think about loving one's own soul in a carnal manner--or is anima here mind not soul and we should now think in terms of mental maturbation--what a wonderful freedom post-modernism provides. If the main word were "copulavit" and not honoravit the case would be stronger for reading into the text Paul's (JEB's) interpretation but it still would not be conclusive. actulally it would seem that delictio here has the meaning of esteeming love and neither esteem nor love separately. I have a class but this is a good text to work on. B.Bachrach U. of MN P.s I don't care who or what Richard screwed, he was a great general. From: MURRAY::HALSALL 22-NOV-1996 09:30:57.28 To: SMTP%"stephen=jaeger@rz.hu-berlin.de" CC: HALSALL Subj: RE: ...no subject... Thanks for your long note. >In general, I believe that Alcuin, Aelred, Richard I, Philip-August, Anselm, >were men who loved other men. It is also possible that they were gay -- >though I'd balk at the term homosexual, just as I would at the terms >democrat, liberal, feminist, which are modern inventions with a restricted >context that distorts the medieval sense. Nothing in my article addresses >the sexual preferences of these men. It is lost in the private sphere, and >neither you, I nor John Boswell are going to get at it. I would argue that >the discourse at work in Roger of Hovedon's description of the love of the >two kings, in Alcuin's letters and poems, in Anselm's letters and >meditations, doesn't reveal sexual preference. > >I would be curious if you believe that it is possible for men to love each >other passionately in a completely non-libidinous way. I do. If you believe >this, I think we might come to an understanding of each other's positions. >If not, then probably we won't. If, as Freud thinks, all friendship is >libidinous, then my question is naive. My question to you is of course also >entirely private, but it does seem to me decisive for our discussion. In general, I think (and, at least for the past couple of years, so does McGuire, who has considerably right to speak on this than I) that Alcuin, Anselm, Aelred, and probably monarchs such as William II and Edward II (ditto Henry IV of Castile) were what we woudl now call homosexual - that is they were erotically oriented towards other men, whether ot not they had sex with them. With people such as Richard I and Phillip II, along with others about whom we have minimal information, I don't know what they preferred. (I do not like the term "preference" btw, since it implies choice: although I am prepared to acknowledge that homosexuality may be mostly a social construct, I think it is, like language, a construct effectuated in a subject so early as to be non-volitional. That at least is the situation today.) But I think it likely that homosexual activity could take place quite easily among among men for whom issues of "orientation" are neither here nor there. (Although it describes other times and places, George Chauncey's, _Gay New York_ outlines a situation which was historically far more common than the current "homosexual community" pattern of the West. Until the 1940s, apparently, huge numbers of men had sex without consideriing themselves queer in any way. However they considered themselves, their activity is still a part of the history of (homo)sexuality. I think something similar was going on among the jeunesse of France. Now although in you, rightly, are suspicious of the use of "homosexual", I think you project the concept bakc in anycase. There was of course hositility -- in some quarters -- to "sodomy" (a term which overwhelmingly means anal sex, although it an mean other things). In this respect two insights from a later period of English history might be worth considering: first, non-anal homosexual activity might not have been seen as sodomitical at all; and second, the animadversions againts "sodomites" were so extreme that those who were involved in same-sex activity simply did not recognise that the terms could apply to them. This seems to have been the case in 17th century England, for instance. Now I do not think all relationships are libidinous in a Freudian sense, [although Freudianism predates Freud: as was recently pointed out to me, Oedipus Rex is, to a degree, about libido between parents and children] but I think you are far too ready to draw lines between freindship and erotic attraction; and between war-time bonding and erotic attraction. Your use of Plato here actually befuddled me. What I think goes more along these lines: in agricultural societies whatever people's innate "sexualities" are, the vast majority will function as partners in heterosexual relationships. In circumstances when the burden of agricultural life is lifted - in towns, in monasteries, in armies - a much higher percentage of men will be able to express, at least on occasion, homosexual activity. Moral/Cultural controls may affect the extent of such expression. I would not be surprised if, in any given human population, up to 40% of the population could function sexually with people of the same sex. I am not sure how much you will give credit to this, but I think the phenomenon of prison homosexuality is significant. >While I thinhk about your comments a bit more, I would ask you to consider >the following information, which I do cite in the article: >Alcuin wrote many passionate letters and poems to men, which were public >documents, probably read to communities. At the same time he participated in >formulating laws against "sodomy" which prescribe harsh punishments. He also >wrote a letter to a former student warning him against his affairs with other >men. (I don't have the ref. at hand, but it's in the Annales article.) >Boswell quite distorts this letter. It is as harsh and decided a language as >Alcuin ever uses. He warns the man that he is in danger of forfeiting his >social position and his salvation. > >How is it possible to square this with the idea that Alcuin's own love >letters and poems might have been read by a contemporary audience as >indicators of homosexuality? As indicated, I think that by "sodomy" a particular activity is meant, and that once this is rejected other forms of homoeroticism would be less objectionable. In fact, no matter how you cut it, Alcuin's letters and poems are explicitly homoerotic [whether literary convention or not]. This suggestion -- that the sodomy condmened in laws and diatribes is for the most part referring to specific activity, is how I would make sense of the documents Boswell collects in _Same Sex Unions_ [a thoroughly unsatisfactory book, I agree, but Boswell is on to something]. In other words, although I think you make too much of the "audience" issue, it was quite possible for Alcuin's poems to be understood as homoerotic without being seen as sodomitical. >I hope you will distinguish me from Brian McGuire. McGuire started by >arguing that Anselm et al were probably not homosexual. THis is a much >cruder position than the one I have taken, which invites the reader to >reconstruct a discourse founded on a love that is not sexual. It is a I think it likely that some monastic sex was going on [the penetentials must have some significance], and that some figures, such as Aelred, almost certainly had sex when they were younger [perhaps Augustine also?]. But I would be quite prepared to accept that by the time they were writing these writers would not have been sexually active, nor have approved of sexual activity. What I reject is the notion that the love they speak of is not only non-sexual but non-erotic. Perhaps we have different ideas of freindship [for, although you historcise homosexuality, you do not seem to do the same with "freindship", a thoroughly complex notion]. As CS Lewis once remarked,friends talk about new things and common interests: lovers say the same things to each other over and over again. These documents are, in my opinion, genuinely "erotic", if not "sexual", (although how do you count kisses, and open desire for bodily presence?). >discourse -- don't I say this in the article? -- that permits the entire >range of sexual activity to go on behind it, in the private sphere, a >discourse that in fact probably favored sexual relations between men who >were, in our narrower sense, homosexual, but that is badly misunderstood, >distorted, reduced, if taken to be an indication of sexual desire or >preference. I simply do not agree that such a radical distinction between public and private can be made. This also applies to court discourse by the way. The actions of late twelfth century monarchs were so clearly affected by private and familial concerns (or did Louis VI not divorce Eleanor - an action literally impossible on any public motivation?). It seemed to me that you were projecting back on the 12th century the, admittedly, radical distinction between public and private concerns of much later monarchs. >So, what I'm saying is partly, the documents aren't only part of the dossier >on homosexuality in the Middle Ages. They pose more complex problems of >interpretation. I agree. But your article set up a discourse which closed off almost any discussion of medieval homsexuality except that which can be drawn from legal codes and, for the later middle ages, court records. If your conclusions were accepted (and an Annales article is a pretty important place to set forth such ideas) -- and they may of course be true -- then the investigation of homosexuality in the middle ages is effectively impossible. >The tone of your message was pretty strongly polemical. I am sorry for that. I found your article, umm, stimulating. I did not, I think, engage in any personal attack or criticism of your scholalry abilities or honesty. I was trying to engage your argument, and I am sorry if I failed to do so. As a good Popperian [well that's my excuse], I believe in setting out arguments as strongly as possible. This has never prevented me -- in countries with decent beer -- going out afterwards for a few pints with whoever I was arguing with. >If we are to have a >public slug-fest, I do hope you will read my article as an attempt to restore >a lost sensibility -- an attempt which is, I believe, very positive towards >the basic thrust of Boswell's and other gay historians' positions. It wants >to refine our understanding of the discourse at work. It would be too bad if >the discussion were at the level of "Jaeger is claiming they weren't >homosexual; now I'm claiming they were." I did not read your article on this level at all. I am not that concerned with whether Richard I was "homosexual" or not. Your article raised much broader issues. [And should be published, btw, in English if it is to get a wider reading the US.] >You are very wrong to claim "Jaeger >argues that all the homoerotic language... used... is not homoerotic at >all." Or rather, the statement indicates that you haven't followed the >argument of the article, but reacted quickly and reductively. It was a strong statement. But after reading your article, I could not think of any high-level medieval text [other than law codes and anti-sodomitical diatribes] which would pass muster by your standards. Almost any text we have could be seen as "public", and, since you assumed, I think, a comprehensive public hostility to homosexuality [for which the very texts you discuss woudl form the basis of a more nuanced position, ala Boswell] it would seem that not overtly homoerotic text could in fact have been intentionally homoerotic. If I misread you, I am sorry. >You're right, the reference to jus primae noctis is unfortunate, and I could >have easily done without it. > >I don't follow your point about "literary style" and equating Roger of H's >style with that of poets. In your suggestion of a well-known public discourse of amity, which would allow any contemporaneous reader to understand homoerotic language as merely figurative, I think you conflated the literary awareness of intellectuals such as Alcuin and Anslem [for whom you argument is strongest] with much less sophisticated writers. Roger of Hoveden's work, it seem to me, is hardly a model of classical allusion. It is more like a collection of letters strung together with bits of narrative: a chronicle rather than a history. [I also think, as I indicated, that 1853 English translator - a barrister who may have been familiar with the meaning of actions - does seem to have seen the homosexual implications of the passage you discuss. And the hermit cannot be dismissed so easily as some have.] Thank you for responding. I would, in fact,like to post you note to me, as well as this response to the Mediev-l and Medgay lists where I posted my original discussion of your article. Of course I shall not do so without your consent. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 10:05:27.78 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:46:31 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: flcheyette@AMHERST.BITNET Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <01IC410Z3PIQBDJCXN@amherst.edu> Bernie: Since you got me to go back and read John Benton's essay "Clio and Venus," he already there had some important things to say about the various meanings of "amicitia/amor" in the twelfth century, and especially about the "amor" that "honoravit." Jaeger has only expanded and more fully documented Benton's briefly stated point. Fred flcheyette@amherst.edu (Personal note to Bernie: the specific ref. you suggested I look for there was not to be found, nor in any other obvious place in the collected essays. I guess it is in an unobvious place. I'll keep looking. The point is important.) From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 10:42:35.39 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: bedchambers Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 10:25:14 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: flcheyette@AMHERST.EDU Subject: bedchambers To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Indeed, not only royal bedchambers were (to our minds and eyes) public places. In the interesting divorce proceedings of Maria of Montpellier and the King of Aragon (which involved, inter alia, the question of whether Maria had ever been legitimately married to the count of Comminges, which involved, inter alia, the question of whether the count had been legitimately divorced from his several other wives), a witness is asked by the papal judges delegate how he knows that the count of Comminges was married to one of those various women. The reply is, "I often saw them in bed together as husband and wife." (!) Paul: in answer to your comments on Jaeger, I think Bernie (following Jaeger) has it right. The key word is the verb "honoravit" and the key sentence in H is th e one that Jaeger points to and Boswell stops just short of: Henry II's reaction, which is to put off his return to England (obviously to look to his continental defenses). Henry interprets the "love" as a political gesture, and it would seem that by his choice of verbs, the chronicler does as well. Much of this discussion really comes down to a much broader issue. Can we imagine a society in which strong emotional attachment (or behavior that is read as strong emotional attachment) is read in what we would call a "political" manner, rather than saying something about the individual's sexual drives or sexual behavior? This is another of those places in which our modern dividing line between "public" and "private" and the placement of that line (if indeed it existed) in the middle ages becomes an important question to face. The question of whether H's discussion of Richard and Philip implies homosexual behavior (and why is there no discussion of whether Philip was bi-sexual? He's a partner in this!) cannot be separated from the well-worn debate about whether the love talk of the troubadours to their great lady patronesses implied adulterous behavior, the subject of Benton's "Clio and Venus." The way you come down on one of these issues determines the way you come down on the other. There is plenty of "love" talk in non-literary contexts in Occitania, and it always involves political connections. Indeed, the word "drut" and its latinized version "drudaria" shows up in charters and oaths of fidelity before it shows up in any troubadour poetry. I cite one example in my review of S.Reynolds book in the most recent Speculum. That (and much else in the vocabulary of troubadour lyrics) would allow us to interpret some of those "love lyrics" as "political." Fred Cheyette From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 11:40:07.06 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 12:05:13 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L I think it would be useful, in light of the controlling verb honoravit and Richard's excellent reputation as a soldier that any aristocratic youth, e.g. Phil., would admire, to place their behavior in the framework of the military training topos. There is an excellent exposition of this by Ammianus in his recounting Valentinian's speech to the officer corps. The essence of the topos is to eat together, work together, endure together, etc and thus to form the kind of close bond that makes it possible for men to risk their lives for each other. It was in this context that I suggested that not even copulavit would be sufficient because in context it could mean simply to bind or tie together. While I have no doubt that sex in peoples' lives was as important in the later Roman empire and in the Middle Ages as it is today, it is not the only thing in which people have important interests. Indeed, even teenage boys have interests in things other than sex. One of the useful thing about Collingwood notion of what a historian does encourages the researcher to thing in terms broader than what might be the particular hobboy horse of the moment. B.Bachrach U. of MN From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 12:28:00.27 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 08:54:55 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Crawford Subject: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Paul Halsall: >I >think that suggestions that the Chroniclers did not mean some sodomitical >illicit actions were going on are really wide of the mark. OK, you do. I don't. There are two schools of thought here, we belong to opposite ones, and it appears that we aren't getting anywhere with attempts to persuade each other. My original concern was with pointing out that the idea that Richard had "fallen in love" with Saladin was without any supporting evidence whatsoever. >The hermit in question was not the only one to warn Richard, by the way. A >priest named Fulk accused Richard of having "three daughters" - pride, >avarice and "sensuality" [Hoveden, Vol 2. p. 448]. The equation of "sensuality" with homosexuality is a bit startling, to say the least. As I said, Richard was explicitly accused elsewhere of an undue appetite for females. >Legal texts in the modern US use "sodomy" for a variety of activities. It's hard to see how this has bearing on 12th century definitions of the word. >As I believe Boswell did show, the degree of this condemnation varied >rather considerably over time. As you must surely be aware, not all scholars are enamoured of Prof. Boswell's conclusions. In fact, I think it's safe to say that they are not widely accepted in their entirety. >...I >am at a loss to imagine *any* form of words which would convince you >that anybody ever had homosexual sex in the middle ages. What a remarkable notion. Does it interest you to learn that I am aware of--and am even "convinced" of--a case in the late 13th century regarding the Templars' discovery of two of their members in a homosexual act? They promptly locked them up for life as a punishment.... (So much for the charges of 1307/8, BTW.) But I think the discussion is beginning to slide towards ad hominem arguments, so I'll sign off with this. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Paul Crawford History Department University of Wisconsin-Madison From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 16:48:26.01 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 13:13:31 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexuality in the To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Pro. Barchrach writes >I think it would be useful, in light of the controlling verb honoravit and >Richard's excellent reputation as a soldier that any aristocratic youth, >e.g. Phil., would admire, to place their behavior in the framework of the >military training topos. There is an excellent exposition of this by >Ammianus in his recounting Valentinian's speech to the officer corps. The >essence of the topos is to eat together, work together, endure together, >etc and thus to form the kind of close bond that makes it possible for men >to risk their lives for each other. Are we talking the Sacred Band here, or the training of Spartan youths? >It was in this context that I suggested >that not even copulavit would be sufficient because in context it could >mean simply to bind or tie together. And of course, "honoravit" could mean what I think it means. > While I have no doubt that sex in peoples' lives was as important in the >later Roman empire and in the Middle Ages as it is today, it is not the >only thing in which people have important interests. Indeed, even teenage >boys have interests in things other than sex. One of the useful thing about >Collingwood notion of what a historian does encourages the researcher to >thing in terms broader than what might be the particular hobboy horse of >the moment. Well one could hardly argue that military history gets less than it is due [I am sure your personal bibliographies would show this]. But it is interesting, to many of us, to investigate the specific notions of masculinity associated with military activity. Until very recently masculinity has been an univestigated topi: now it is getting the attention is deserves. PBH From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 22-NOV-1996 17:08:54.86 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 12:07:47 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Robert E Helmerichs Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <3291e8595f14003@mhub1.tc.umn.edu> But, John, without taking a stand on one side or the other, I'd like to point out that everything you said could be interpreted just as easily as the results of a political, not sexual, alliance between Richard and Philip. Mom chasing after Richard with bride in tow could be, as you (accidently?) suggested, an effort to secure an heir before Richard could get himself killed. I think what has come out of this thread most clearly is that the evidence is ambivalent, and that its interpretation probably reveals more about the agenda of the historian than the agendas of Richard and Philip, which seem to remain resolutely murky. Rob __________________________________________________________________________ Robert Helmerichs, ABD Local address: Department of History 1101 South 7th Street, #8 UC Santa Barbara Minneapolis, MN 55415 Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (612) 349-9250 6500geof@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Robert.Helmerichs-1@tc.umn.edu From: SMTP%"stephen=jaeger@rz.hu-berlin.de" 25-NOV-1996 08:35:17.89 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: re: RE: ...no subject... Date: Mon, 25 Nov 96 11:21:29 MET Message-Id: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) To: From: "Stephen Jaeger" Subject: re: RE: ...no subject... Dear Paul (do you mind? If not, then call me Stephen), Thanks for your note. I'm grateful for this discussion. I'm writing a book on this whole subject (ergo no point in publishing the Annales article in English), and it will help me refine my positions. I'd be further into it by now, if I hadn't discovered what a remarkable writer Alcuin is, and now am ploughing through his works and the lit. on him. I'll send an answer to your original query later this week to the whole list, but would prefer you didn't post my previous note. The comment about McGuire might seem a bit harsh. I learned a lot from both McGuire and Boswell, given the faults of both books which complement each other (i.e. the faults) in an odd way. Could you send me the reference to the hermit warning Richard against sodom? I did indeed miss it, but I fear it bears out my argument rather than arguing against it. It is possible to Hovedon to speak in exalting terms of the love of the two kings but to credit at least transmit a harsh criticism of sodomy. I'm skeptical about your limiting of "illicit" sex to anal sex. Would you have a look at the debate poem between Helen and Ganymede -- Boswell has translated the whole poem at the back of CSTH. The whole debate, which presents one of the most compelling, well-reasoned arguments of the superiority of male-male love to male-female, ends with the clear and uncontested victory of Helen, as soon as the sexual act between men is mentioned, in this case something like, "leaving the tear of Venus on the thigh", which doesn't sound like anal sex, but nevertheless is precisely the decisive point which swings the argument in favor of Helen. On the circumstances of war: again I could have formulated more carefully, but would defend what I said. The circumstances of war create precisely the kind of non-erotic passion which is the grounding of the book I'm working on. Of course, -- maybe I assumed it goes without saying -- such relations can also be erotic, but not because the circumstances of war call them forth in that way. I had in mind a situation in the news at the time I wrote th article: there was an explosion on a navy ship, a number of sailors were killed, and suspicion fell initially on a lonely young man who had written love letters to one of the men killed. It seemed he had a motive, and the navy alleged unhappy homosexual love (in the end it turned out the navy was responsible -- old, unstable powder). The young man was found innocent (and sued), and he claimed the charge of homosexuality was false and trumped up. I believe him. He didn't want to sleep with the other man; he just loved him. Anyone is free to be skeptical of that claim, but it does seem to me a real injustice to the man. Military service (and I assume confinement in prison) draws men very close to each other and creates a kind of situation related to pre-puberty love of boys for boys, where feelings can be intense and passionate, but without any sexual intent or ambition. I think part of the charm of "sublime love" (Aelred's term) is that it allows the staging of relationships within a kind of pre-lapsarian world of passion unencumbered by sexuality. The nobility in the middle ages and beyond wanted to create such worlds and pretend they were real and live in sublime scenarios. I agree with Bernie (or Fred cheyette): courtly love raises the same problem of discourse analysis, and if you argue that Richard's love for Phil-Aug is homoerotic, then you probably ought also to argue that Bernart de Ventadorn's for some queen (Eleanor allegedly), or Raleigh's, Spenser's etc etc for Elizabeth I, was also erotic. Back later Stephen From: SMTP%"stephen=jaeger@rz.hu-berlin.de" 25-NOV-1996 09:27:37.71 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: re: RE: ...no subject... Date: Mon, 25 Nov 96 11:21:29 MET Message-Id: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) To: From: "Stephen Jaeger" Subject: re: RE: ...no subject... Dear Paul (do you mind? If not, then call me Stephen), Thanks for your note. I'm grateful for this discussion. I'm writing a book on this whole subject (ergo no point in publishing the Annales article in English), and it will help me refine my positions. I'd be further into it by now, if I hadn't discovered what a remarkable writer Alcuin is, and now am ploughing through his works and the lit. on him. I'll send an answer to your original query later this week to the whole list, but would prefer you didn't post my previous note. The comment about McGuire might seem a bit harsh. I learned a lot from both McGuire and Boswell, given the faults of both books which complement each other (i.e. the faults) in an odd way. Could you send me the reference to the hermit warning Richard against sodom? I did indeed miss it, but I fear it bears out my argument rather than arguing against it. It is possible to Hovedon to speak in exalting terms of the love of the two kings but to credit at least transmit a harsh criticism of sodomy. I'm skeptical about your limiting of "illicit" sex to anal sex. Would you have a look at the debate poem between Helen and Ganymede -- Boswell has translated the whole poem at the back of CSTH. The whole debate, which presents one of the most compelling, well-reasoned arguments of the superiority of male-male love to male-female, ends with the clear and uncontested victory of Helen, as soon as the sexual act between men is mentioned, in this case something like, "leaving the tear of Venus on the thigh", which doesn't sound like anal sex, but nevertheless is precisely the decisive point which swings the argument in favor of Helen. On the circumstances of war: again I could have formulated more carefully, but would defend what I said. The circumstances of war create precisely the kind of non-erotic passion which is the grounding of the book I'm working on. Of course, -- maybe I assumed it goes without saying -- such relations can also be erotic, but not because the circumstances of war call them forth in that way. I had in mind a situation in the news at the time I wrote th article: there was an explosion on a navy ship, a number of sailors were killed, and suspicion fell initially on a lonely young man who had written love letters to one of the men killed. It seemed he had a motive, and the navy alleged unhappy homosexual love (in the end it turned out the navy was responsible -- old, unstable powder). The young man was found innocent (and sued), and he claimed the charge of homosexuality was false and trumped up. I believe him. He didn't want to sleep with the other man; he just loved him. Anyone is free to be skeptical of that claim, but it does seem to me a real injustice to the man. Military service (and I assume confinement in prison) draws men very close to each other and creates a kind of situation related to pre-puberty love of boys for boys, where feelings can be intense and passionate, but without any sexual intent or ambition. I think part of the charm of "sublime love" (Aelred's term) is that it allows the staging of relationships within a kind of pre-lapsarian world of passion unencumbered by sexuality. The nobility in the middle ages and beyond wanted to create such worlds and pretend they were real and live in sublime scenarios. I agree with Bernie (or Fred cheyette): courtly love raises the same problem of discourse analysis, and if you argue that Richard's love for Phil-Aug is homoerotic, then you probably ought also to argue that Bernart de Ventadorn's for some queen (Eleanor allegedly), or Raleigh's, Spenser's etc etc for Elizabeth I, was also erotic. Back later Stephen From: MURRAY::HALSALL 25-NOV-1996 09:36:13.04 To: SMTP%"stephen=jaeger@rz.hu-berlin.de" CC: HALSALL Subj: RE: re: RE: ...no subject... Dear Stephen, Thanks for your note, >Thanks for your note. I'm grateful for this discussion. I'm writing a book >on this whole subject (ergo no point in publishing the Annales article in >English), and it will help me refine my positions. That's kinda worrying! >From discussion on Mediev-l, it is clear that yor position differes from those who are citing you, or at least I think so. With the Hoveden snippet they want to argue that it has no homosexual overtones, whereas you seem to be arguing that it does, but within an interpretative framework in which the words have no homosexual *meaning*. If your these held, then no history of homosexuality in the middle ages is possible. Or rather a history of condemnation would be possible, and a history of criminalization, but not a history of the subculture. This I reject. I do not see, in any possible hermeneutic, how Paulinus; poem to Ausonius cannot be homoerotic, for instance [see the collection of such texts at /halsall/sbook.html under the heading "homoerotic texts".] >I'd be further into it by now, if I hadn't discovered what a remarkable >writer Alcuin is, and now am ploughing through his works and the lit. on him. > I'll send an answer to your original query later this week to the whole >list, but would prefer you didn't post my previous note. The comment about >McGuire might seem a bit harsh. I learned a lot from both McGuire and >Boswell, given the faults of both books which complement each other (i.e. the >faults) in an odd way. >Could you send me the reference to the hermit warning Richard against sodom? in the Riley trans. Vol 2, 356-357 >I did indeed miss it, but I fear it bears out my argument rather than arguing >against it. It is possible to Hovedon to speak in exalting terms of the love >of the two kings but to credit at least transmit a harsh criticism of sodomy. It is the locus classicus of the claim that Richard was homosexual - and relates to a *belief at the time*. Gillingham argues that "sodomy" means something else, but since the text goes on to say that Richard gace up "illicit intercourse", I think he is simply wrong [sodomy can mean a number of things - simple fornication does not seem to be one of them.] I think you have too high a picture of Hoveden, and in fact the possibility of a literary hermeutical circle distinct from soceity at large [which certainly was not going around citing the Symposium]. By the way, this homosexual interepretation was not new this century. As I tried to argue, Riley's translation knows about it, and, more overly, de Thayer in the 18th century wrote a History of England [cited by Gillingham] in which he discussed Richard's homosexuality. Freudian hermeneutics have nothing to do with it. [On the other hand, modern deflating of heroes may have something to do with the widespread acceptance of the idea. Most historians who have written in the past 30 years seem to have accepted that R. was homosexual - possibly without reflection.] > I'm skeptical about your limiting of "illicit" sex to anal sex. Would you >have a look at the debate poem between Helen and Ganymede -- Boswell has >translated the whole poem at the back of CSTH. The whole debate, which >presents one of the most compelling, well-reasoned arguments of the >superiority of male-male love to male-female, ends with the clear and >uncontested victory of Helen, as soon as the sexual act between men is >mentioned, in this case something like, "leaving the tear of Venus on the >thigh", which doesn't sound like anal sex, but nevertheless is precisely the >decisive point which swings the argument in favor of Helen. No it sounds like intercrural sex [the classical ideal - see Dover] but I am not sure of your point here. >On the circumstances of war: again I could have formulated more carefully, >but would defend what I said. The circumstances of war create precisely the >kind of non-erotic passion which is the grounding of the book I'm working on. > Of course, -- maybe I assumed it goes without saying -- such relations can It never goes without saying! >also be erotic, but not because the circumstances of war call them forth in >that way. I had in mind a situation in the news at the time I wrote th >article: there was an explosion on a navy ship, a number of sailors were >killed, and suspicion fell initially on a lonely young man who had written >love letters to one of the men killed. It seemed he had a motive, and the >navy alleged unhappy homosexual love (in the end it turned out the navy was >responsible -- old, unstable powder). The young man was found innocent (and >sued), and he claimed the charge of homosexuality was false and trumped up. >I believe him. He didn't want to sleep with the other man; he just loved >him. Anyone is free to be skeptical of that claim, but it does seem to me a >real injustice to the man. Military service (and I assume confinement in >prison) draws men very close to each other and creates a kind of situation >related to pre-puberty love of boys for boys, where feelings can be intense >and passionate, but without any sexual intent or ambition. Is "eros" the same as "sexual" for you? >I think part of the charm of "sublime love" (Aelred's term) is that it allows >the staging of relationships within a kind of pre-lapsarian world of passion >unencumbered by sexuality. The nobility in the middle ages and beyond wanted >to create such worlds and pretend they were real and live in sublime >scenarios. I agree with Bernie (or Fred cheyette): courtly love raises the >same problem of discourse analysis, and if you argue that Richard's love for >Phil-Aug is homoerotic, then you probably ought also to argue that Bernart de >Ventadorn's for some queen (Eleanor allegedly), or Raleigh's, Spenser's etc >etc for Elizabeth I, was also erotic. The is precisely the problem: you seem to be writing as if the entire Medieval period - across time and place - had the same social and literary parameters. That people in court and monastic writers, all shared some hermenuetic of sexuality and eroticism. The situation varied, of course, and rather massively. Richard - the Duke of Aquintaine and one of the great Princes of Europe in his own right - having a relationship with his mother's former husband's son, a young lad he had known throughout his life, is not a courtier courting a king. Spenser and other poets are in quite different circumstances. Moreover, a well read poet may indeed develop entry into a hermeneutic circle, but such is not extendable, automatically, to historians and even less to chroniclers. And not necessarily at all to semi-literate aristocrats. Cheers. Paul Halsall [Since I am applying for the late antique job in your department, I suppose this is a really stupid discussion to be carrying on! Still it is interesting, and so what the hell]. Back later Stephen From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 25-NOV-1996 18:22:43.97 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: King Richard Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 11:55:19 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: John Peltier Subject: King Richard To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L At 12:07 PM 11/19/96 -0600, Robert Helmerichs wrote: >But, John, without taking a stand on one side or the other, I'd like to >point out that everything you said could be interpreted just as easily as >the results of a political, not sexual, alliance between Richard and >Philip. Mom chasing after Richard with bride in tow could be, as you >(accidently?) suggested, an effort to secure an heir before Richard could >get himself killed. I think what has come out of this thread most >clearly is that the evidence is ambivalent, and that its interpretation >probably reveals more about the agenda of the historian than the agendas >of Richard and Philip, which seem to remain resolutely murky. > >Rob In history, as in most disciplines, the "evidence" only reveals objective or apparent reality, not subjective or actual reality. In this case, the puffs of smoke and patches of dust we have to work with seem to indicate by a preponderance of the evidence (to continue your metaphor) that Richard and John had some type of homo-/ bisexual relationship. We do not know the actual reality, only the apparent reality, so we have to go with what we have until someone comes up with more difinitive evidence. It seems, from what appears to be reality, that their relationship helped to effect the early succession of Richard to the crown at the expense of Henry II but that it did not further the incursion of French influence into English internal affairs, as Philip seems to have planned. To that extent, their relationship seems historically significant. However, I do not think the study of medieval history can enjoy the luxury of working only with factual matter which has been established beyond a reasonable doubt (again your metaphor). Like doctors, lawyers, scientists, astrophysicists, etc., historians can only work with what they have now, with the hope that the future does not make their efforts look too shabby in retrospect. John John Peltier jpeltier@mindspring.com ftp://ftp.mindspring.com/users/jpeltier/incoming John Peltier jpeltier@mindspring.com ftp://ftp.mindspring.com/users/jpeltier/incoming From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 25-NOV-1996 18:24:15.90 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 19:07:59 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "Paul R. Hyams" Subject: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L I have been falling desperately behind on my E-Mail since two conference trips earlier in the month, so what I want to say may well have been said already. If so, pardon. I want to make a couple of fuddy-duddy pooints about evidence, that may encourage some to pursue the possibly homoerotic Richard a little further, at their choice. First. Ought we not to be asking something about the quality of the information in our sources? I know that kings seldom slept alone, that they had companions on occasion in their beds, and almost always somewhere in the Chamber. Still, entrance was by invitation, and history does not record that many chroniclers were among those privileged with an invitation of either kind. I suppose Roger of Howden might just have been one such, since he was royal almoner, as David Korner has shown. Does anybody know of any indication of this in either of his two chronicles? Even without, as it were, personal access, he was certainly in a position to pick up the word going round the court, and when he had, to state it either directly or as hearsay. Second, as to morality. I thought it was an English failing to equate morality entirely with sexual behavior -- and hygiene, which is another story!. Apparently not. I suspect moralists were at least as much concerned with sins that would impede kings from doing their duty QUA kings. My own inclination would be to assume something of this kind as the target unless our sources say otherwise. Take St. Hugh of Lincoln's reproof of Richard, probably late on in the reign, certainly well after 1182. St. Hugh treated him as another if special PAROCHIANUS, and inquired after the state of his conscience, MAGNA VITA S. HUGONIS, ed. Douie and Farmer (1962), ii. 102-5. The king claimed to be at peace with himself, except that he REALLY hated his enemies, among them, I should guess, Philip Augustus. Hugh took this as an opening for him to remind Richard that if he behaved better, God would give him a chance to reconcile with his enemies, and recounted to him, more in sadness than malice, I am sure, a PUBLICUS RUMOR that "nec proprie coniuge maritalis thori fidem conservas", then moved swiftly on to the more important matter of his mistreatment of Church privileges. Nothing conclusive here, of course, but a useful indication of the way that a great moral figure might deal with a king. More context comes with the scene a little further on (ibid., 140-1), when the bishop took the future king John (thus in Richard's reign) off to view the tympanum on the Last Judgement over the porch at Saumur. The lecture that followed focussed on John's chances of avoiding Damnation (not all that strong) because of the many great excesses committed "in Deum et proximum,...in clerum et populum". Again, you pays your money and makes your choice. Mine goes on the proposition that Hugh would have lambasted Richard, had he thought him a sodomite. Of course, Adam of Eynsham knew Hugh much better than either king, and he was writing a while later. I have got quite interested in sinning kings and the ways these differ from the rest of us more ordinary sinners, also in royal bedrooms. Hence, as others have already hinted on this thread, a piece entitled "What did Henry III of England Think in Bed (and in French) about Kingship and Anger?", soon to appear in a book splendidly edited by Barbara Rosenwein. Moralists do deal differently with them than they do with the rest of us, but their bedrooms were public knowledge and I very much doubt if anyone would overlook sodomy at the turn of the open twelfth and closed thirteenth centuries. My brother in Paulity, Halsall, is right to challenge us all to deciude what each of us WOULD regard as evidence for homoerotic behavior. For me, though, Richard's is not it. Hyams (Paul) PAUL R. HYAMS, Director, Law & Society Program History Dept., 397 McGraw Hall, Home Phone: (607) 257-3168 Cornell University, ITHACA NY 14853-4601, U.S.A. NET: From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 25-NOV-1996 18:37:51.43 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 13:53:27 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Paul Crawford writes quoting me >>I >>think that suggestions that the Chroniclers did not mean some sodomitical >>illicit actions were going on are really wide of the mark. > >OK, you do. I don't. There are two schools of thought here, we belong to >opposite ones, and it appears that we aren't getting anywhere with attempts >to persuade each other. But you may well be correct! Discussion such as this does help clarify what the basis of disagreement is, and may change minds one way or the other. It certainly makes one confront one's opinions. >My original concern was with pointing out that the idea that Richard had >"fallen in love" with Saladin was without any supporting evidence >whatsoever. And I would certainly agree with you. I never suggested, I believe, that R and S did fall in love. Rather I suggested it was romantic stories such as that which led to the concenetration of populist interest on certain monarchs and not on other, perhaps more deserving, monarchs [assuming we have to discuss monarchs at all]. >>The hermit in question was not the only one to warn Richard, by the way. A >>priest named Fulk accused Richard of having "three daughters" - pride, >>avarice and "sensuality" [Hoveden, Vol 2. p. 448]. > >The equation of "sensuality" with homosexuality is a bit startling, to say >the least. Not with homosexuality, but with the acknowledge "illicit" sexual activities. "Luxury" would, of course, have been a more common term for homoerotic activity. >As I said, Richard was explicitly accused elsewhere of an undue >appetite for females. Not his wife, apparently. I do not see how one excludes the other. Philip is not the only male Richard was associated with. >>Legal texts in the modern US use "sodomy" for a variety of activities. > >It's hard to see how this has bearing on 12th century definitions of the word. I think your omission of much of what I wrote here makes this come out wrongly. I did address 12th century uses. >>As I believe Boswell did show, the degree of this condemnation varied >>rather considerably over time. > >As you must surely be aware, not all scholars are enamoured of Prof. >Boswell's conclusions. In fact, I think it's safe to say that they are not >widely accepted in their entirety. I was not talking about his conclusions "in their entirety" [which I would find hard to summarise]. His main arguments, though, that a: there were homerotic subcultures in the middle ages b: hostility was not constant, but varied considerably over time, do seem to have been accepted. Many of the attacks have been on specific points [for instance his biblical interpretations, or his lack of consideration of women - for which see Bernardette Brooten's revolutionary new book on Lesbianism in the Roman and early Christian periods], less on these points. >>...I >>am at a loss to imagine *any* form of words which would convince you >>that anybody ever had homosexual sex in the middle ages. > >What a remarkable notion. Does it interest you to learn that I am aware >of--and am even "convinced" of--a case in the late 13th century regarding >the Templars' discovery of two of their members in a homosexual act? They >promptly locked them up for life as a punishment.... (So much for the >charges of 1307/8, BTW.) Sorry, I perhaps misphrased the comment. What cannot be concieved, it seems, in some of the formulations put forth here, is that any text which is neutral or approving of homoeroticism in the middle ages actually means what it says. >But I think the discussion is beginning to slide towards ad hominem >arguments, so I'll sign off with this. I am genuinely sorry if anything I have said is construed as an ad hominem attack. Paul Halsall +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Paul Crawford History Department University of Wisconsin-Madison From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 25-NOV-1996 18:38:29.88 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 16:10:02 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: John Carmi Parsons Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <199611221908.OAA29518@bebop.chass.utoronto.ca> On Mon, 18 Nov 1996, Paul Halsall wrote: > Prof Cheyette writes > >>Paul: The passage from Higdon that you quote noting Richard and Philip >>in the same bed has an important following statement that you do not >>quote, to the effect that Henry II abandoned his plans to return to >>England and looked after his fortifications. That is, the king did not >>look at this love of his son and the French king as a sexual act but as >>an important and threatening political act. > > Are you referring to the Roger of Hoveden passage? I do not see how a > political interpretation by Henry precludes other interpretations. And I > do not see that the "sodomy" charge publically made against Richard > can be discounted. "Sodomy" certainly included a variety of condemned > practices, but usually condemned "unnatural" sexual practices. The > use of the word with this meaning seems, a/c Brundage, to have been > prevalent in the late 12th century. > > I would be interested to know what Prof. Brundage thinks now, btw. > >>>Paul, I've been waiting to see your response to Prof. Cheyette's remarks and will now rejoin the fray. A "political interpretation by Henry" may not "preclude other interpretations," but I am still at a loss to see how the other references associating Richard and sodomy *force* us to assume that Richard and Philip sleeping two to a bed necessarily means they were indulging in any kind of sexual activity. If anything, this thread over the past week has demonstrated that some complex webs of meaning surround the incident (including Rick Barton's pertinent remarks this morning about the publicity of royal bedchambers), and given that complexity I would wonder about the advisability of imposing any *one* meaning on Hoveden's account. See, too, W.L. Warren's account of events surrounding Richard's visit to Paris in 1186 (*Henry II*, pp. 616-17): Philip had in fact tried to suborn Richard earlier the same year--no reference to any bedroom antics on the earlier occasion, at Chateauroux--and Warren too sees the Paris incident as merely another move in the same direction on Philip's part. I'm still considering, too, the fact that no French chronicle I've been able to check this past week refers to Richard's visit to Paris in terms similar to Hoveden's. Could the reason be that the French, for obvious reasons, saw nothing threatening in Philip's very generous hospitality to Richard? Henry II on the other hand would have had every reason to be as apprehensive as Hoveden says he was. It is Hoveden, our source, who says that Richard's visit to Paris led Henry to fortify his castles, and the idea that he did so because he thought Richard was comitting sodomy with Philip seems to play fast and loose with the line of reasoning the source is actually developing, and shatters credibility. The connection Hoveden clearly implies is political in nature, not sexual. >>Note in passing the frequent representation of the Magi sleeping three to >>a bed. Are they to be made homosexuals as well? Fred Cheyette > >> Given Zoroastrian hostility towards homosexuality, it would seem to be >> unlikely. > >>>The best-known representation of the Magi 3-in-a-bed is probably that by Gislebertus at Autun. But would Gislebertus--or most other Christian artists, for that matter--have known anything at all about Zoroastrian attitudes toward homosexuality? I'd expect they would have been proceeding from the Christian perspective. John Parsons From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 25-NOV-1996 21:23:33.70 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 22:27:32 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L The discussion of "evidence" in regard to Richard is rather premature. We can speak reasonably about information provided by one or another writer. This information is surely "evidence" for "something" and perhaps for several somethings but the question for what it is evidence is the issue. Roger's information regarding Richard and Philip is rather far removed from the room in which the two men are alleged to have ate and slept and as I pointed out earlier even more remote from Philip's thoughts and feelings or for that matter Richard's thoughts or feelings. Roger's chronicle is not an unabridged file from a psychiatrist's cabinent detailing both private and joint sessions with Richard and Philip. For us to treat it as though it were such a file causes a great many problems. To argue that simply because for the MA we have so little "evidence" we are entitled to use what we have as we would like is seductive but not compelling. At the least we must try to figure out what Roger is trying to say, where he likely obtained this information, and what was his parti pris with regard to Richard, Philip etc. I have seen efforts to approach some of this points but nothing systematic on all of them. Would someone like to sum up what we have accomplished? Then perhaps we can contnue the discussion. B. Bachrach U. of MN From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 26-NOV-1996 00:22:13.18 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 00:14:49 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Prof Bachrach writes >The discussion of "evidence" in regard to Richard is rather premature. We >can speak reasonably about information provided by one or another writer. >This information is surely "evidence" for "something" and perhaps for >several somethings but the question for what it is evidence is the issue. >Roger's information regarding Richard and Philip is rather far removed >from the room in which the two men are alleged to have ate and slept and >as I pointed out earlier even more remote from Philip's thoughts and >feelings or for that matter Richard's thoughts or feelings. > >Roger's chronicle is not an unabridged file from a psychiatrist's cabinent >detailing both private and joint sessions with Richard and Philip. For >us to treat it as though it were such a file causes a great many >problems. To argue that simply because for the MA we have so little >"evidence" we are entitled to use what we have as we would like is >seductive but not compelling. At the least we must try to figure out what >Roger is trying to say, where he likely obtained this information, and what >was his parti pris with regard to Richard, Philip etc. I have seen efforts >to approach some of this points but nothing systematic on all of them. I agree. There seem to be several issues which need to be addressed. 1. Some people deny that the Hoveden text addresses homosexuality at all. They think that reading the shared bedchamber story as homosexual simply project current sexual concerns on the past. Gillingham leads the field here. It does seem to be true that the ready acceptance of Richard as "homosexual" in recent decades does owe something to the time we live in - less perhaps to "gay politics" which were not much in evidence, for instance, when 'The Lion in Winter' was made, thana desire to deflate heros. For some, though, Richard is still a military or culture hero, and this seem to play a role in their "defence" of him. Whatever the truth, as I have argued the 19th century translator of Hoveden certainly seems to have downplayed the incident, and the 18th century French writer [pre Freud!] de Thayer did read the story as homosexual [as Gillinghan points out.] 2. If I read Stephen Jaeger correctly, he is arguing that the text, and other such texts, are, in fact, overtly homoerotic, but were made within such a widely understood hermeneutic, derived from classical meditations on amity, that no one would have read them as homoerotic. This is a distinct position from those who reject the implications of the text. I think Jaeger's ideas are interesting, but, ultimately, fail; first because I dispute such a hermeneutic could be shown to exist over the different centuries and cultures he suggest [Paulinus of Nola and Roger of Hoveden sharing the same view of amity - I don't buy it.] 3. For me, at least, the issue is connected to what sort of history of sexuality, and sexual minorities, we can write. It is clear that we can write a very well document history of condemnation os homosexual activity; it is also apparent that, as court records become available, we can writer a history of persecution, and perhaps derive reflections from those court records, of some sort of subculture [Michael Rocke and Guido Ruggiero have done this, for instance.] The question is can we write a history of homosexual subcultures using material produced by that subculture. For this Richard I really does not matter: as Prof Bachrach has pointed out, we have no idea what his psychology was. All I have been trying to do is show that the "Gillingham Defence", which I have heard cited repeatedly in recent years, is not a definitive refutation of claims that Richard I was homosexual: the text of Hovedon does, I claim, support that interpretation and efforts to deny that Richard I was homosexual are, in effect, efforts to explain away the text. That does not mean that in this case the "explaining away" might not work: I just do not see it as convincing yet. 4. But The issue is deeper than Richard and Philip. Here Stephen Jaeger's arguments are indeed important. There is substantial homoerotic literature from Christian middle ages, even by people who at other stages of life attacked homosexuality [for instance Augustine!]. John Boswell, who was so tough on the people he reviewed that he could not really complain about the knocks he gets, did expose this literature. Later historians have uncovered a lot more [all the articles about Chaucer's Pardoner, for instance]. Now, was all this literature the result of a society which was - despite nagative voices in every century - basically tolerant of homosexuality, or at least the product of a part of society, or was is this literature merely a mirage, a series of word games. If it exists because there was, at some levels of society, and in some areas, relatively high levels of tolerance, if not acceptance, then we can indeed essay a history of a subculture. If the homoerotic literature which exists was merely the word play of a soceitu which was busy oppressing any actual "homosexuals",[like American whites playing with teepess while exterminating the teepee builders], then the type of history we can write is rather different. 5. Personally, and I have reviewed the texts again, I cannot see that we only have word play here. When Paulinus of Nola - a married and pious man, writes the following poem to Ausonius:- I, through all chances that are given to mortals, And through all fates that be, So long as this close prison shall contain me, Yea, though a world shall sunder me and thee, Thee shall I hold, in every fibre woven, Not with dumb lips, nor with averted face Shall I behold thee, in my mind embrace thee, Instant and present, thou, in every place. Yea, when the prison of this flesh is broken, And from the earth I shall have gone my way, Wheresoe'er in the wide universe I stay me, There shall I bear thee, as I do today. Think not the end, that from my body frees me, Breaks and unshackles from my love to thee; Triumphs the soul above its house in ruin, Deathless, begot of immortality. Still must she keep her senses and affections, Hold them as dear as life itself to be, Could she choose death, then might she choose forgetting: Living, remembering, to eternity. [ trans. Helen Waddell] When Paulinus writes this, I simply cannot see that this is the language of friendship. It is, in fact, the language of eros, or desire. Similarly when Anslem writes similar lines to new monks, I do not think he is lusting after them, but he is desiring them. More on this anon. PBH From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 26-NOV-1996 00:45:49.13 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 01:50:18 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L I think that Paul's use of the word "desire" viz Paulinus' poem, and we may well want to look later at the text, may say more or less than he intends. Is the "desire" physical in a sexual sense or physical in a non-sexual sense--the latter certainly exists but does not get much attention these days--is the desire psychological? This discussion seems to be working with a rather northern European sense of "friendship" and of physicality and by extension I would suggest of desire. When one sees men on the street in Rome embrace each other etc. in various situations it is clear if one spends much time in Italy or knows many Italians that these relationships are physical but not sexual. By contrast, in Stockholm if you talk to someone arm's length is the norm. If we recognize different types of physicality and different types of desire rather that the rather simple modern american-north european sex vs friend we may be getting closer to more nuanced realities. Surely Paulinus and Ausonius and Augustine were Mediteranean in culture. Richard and Philip are likely not but when does the northern european model take hold. I would look to an analogue here where in the early middle ages, indeed, well into the middle ages as well as in the ancient world men, great men, powerful men, e.g. Charlemagne, are seen to cry in public with some frequency. By the early modern period, at least in the north, men stop crying and certainly stop crying in public. Does the stiff upper lip go with standing at arm's length and no hugging and no sense of mutual physicality among northern european males. these are just some things to think about that emphasize a gulf between us and the middle ages while affirming continuity between the ancient world and the middle ages when we think about various constructs. B.Bachrach U. of MN From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 26-NOV-1996 01:09:43.25 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 00:10:59 -0700 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Norman Hinton Subject: Re: King Richard.... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <199611260522.AA044245748@eagle.uis.edu> from "Paul Halsall" at Nov 26, 96 00:14:49 am A couple of notes about things in my area: > > 4. But The issue is deeper than Richard and Philip. Here Stephen Jaeger's > arguments are indeed important. There is substantial homoerotic literature > from Christian middle ages, even by people who at other stages of > life attacked homosexuality [for instance Augustine!]. John Boswell, > who was so tough on the people he reviewed that he could not really > complain about the knocks he gets, did expose this literature. Later > historians have uncovered a lot more [all the articles about Chaucer's > Pardoner, for instance]. This seems to say that in recent years (since Boswell?), literary historian have "outed" Chaucer's Pardoner. That's not the case: it has been alleged for many years that the Pardoner is homosexual: in the 1950's it was widely held. Perhaps the first publication to say it in a definitive manner is in PMLA 95 (1980), but the idea was advanced long before that. Actually, the 'cutting edge' criticism nowadays is that which suggests that the Pardoner is _not_ a homosexual (when this is done by Queer Theory proponents, they blame the straight world for wantonly misreading the text....) > 5. Personally, and I have reviewed the texts again, I cannot see that > we only have word play here. When Paulinus of Nola - a married and > pious man, writes the following poem to Ausonius:- > * * * * * * * * > [ trans. Helen Waddell] I need to get my Raby out and look for the original of this. Helen Waddell's Latin is excellent, but her sense of style is Late 19th Century Decadent -- the style of Wilde, for instance. Indeed, a destructive review of Waddell's translations of medieval Latin lyric famously said "she writes like a tired Swinburne". I'd say that it is at lest possible that you are reacting to Waddell's overblown, pseudo-sensuous style. -- Norman Hinton hinton@uis.edu From: SMTP%"lhnelson@raven.cc.ukans.edu" 26-NOV-1996 03:02:09.64 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 02:02:03 -0600 (CST) From: "Lynn H. Nelson" To: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: King Richard.... In-Reply-To: <9611260515.AA11430@raven.cc.ukans.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello, Paul; (off-line) That was a great summary of positions and statement of positive lines of discussion. One thing that has been piquing my curiosity. I note that the nature-nurture debate on the causes of homosexuality have lately been coming down on the side of nature. Is it worthwhile to ask whether there are currently any biological studies in this area that could lead to an evolutionary typology for the characteristic? If we're dealing with a genetic factor, should we expect to see patterns of dispersion, such as are recorded for various blood types, eye color, cranial indices, and so forth? I suppose that I'm wondering whether there is any definitive truth to be found in discussion of the attitudes toward a physical phenomenon without knowing the nature of that phenomenon. Note, that's a question of personal reflection, not a contribution to or comment on the discussion underway. Lynn From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 26-NOV-1996 08:37:38.59 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Paulinus, Swinburne, and the Monkey Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 08:35:37 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Paulinus, Swinburne, and the Monkey To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Prof Hinton writes quoting me. >> 5. Personally, and I have reviewed the texts again, I cannot see that >> we only have word play here. When Paulinus of Nola - a married and >> pious man, writes the following poem to Ausonius:- >> >* * * * * * * * >> [ trans. Helen Waddell] >I need to get my Raby out and look for the original of this. Helen Boswell, CSTH 133-134, provides a less poetic translation, but it says the same thing. [The ref. btw is to Carmen I I. ll.49-68 in the CSEL (Vienna, 1894), 30:41-42, and OBLMV pp. 31-32. >Waddell's Latin is excellent, but her sense of style is Late 19th Century >Decadent -- the style of Wilde, for instance. Indeed, a destructive review >of Waddell's translations of medieval Latin lyric famously said "she >writes like a tired Swinburne". I'd say that it is at lest possible that >you are reacting to Waddell's overblown, pseudo-sensuous style. Poor Algernon, so famous and now so obscure. However, as a wannabe Late 20th Century decadent, I cannot resist sharing the following snippet, which together threads in a very satisfactory way. Swinburne's correspondence indicates that he also was homosexual [which British poets weren't, one has to ask sometimes]. On one ocasion, when he was living alone on the isle of Wight with a pet monkey, he met a young man whom he invited home. Once there, Swinburne began to make advances...But the monkey, overcome with jealousy, attacked the "guest", who ran away. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"pcrawfor@students.wisc.edu" 26-NOV-1996 11:56:27.42 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 11:01:17 -0600 To: Paul Halsall From: pcrawfor@students.wisc.edu (Paul Crawford) Subject: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] I haven't been getting my Mediev-L digests lately--just now got the one in which you write: >I am genuinely sorry if anything I have said is construed as an ad hominem >attack. I think most people (specially Bernie B.!) don't want discussions of apologies etc. carried out on list, and I'm rather weary of posting on the Richard debate, so I'll just reply privately: Apology accepted and appreciated. It's often difficult to read tone on-list, especially in a rather hot argument. I have no desire either to make or to be an enemy. Cheers. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Paul Crawford History Department University of Wisconsin-Madison From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 26-NOV-1996 20:29:37.06 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 20:26:21 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: John Murphy Subject: Re: Why King Richard Does Not Matter [that much] To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L At 12:19 AM 11/26/96 -0500, Paul Halsall baited: >Since you are so interested in people who fought exciting battles, >and took part in important events, perphaps you would like to >tell us about Manuel I Komnenos? Or Qin Shih Huangdi? Or Sultan >Baibars? >Waiting.... "...so interested in people who fought exciting battles and took part in important events"? I said, to paraphrase, that amateurs such as I are interested in *Richard* because of *his* important role in the intriguing events of his time. Quite a difference just in tone for starters, but the real distinction would be something covered in a class in basic logic. And no, as I am sure you are aware I really would not like to tell you about any of the names you have dropped. Would you like to tell us about them, because I'd like to hear what you have to say. Just, please, this time not about something like their various private affairs! Because all I am trying to say is that the public life of Richard is at least as important a topic, despite your assertions which launched this whole mess (and still survive in the subject header you created in case you forgot), as his private affairs on which so much energy has been affixed lately. But your hanging point here clearly goes beyond that, so why don't you say exactly what you mean? And if you are embarrassed to do so in front of your colleagues I have a private e-mail address in the header of all my messages. It is real. I am not hiding. -John Murphy From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 26-NOV-1996 22:56:57.86 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: about Richard anyway... Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 22:54:38 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: John Murphy Subject: about Richard anyway... To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Common knowledge for this list I suspect. Please forgive, therefore, my inadequate summary of it below intended merely to recapitulate, saving people from having to look it all up as I did, and set the stage (please pardon also the length)... Richard, Duke of Aquitaine since 1172, began his military career at the age of 15 (1173) when in response to the Savoy Treaty Henry II sons, with the instigation of the French king Louis, revolted. That July "Richard's" first (although run by the astute Count Phillip of Flanders and Richard's older brother Henry) campaign, an attack into eastern Normandy, culminated in the seige of Drincourt. In 1174 Richard struck out "on his own" (in an operational sense if not in a political or strategic sense) against La Rochelle and was at last brought into submission in Poitou. All in all, the rebellion was a flop with a lack of co-ordination between forces operating in the different wide spread areas of Henry II empire. After the 1173-1174 rebellion Richard campaigned quite successfully on his own behalf and on behalf of his father's "empire" against rebels in Aquitaine (and elsewhere?) every year between 1175 and 1182 inclusive (except for a hole in the record for 1180), even fighting a rare battle (apparently his first large encounter of this type) against Brabancon mercenaries employed by the rebels of Angoumois and Limousin in May 1176. In 1179 Richard took Taillebourg which had been considered impregnable. In 1183 Richard had to respond to a crisis when his brothers turned on him and caused yet further rebellion in Richard's domain (with threats from Burgundy and Toulouse), which only subsided on the death of Richard's older brother from disease. In 1184-1185 Richard's younger brothers continued to attack him over his refusal to release Aquitaine to John now that he was heir to the throne (and Normandy and Anjou). Richard won the campaigns and the issue. After more campaigning in 1186, King Phillip of France invaded Berri and laid seige to Chateauroux in 1187 and was held off by Henry and Richard. In 1188 Richard put down revolts, possibly instigated by Henry to keep Richard from disappearing on crusade, in Aquitaine and then in Toulouse. Indeed Richard invaded and nearly took Toulouse itself except he was called away that summer to once again repulse Phillip in Berri at Chateauroux. It is in the fall of 1188 that the questionable incidents began to occur relating to secret treaty between Richard and Phillip. In 1189 these two joined and took a succession of strongholds and cities, Richard chasing Henry from Le Mans in a famous scene depicted in "William the Marshal". After being forced to accept humiliating terms, Henry died. These events are supposedly recounted primarily in Roger of Hovedon's "Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi". I have two questions for the academics on this list regarding this work. First, is there a particularly good (and available) English translation you would recommend with some quality commentary and perhaps some leading bibliographical notes? Second, are there any other good sources, medieval or modern, for these military campaigns of Richard before he became King? In how much detail, for instance, does John Gillingham's biography deal with these military campaigns? I apologize if this isn't the type of question which belongs on this list. From: SMTP%"stephen=jaeger@rz.hu-berlin.de" 27-NOV-1996 06:12:08.50 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: re: RE: ...no subject... Date: Wed, 27 Nov 96 12:09:48 MET Message-Id: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) To: From: "Stephen Jaeger" Subject: re: RE: ...no subject... Paul, A long posting is on the way. I'll send it to mediev-l and you can post it to the gay history net if you like. I'm in the German Dept. Good luck with the applic. If I had anything to do with the search you certainly wouldn't hurt yourself by your interest in this subject in my eyes. Good discussion. But I see there are masses of responses. Stephen From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 27-NOV-1996 08:00:08.04 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexualit Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 12:55:25 MET Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Stephen Jaeger Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger's Challenge to a History of Homosexualit To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Paul Halsall thinks that my article "L'amour des rois" in Annales 1991 challenges the history of homosexuality in the middle ages. I hope he is right. I intended to challenge not just that line, but current readings of texts on spiritual love and king's love in the earlier mid. ages, and that means, male love, generally: both sides of the question, Brian McGuire and John Boswell. It is the same challenge that the texts issued to me, and I'll take Paul Halsall's note as an occasion to reissue it. Boswell, Halsall, and McGuire take sexual experience as one of the critical problems the discourse poses: McGuire, nay; Boswell/Halsall, yay. Here in an example of the kind of evidence that indicates there's a problem with putting the question this way: Alcuin wrote poems and letters of romantic longing for his friends in highly erotic language: he longs to kiss each of Charlemagne's sweet and holy toes many times, he wishes to embrace Archbishop Arn of Salzburg, lick his breast, and wash his chest in his tears. But at nearly the same time, he helped Charlemagne promulgate harsh laws and stiff penalties against "sodomy" and "the sin against nature with men or animals". He also wrote a letter to a former student whose homosexual amours had become a subject of gossip. The student is risking Alcuin's love, his own social position, and his own soul, by his indiscretions. Alcuin: don't cloud your reputation "with black blemishes" (maculis nigris), "where is your fear of hell? your hopes of glory? Why do you not shudder to perpetrate what you should have been prohibiting to others?" "Change your ways, I beg you" and pray "for your soul which will burn in the flames of Sodom," correct "your most foul deeds". He conjures the "terror of the high judge", begs the student to "break the chain of this diabolical suggestion and of impious consent." (Boswell on this text, CSTH p. 191: "...[Alcuin] registers no shock or outrage, simply annoyance... his primary objection is that the behavior in question is puerile, unbecoming to a scholar, and apt to lead to a bad reputation.") Halsall's suggestion that they might be reconciled by saying that Alcuin's position changed won't work in this case, though maybe with Augustine. Alcuin continued his heated letters and poems to his friends throughout the period of the letter quoted above. The two sets of texts have to be about two very different things. Alcuin had to distinguish between the love of his student for his lovers and his own for Charlemagne and Arn. There's the "challenge": Richard Lionheart can love Philip-Augustus like his own soul, eat with him, share the same clothes, sleep with him -- and this love "honors" him: but "sodomy" requires stern warnings delivered by holy messengers whom the chronicler may have invented for the purpose. I would argue that there is one mode of loving intensely that is exalting, that gives honor, that raises worth, that indicates inner virtue, that nurtures it: and there is a second that defiles. This is the widespread view that dominates the discourse we're talking about and resolves the contradiction. Richard may have been homosexual, but It would be a serious misreading of Hovedon's text to infer any sexual orientation of Richard or Philip Augustus from it. Ennobling love responds to exceptional qualities in the friend: charisma, virtue, sanctity, self-control, virginity, some kind of inner beauty registering in outer. I believe that no one familiar with the love language of "courtly love" would dispute this, though there is a wide range of contemporary attitudes towards the love of women, which not everyone found exalting and on sexuality, which not everyone found debasing. I agree with Fred Cheyette: if you want to argue that you can tell something about the sexual life of Alcuin and Richard by the langugae of exalting love, then you should also be able to infer something about the private emotions of Bernart de Ventadorn from his love poems to an unnamed queen (allegedly Eleanor), and of Walther von der Vogelweide from his poems of "high love" to unnamed courtly damsels. The ritualized, ceremonial character of such "love affairs" is not in question when they involve a man and a woman. The letter of Constance of Brittany to Louis VII cited in my article for instance: the chivalric love of Edmund Spenser, Walter Raleigh, PHilip Sidney for Elizabeth I. Ray Cormier published an article a few years back which begins by quoting a poem written on commission for the King of Saudi Arabia as a gift to Margaret Thatcher. The poet praises her eyes -- warm, large and brown as a cow's -- and her body, made for loving. The poem speaks the language of romantic love. We probably would not be using good judgment if we inferred the sexual appetites, orientations and taste in women of the Saudi King from that poem. The King probably assumed that any civiliyed king would praise the beauty and loveability of a high placed person he was visiting, and that not to do so would be boorish manners in a prince. That's the minor challenge: to understand a certain kind of love of men for men and men for women as "ceremonial action" and "ritual gesture", a mode of doing and saying what makes the court and noble society go around: giving and receiving "face", conferring honor, "raising the worth" of the lovers. The major challenge is understanding the language of the passionate friendship of men -- the exalting and honoring kind -- as a form of experience, not only language and ceremonial form, which it is also. I believe there is a sensibility at work in Paulinus of Nola's and Alcuin's letters and poems that is lost and needs a careful historical reconstruction. I believe that Alcuin, Anselm, and Aelred were men with a powerful capacity to love other men passionately. They agreed with the values of their society that harshly condemned physical gratification of desire, whatever the object. They responded to that by a strict rejection of the "enjoyment of the body" (Augustine's phrase: amantis corpore frui), maybe prompted by conscience for first indulging it (Augustine and Aelred). Lo and behold, once they had rejected sexuality in friendship, desire and its physical objects became the legitimate language of friendship. That language "sweetened" the experience of friendship once it was secured in sexless innocence. The ability to maintain the tension between self-control and desire established a freedom of erotic expression not available to men and women in the grips of eros. Those who had wrestled with Eros and won were warriors and heroes -- and as in any battle, so also in the erotic, the prerogatives of the conquered fall to the conqueror. Rupert of Deutz could describe a vision of Christ appearing to him in a dream, embracing him, kissing him, then opening his mouth, "so that I could kiss more deeply". The aged Abbot Geoffrey of St. Albans could request two pieces of underwear from his spiritual beloved, Christina of Markyate, "not for pleasure, but to mitigate the hardships" of an impending trip to Rome (Christina received an angel's permission to grant the request, but still hesitated, and finally donated the undergarments to the poor.) These are gestures which assert the sweetness, intimacy, delicacy of the love relationship, and the dynamic at work is, "the more sensual the gesture, the purer the intent." The passionate love of another man became a badge of virtue (as it had been in Roman antiquity). The language of passionate friendship became the guarantor of the disciplined character. Of course, like any ceremony, it became a mask once it became a social form, and behind it the whole spectrum of sexual life could play itself out -- including "heroic" renunciation, also including "sodomy". Richard I received honor and heightened respect and fame because the king of France "loved him as his own soul". That statement leaves completely open whether Richard was oriented to men, women or bears as sexual partners. It no more opens Richard's sexual life to view, than the Saudi King's poem to Margaret Thatcher says anything about Anglo-Saudi eroticism in the late 20th century. This interpretation doesn't stymy a history of homosexuality in the mid ages by removing its major texts from the discussion. It just poses the question in what seems to me a way more appropriate to the sensibility we're dealing with: why did the earlier middle ages fabricate its vision and language of "sublime love" (Alered's phrase) and ennobling love from the physical love and desire of males for each other? The love of men for each other supplied an array of ceremonial language and gestures at work at thehighest levels of European politics in some of the most important operations of the state (peace-making). I think we should put aside the futile question of whether Anselm of Bec was homosexual. We should ask why it did honor to his friend,s students, brothers, to receive ardent declarations of his passionate love. From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 27-NOV-1996 08:23:16.05 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: bedchambers Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 13:59:39 MET Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Stephen Jaeger Subject: Re: bedchambers To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L On men sleeping together and other gestures of intimate friendship: Here are some of the sources I've gathered on the question. I'd be grateful for further references. Greg of Tours, Hist. Franc. VII. 47 & IX. 19: [Sichar and Chramnesind made peace after a feud, and expressed their "magna amicitia"] "They loved each other (diligerent) in mutual charity so much that they frequently ate together and slept in the same bed." Nithard, Historiae III. 6: [two kings -- sorry , incomplete ref. enjoyed such "unanimitas" and "concordia" that they took their meals and slept in the same house". Petrus Damiani, Vita Romualdi, ch. 25, PL 145, 975C: [Otto III was so fond of his cleric Tammo that they wore the same clothes and at table ate from the same bowl, joining their hands together when they met in the dish]. Vita Adalberti, ch. 23, MGH, SS 4, 591: [Otto III's adviser and tutor, Adalbert of Prague, became his "sweetest chamber mate". They were together night and day and slept in the same room because "he loved him."] John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 4.42: "I was closer to his heart [Pope Hadrian IV] than his mother and half brother. Indeed he used to declare, both in public and private, that he loved me more dearly than any other mortal... It was his delight to have me eat with him at his very own table where, against my protestations, he willed and ordered that we use together a common cup and plate." Roger of Howden, [Richard Lionheart and Philip August ate and slept together, as in Halsall's posting] From: SMTP%"halsall@bway.net" 27-NOV-1996 09:26:07.63 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: (no subject) Message-ID: <329C4E3B.24D4@bway.net> Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 09:20:43 -0500 From: halsall X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: HALSALL@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU Subject: (no subject) References: <961127084014.21033562@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit {initial reactions] Dr. Jaeger, writes, most interestingly, [deletions] > Boswell, Halsall, and McGuire take sexual experience as one of the > critical problems the discourse poses: McGuire, nay; Boswell/Halsall, yay. > Here in an example of the kind of evidence that indicates there's a > problem with putting the question this way: > > Alcuin wrote poems and letters of romantic longing for his friends in highly > erotic language: he longs to kiss each of Charlemagne's sweet and holy toes > many times, he wishes to embrace Archbishop Arn of Salzburg, lick his breast, > and wash his chest in his tears. But at nearly the same time, he helped > Charlemagne promulgate harsh laws and stiff penalties against "sodomy" and > "the sin against nature with men or animals". He also wrote a letter to a > former student whose homosexual amours had become a subject of gossip. The > student is risking Alcuin's love, his own social position, and his own soul, > by his indiscretions. Alcuin: don't cloud your reputation "with black > blemishes" (maculis nigris), "where is your fear of hell? your hopes of > glory? Why do you not shudder to perpetrate what you should have been > prohibiting to others?" "Change your ways, I beg you" and pray "for your > soul which will burn in the flames of Sodom," correct "your most foul > deeds". He conjures the "terror of the high judge", begs the student to > "break the chain of this diabolical suggestion and of impious consent." > (Boswell on this text, CSTH p. 191: "...[Alcuin] registers no shock or > outrage, simply annoyance... his primary objection is that the behavior in > question is puerile, unbecoming to a scholar, and apt to lead to a bad > reputation.") > Halsall's suggestion that they might be reconciled by saying that > Alcuin's position changed won't work in this case, though maybe with > Augustine. Alcuin continued his heated letters and poems to his friends > throughout the period of the letter quoted above. The two sets of texts have > to be about two very different things. Alcuin had to distinguish between the > love of his student for his lovers and his own for Charlemagne and Arn. I agree that this suggestion is plausible. Indeed it seems downright Platonic to exalt sexless eros and condemn physical eroticism. I would also agree that among elite men [I think the history of women's eroticism is rather different] a category of relationship existed in the past which we simply do not have access to: erotic friendship between men. If one credits, in Halperin's phrase, a "time before sexuality", how do *we* interpret such relationships and language about relationships? Are they part of an accessible history at all? Now, just as courtly love seems to have been somewhat distinct from what we would now understand as romantic heterosexual love, but is, without doubt, part of a yet to be written "history of heterosexuality" [or perhaps "heteroeroticism"?], so these overtly erotic texts seem to me to be part of the history of homosexuality in Western culture [or, if you like, the history of "homoeroticism"]. Prof. Bachrach was write to call attention to the issue of eros/desire. I agree that it is more or less impossible for us imagine a desire, however written, to nibble someone's toes as anything other than sexual. The desire expressed seems to be a desire for both body and soul of the desired. And yet, as Dr. Jaeger argues, this seems to preclude in the minds of the writers (in so far as we have access) any confusion with "sins against nature". My analogy would be this: just as many early medieval "kings" were not "heads of state" [because it would be inaccurate to describe the type of personal anf famlial authority they wielded as indicative of a "state society"], but are nevertheless part of the history of the state, so texts such as those of Alcuin, Anselm, etc, are part of the history of homoeroticism. But there is more: while acute, classically trained, minds such as Alcuin and Anselm may have been able to keep their Platonic descriptions clear, was there still not a connected subculture which did not make such distinctions? Alcuin's pupils for instance, did not necessarily maintain asexuality in the hotheaded linguistic milieu their relationships took place within. An analogy [and surely not more farfetched than the dreadful vision of Mrs. Thatcher and King Fahd] might be with the various Anglo-Catholic societies in 19th century England. [Perhaps Fred R. will add something here]. The ripe language of both Anglican and Catholic convert writers was full of homoerotic meaning [even Newman, apparently was taken back by the amazing effusiveness of Fr. Faber] and yet the leaders would all have deplored overt sexual expression. There is not the slightest doubt, however, that active homosexual activity was commonplace in such circles; some Anglo-Catholic Churches in Central London have not had heterosexual clergy in over 130 years [wander around High Holborn some Sunday]. [Iris Murdoch's. _The Bell_ perfectly captures the milieu, which also pervaded Roman Catholic religious orders which attracted many Anglican converts.] > There's the "challenge": Richard Lionheart can love Philip-Augustus > like his own soul, eat with him, share the same clothes, sleep with him -- > and this love "honors" him: but "sodomy" requires stern warnings delivered by > holy messengers whom the chronicler may have invented for the purpose. > > I would argue that there is one mode of loving intensely that is > exalting, that gives honor, that raises worth, that indicates inner virtue, > that nurtures it: and there is a second that defiles. This is the widespread > view that dominates the discourse we're talking about and resolves the > contradiction. Richard may have been homosexual, but It would be a serious > misreading of Hovedon's text to infer any sexual orientation of Richard or > Philip Augustus from it. I agree that the texts enable us to say nothing about the inner self-perception of either P. or R. Indeed it seems at least open to question whether the sort of inrospection which would lead to an acknowledge "orientation" was at all common ine the past. How many people before Rousseau asked "Who am I?" after all? But I am a little unclear as to your conclusion here. Are you arguing that the bechamber scene is meant by Hoveden to refer to a particular tradition of royal honoring, but that the "sodomy" accusation by the Hermit (which I take it you would not explain in other terms?) may indeed refer to some belief that Richard had indulged in "illicit intercourse" with men? My main objection to this line is that it requires a hermetically sealed courtly culture which I would find difficult to credit in the 1180s [although not, for instance, at the time of Elizabeth]. Moreover, the relationship of Richard and Philip was one where the power relationships were, it seems, on a level of equality, not supplication and condescension. Richard was one of the great princes of Europe, controlling more and richer land than Philip, he was older than Philip, and had known him since childhood. They were family to boot. [deletions] > That's the minor challenge: to understand a certain kind of love of > men for men and men for women as "ceremonial action" and "ritual gesture", a > mode of doing and saying what makes the court and noble society go around: > giving and receiving "face", conferring honor, "raising the worth" of the > lovers. > The major challenge is understanding the language of the passionate > friendship of men -- the exalting and honoring kind -- as a form of > experience, not only language and ceremonial form, which it is also. I > believe there is a sensibility at work in Paulinus of Nola's and Alcuin's > letters and poems that is lost and needs a careful historical reconstruction. > I believe that Alcuin, Anselm, and Aelred were men with a powerful capacity > to love other men passionately. They agreed with the values of their society > that harshly condemned physical gratification of desire, whatever the object. > They responded to that by a strict rejection of the "enjoyment of the body" > (Augustine's phrase: amantis corpore frui), maybe prompted by conscience for > first indulging it (Augustine and Aelred). Lo and behold, once they had > rejected sexuality in friendship, desire and its physical objects became the > legitimate language of friendship. That language "sweetened" the experience > of friendship once it was secured in sexless innocence. The ability to > maintain the tension between self-control and desire established a freedom of > erotic expression not available to men and women in the grips of eros. Those > who had wrestled with Eros and won were warriors and heroes -- and as in any > battle, so also in the erotic, the prerogatives of the conquered fall to the > conqueror. Rupert of Deutz could describe a vision of Christ appearing to > him in a dream, embracing him, kissing him, then opening his mouth, "so that > I could kiss more deeply". Even give a rejection of physicality, one would have to ask, given the variety of metaphors and languages available, whether a "heterosexual" man would have wanted to use such language? > The passionate love of another man became a badge of virtue (as it > had been in Roman antiquity). The language of passionate friendship became > the guarantor of the disciplined character. Of course, like any ceremony, it > became a mask once it became a social form, and behind it the whole spectrum > of sexual life could play itself out -- including "heroic" renunciation, also > including "sodomy". I would like to see more exploration of the meaning of "sodomy" in this connection. I think that -- almost universally in Christian writing -- sexual activity which involved, umm, same-sex penetration was rejected as "against nature" [as of course were a number of heterosexual activities - such as oral sex, the woman on top, rear-penetration, and sex during menstruation - see Eve Levine, _Sex Among the Orthodox Slavs_ for a very frank discussion]. But the connection of sodomy with distinct activities may have left other activities - carresses, kissing, etc, as permissable. And, I suggest, it is surely a heterosexual conceit to regard only penetration as sex? > This interpretation doesn't stymy a history of homosexuality in the > mid ages by removing its major texts from the discussion. It just poses the > question in what seems to me a way more appropriate to the sensibility we're > dealing with: why did the earlier middle ages fabricate its vision and > language of "sublime love" (Alered's phrase) and ennobling love from the > physical love and desire of males for each other? The love of men for each > other supplied an array of ceremonial language and gestures at work at > thehighest levels of European politics in some of the most important > operations of the state (peace-making). I think we should put aside the > futile question of whether Anselm of Bec was homosexual. We should ask why > it did honor to his friend,s students, brothers, to receive ardent > declarations of his passionate love. Thanks for your very interesting, and clearly much more subtle view, than I originally ascribed to you. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 27-NOV-1996 09:34:44.70 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Dr. Jaeger's Challenge to the History of Medieval Homosexuality Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 09:31:32 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Dr. Jaeger's Challenge to the History of Medieval Homosexuality To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L {initial reactions] Dr. Jaeger, writes, most interestingly, [deletions] > Boswell, Halsall, and McGuire take sexual experience as one of the > critical problems the discourse poses: McGuire, nay; Boswell/Halsall, yay. [I thought McGuire had chnaged his mind recently?] > Here in an example of the kind of evidence that indicates there's a > problem with putting the question this way: > > Alcuin wrote poems and letters of romantic longing for his friends in highly > erotic language: he longs to kiss each of Charlemagne's sweet and holy toes > many times, he wishes to embrace Archbishop Arn of Salzburg, lick his breast, > and wash his chest in his tears. But at nearly the same time, he helped > Charlemagne promulgate harsh laws and stiff penalties against "sodomy" and > "the sin against nature with men or animals". He also wrote a letter to a > former student whose homosexual amours had become a subject of gossip. The > student is risking Alcuin's love, his own social position, and his own soul, > by his indiscretions. Alcuin: don't cloud your reputation "with black > blemishes" (maculis nigris), "where is your fear of hell? your hopes of > glory? Why do you not shudder to perpetrate what you should have been > prohibiting to others?" "Change your ways, I beg you" and pray "for your > soul which will burn in the flames of Sodom," correct "your most foul > deeds". He conjures the "terror of the high judge", begs the student to > "break the chain of this diabolical suggestion and of impious consent." > (Boswell on this text, CSTH p. 191: "...[Alcuin] registers no shock or > outrage, simply annoyance... his primary objection is that the behavior in > question is puerile, unbecoming to a scholar, and apt to lead to a bad > reputation.") > Halsall's suggestion that they might be reconciled by saying that > Alcuin's position changed won't work in this case, though maybe with > Augustine. Alcuin continued his heated letters and poems to his friends > throughout the period of the letter quoted above. The two sets of texts have > to be about two very different things. Alcuin had to distinguish between the > love of his student for his lovers and his own for Charlemagne and Arn. I agree that this suggestion is plausible. Indeed it seems downright Platonic to exalt sexless eros and condemn physical eroticism. I would also agree that among elite men [I think the history of women's eroticism is rather different] a category of relationship existed in the past which we simply do not have access to: erotic friendship between men. If one credits, in Halperin's phrase, a "time before sexuality", how do *we* interpret such relationships and language about relationships? Are they part of an accessible history at all? Now, just as courtly love seems to have been somewhat distinct from what we would now understand as romantic heterosexual love, but is, without doubt, part of a yet to be written "history of heterosexuality" [or perhaps "heteroeroticism"?], so these overtly erotic texts seem to me to be part of the history of homosexuality in Western culture [or, if you like, the history of "homoeroticism"]. Prof. Bachrach was write to call attention to the issue of eros/desire. I agree that it is more or less impossible for us imagine a desire, however written, to nibble someone's toes as anything other than sexual. The desire expressed seems to be a desire for both body and soul of the desired. And yet, as Dr. Jaeger argues, this seems to preclude in the minds of the writers (in so far as we have access) any confusion with "sins against nature". My analogy would be this: just as many early medieval "kings" were not "heads of state" [because it would be inaccurate to describe the type of personal anf famlial authority they wielded as indicative of a "state society"], but are nevertheless part of the history of the state, so texts such as those of Alcuin, Anselm, etc, are part of the history of homoeroticism. But there is more: while acute, classically trained, minds such as Alcuin and Anselm may have been able to keep their Platonic descriptions clear, was there still not a connected subculture which did not make such distinctions? Alcuin's pupils for instance, did not necessarily maintain asexuality in the hotheaded linguistic milieu their relationships took place within. An analogy [and surely not more farfetched than the dreadful vision of Mrs. Thatcher and King Fahd] might be with the various Anglo-Catholic societies in 19th century England. [Perhaps Fred R. will add something here]. The ripe language of both Anglican and Catholic convert writers was full of homoerotic meaning [even Newman, apparently was taken back by the amazing effusiveness of Fr. Faber] and yet the leaders would all have deplored overt sexual expression. There is not the slightest doubt, however, that active homosexual activity was commonplace in such circles; some Anglo-Catholic Churches in Central London have not had heterosexual clergy in over 130 years [wander around High Holborn some Sunday]. [Iris Murdoch's. _The Bell_ perfectly captures the milieu, which also pervaded Roman Catholic religious orders which attracted many Anglican converts.] > There's the "challenge": Richard Lionheart can love Philip-Augustus > like his own soul, eat with him, share the same clothes, sleep with him -- > and this love "honors" him: but "sodomy" requires stern warnings delivered by > holy messengers whom the chronicler may have invented for the purpose. > > I would argue that there is one mode of loving intensely that is > exalting, that gives honor, that raises worth, that indicates inner virtue, > that nurtures it: and there is a second that defiles. This is the widespread > view that dominates the discourse we're talking about and resolves the > contradiction. Richard may have been homosexual, but It would be a serious > misreading of Hovedon's text to infer any sexual orientation of Richard or > Philip Augustus from it. I agree that the texts enable us to say nothing about the inner self-perception of either P. or R. Indeed it seems at least open to question whether the sort of inrospection which would lead to an acknowledge "orientation" was at all common ine the past. How many people before Rousseau asked "Who am I?" after all? But I am a little unclear as to your conclusion here. Are you arguing that the bechamber scene is meant by Hoveden to refer to a particular tradition of royal honoring, but that the "sodomy" accusation by the Hermit (which I take it you would not explain in other terms?) may indeed refer to some belief that Richard had indulged in "illicit intercourse" with men? My main objection to this line is that it requires a hermetically sealed courtly culture which I would find difficult to credit in the 1180s [although not, for instance, at the time of Elizabeth]. Moreover, the relationship of Richard and Philip was one where the power relationships were, it seems, on a level of equality, not supplication and condescension. Richard was one of the great princes of Europe, controlling more and richer land than Philip, he was older than Philip, and had known him since childhood. They were family to boot. [deletions] > That's the minor challenge: to understand a certain kind of love of > men for men and men for women as "ceremonial action" and "ritual gesture", a > mode of doing and saying what makes the court and noble society go around: > giving and receiving "face", conferring honor, "raising the worth" of the > lovers. > The major challenge is understanding the language of the passionate > friendship of men -- the exalting and honoring kind -- as a form of > experience, not only language and ceremonial form, which it is also. I > believe there is a sensibility at work in Paulinus of Nola's and Alcuin's > letters and poems that is lost and needs a careful historical reconstruction. > I believe that Alcuin, Anselm, and Aelred were men with a powerful capacity > to love other men passionately. They agreed with the values of their society > that harshly condemned physical gratification of desire, whatever the object. > They responded to that by a strict rejection of the "enjoyment of the body" > (Augustine's phrase: amantis corpore frui), maybe prompted by conscience for > first indulging it (Augustine and Aelred). Lo and behold, once they had > rejected sexuality in friendship, desire and its physical objects became the > legitimate language of friendship. That language "sweetened" the experience > of friendship once it was secured in sexless innocence. The ability to > maintain the tension between self-control and desire established a freedom of > erotic expression not available to men and women in the grips of eros. Those > who had wrestled with Eros and won were warriors and heroes -- and as in any > battle, so also in the erotic, the prerogatives of the conquered fall to the > conqueror. Rupert of Deutz could describe a vision of Christ appearing to > him in a dream, embracing him, kissing him, then opening his mouth, "so that > I could kiss more deeply". Even give a rejection of physicality, one would have to ask, given the variety of metaphors and languages available, whether a "heterosexual" man would have wanted to use such language? > The passionate love of another man became a badge of virtue (as it > had been in Roman antiquity). The language of passionate friendship became > the guarantor of the disciplined character. Of course, like any ceremony, it > became a mask once it became a social form, and behind it the whole spectrum > of sexual life could play itself out -- including "heroic" renunciation, also > including "sodomy". I would like to see more exploration of the meaning of "sodomy" in this connection. I think that -- almost universally in Christian writing -- sexual activity which involved, umm, same-sex penetration was rejected as "against nature" [as of course were a number of heterosexual activities - such as oral sex, the woman on top, rear-penetration, and sex during menstruation - see Eve Levine, _Sex Among the Orthodox Slavs_ for a very frank discussion]. But the connection of sodomy with distinct activities may have left other activities - carresses, kissing, etc, as permissable. And, I suggest, it is surely a heterosexual conceit to regard only penetration as sex? > This interpretation doesn't stymy a history of homosexuality in the > mid ages by removing its major texts from the discussion. It just poses the > question in what seems to me a way more appropriate to the sensibility we're > dealing with: why did the earlier middle ages fabricate its vision and > language of "sublime love" (Alered's phrase) and ennobling love from the > physical love and desire of males for each other? The love of men for each > other supplied an array of ceremonial language and gestures at work at > thehighest levels of European politics in some of the most important > operations of the state (peace-making). I think we should put aside the > futile question of whether Anselm of Bec was homosexual. We should ask why > it did honor to his friend,s students, brothers, to receive ardent > declarations of his passionate love. Thanks for your very interesting, and clearly much more subtle view, than I originally ascribed to you. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 28-NOV-1996 09:53:18.36 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: chaste bedchambers with lots of secrets Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 14:50:19 +0000 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Frederik Pedersen Subject: Re: chaste bedchambers with lots of secrets To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Further to Strephen Jaeger's examples of men sharing beds together, I would like to add two examples of fourteenth-century women sharing beds. In both examples one woman was substantially older than the other and they shared beds as a kind of governess and charge. There is no doubt to my mind that these women shared beds as friends. Any kid of sexual activity between the two would almost certainly have been seen as a breach of the parent's trust in the older woman. Both come from York Matrimonial litigation. 1. The Witness Margaret Foxholes explained to the court: ".7.7. et dictam Agnetam primo novit ad festum Pentecostem ultimo preterito fuerunt decem anni elapsi, pro eo quod tunc venit ad matrem dicte Agnete, cum qua stetit, ei deserviendo et claves suos portando, circa quatuor annos tunc proximo sequente. Et per totum tempus quo dicta Margareta stetit in servicio [illa] et prefata Agneta singulis noctibus in uno lecto simul jacuerunt aliquando apud Ebor' et aliquando [apud] Huntingtoun juxta Ebor'" (CP E 248-23 [1345], relating events in 1339). 2. When a witness admitted to being a socia in lecto it usually meant that they claimed to have a detailed knowledge of the inner life of their bedfellow. In CP7E7259, the case of Nichlas Cantilupe and Katherine Paynell, the witness Margaret Halgton, made this clear to the court: "Preterea dicit quod a tempore quo dicta Katherina fuit subtracta a uberibus matris sue et quasi singulis noctibus ipsa Katherina fuit consortia istius juratae in lecto et ideo voluit revelare sibi omnia secreta sua, ut dicit . . ." (CP E 259-16 [1368]); see also CPE 89. I have been considering these examples for some years now, and have come to the conclusion that when witnesses in marriage cases in York mention that they are bedfellows, they are making two points: one, that they have known the litigant in question for many years, and 2. that they are privy to every secret of the litigant. The institution of assigning a "Socia in Lecto" among the household servants seems to have been widespread among the merchant class (as in 1.) and the nobility (as in 2.) A further York case (CPE 89) makes it clear that the Socia in Lecto was NOT the child's wet nurse. > I hope this is helpful, and I would appreciate any comments that people might have about the institution. > On men sleeping together and other gestures of intimate friendship: Here are > > some of the sources I've gathered on the question. I'd be grateful for > > further references. > > > > Greg of Tours, Hist. Franc. VII. 47 & IX. 19: [Sichar and Chramnesind made > > peace after a feud, and expressed their "magna amicitia"] "They loved each > > other (diligerent) in mutual charity so much that they frequently ate > > together and slept in the same bed." > > > > Nithard, Historiae III. 6: [two kings -- sorry , incomplete ref. enjoyed suc h > > "unanimitas" and "concordia" that they took their meals and slept in the sam e > > house". > > > > Petrus Damiani, Vita Romualdi, ch. 25, PL 145, 975C: [Otto III was so fond > > of his cleric Tammo that they wore the same clothes and at table ate from th e > > same bowl, joining their hands together when they met in the dish]. > > > > Vita Adalberti, ch. 23, MGH, SS 4, 591: [Otto III's adviser and tutor, > > Adalbert of Prague, became his "sweetest chamber mate". They were together > > night and day and slept in the same room because "he loved him."] > > > > John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 4.42: "I was closer to his heart [Pope > > Hadrian IV] than his mother and half brother. Indeed he used to declare, > > both in public and private, that he loved me more dearly than any other > > mortal... It was his delight to have me eat with him at his very own table > > where, against my protestations, he willed and ordered that we use together a > > common cup and plate." > > > > Roger of Howden, [Richard Lionheart and Philip August ate and slept together , > > as in Halsall's posting] > > > > > Frederik Pedersen > Department of History > King's College > University of Aberdeen > Meston Walk > Old Aberdeen > AB24 3FX > Scotland > > Frederik Pedersen Department of History King's College University of Aberdeen Meston Walk Old Aberdeen AB24 3FX Scotland Frederik Pedersen Department of History King's College University of Aberdeen Meston Walk Old Aberdeen AB24 3FX Scotland From: SMTP%"MEDGAY-L@KSUVM.BITNET" 28-NOV-1996 10:58:40.24 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Medieval homoeroticism Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 10:57:56 -0500 Reply-To: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group Sender: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group From: "Frederick S. Roden" Subject: Medieval homoeroticism X-To: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group To: Multiple recipients of list MEDGAY-L In-Reply-To: <9611271431.AA03118@is2.nyu.edu> Paul Halsall makes mention of "Fred R." in alluding to 19th c. Anglo-Catholicism and homoeroticism, so I thought I ought to drop a line. It happens that I am currently working on an 1844 biography of Aelred of Rievaulx which appears in the _Lives of the English Saints_, edited by Newman. The author of the bio. is Fr. John Dalgairns. I have been reading Aelred's works of late, and am indeed struck by the glorification of male friendship there... and indeed do have some of the same reservations others share, in the interest of academic rigor. (The works I've read are _Spiritual Friendship_, _Mirror of Charity_, & _Jesus at the Age of 12_). It seems to me that our projects are necessarily ABOUT construction... as scholars working in periods that are decidedly different from our own, we are compelled to draw conclusions in the context of our modern consciousness. We simply have no choice there. It's quite interesting to me, however, in that context, to find Cistercian Press translations commenting on the likelihood of what Sedgwick would term a "male homosexual panic" in Aelred's youth... as well as to observe, in my own academic work, an attraction to Aelred at a particular point in time and place, in the Oxford Movement of the British 19th century. That nineteenth century men who chose to renounce marriage in favor of lives in same-sex religious communities should be interested in Aelred tells us something about his appeal to a particular audience. The Newman-Kingsley debate was essentially ABOUT effeminacy versus "muscular Christianity," and is tinged with very specific allusions to homosexual overtones.* In the 1930's Geoffrey Faber's _Oxford Apostles_ was perhaps the first work to specifically suggest a homoerotic friendship between Newman and Froude -- and it met with great resistance. The Victorian biography of Aelred is interesting to me as a student of queer history and spirituality in that Dalgairns seizes on the very same points that we choose to emphasize -- Aelred's early attachments to men, his passionate friendships within the monastery, and the freedom of expression of affection/friendship in the community beyond the expected limits of monastic rule. (* David Hilliard's 1982 article on "UnEnglish & Unmanly: Anglo-Catholicism and Homosexuality" (_Victorian Studies_) is an excellent early survey of this phenomenon.) Hence, for me it is perhaps of great interest that various readers at various points in time and place have CHOSEN to read Aelred's attachments as unusual... moreso than determining quite definitively the nature of those attachments. That potential, and the possibility for doing this type of work, is an issue that we must continually struggle with. This response is just off the top of my head, but remember to n.b. the announcement sent out by Bob Clark on Queer Middle Ages, 1998 -- this promises to be a most exciting project: one which will endeavor to get at some of these issues. Regards, and Happy Thanksgiving! Fred Roden From: SMTP%"MEDGAY-L@KSUVM.BITNET" 30-NOV-1996 01:04:48.31 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 00:58:34 -0500 Reply-To: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group Sender: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group From: "Gregory Jordan (ENG)" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDGAY-L In-Reply-To: <199611271303.IAA25512@chuma.cas.usf.edu> I realize this discussion is taking place on another list, but I'm not on that one, and since Paul Halsall has been kind enough to provide excerpts from it I thought I might just comment on a few things... > Alcuin wrote poems and letters of romantic longing for his friends in highly > erotic language: he longs to kiss each of Charlemagne's sweet and holy toes > many times, he wishes to embrace Archbishop Arn of Salzburg, lick his breast, > and wash his chest in his tears. But at nearly the same time, he helped > Charlemagne promulgate harsh laws and stiff penalties against "sodomy" and > "the sin against nature with men or animals". Of course, licking another man's body or crying on his chest wouldn't have been considered "sodomy" by anyone in the Middle Ages, as far as I know. It seems that Mr. Jaeger is trying to fit the medieval notion of "sodomy" to what we would consider "homosexuality" - i.e., some systematic erotic attracted to a same-gender object. There is evidence that some medieval Europeans had such a concept, but there is little evidence that such a concept was fitted to any widely-used ideological system/discourse. I don't think "sodomy" as a term within major discourses was fitted to such a concept until the High Middle Ages. The very fact that one could commit "_the_ sin against nature" with animals implies it was not centrally concerned with human gender issues, at least, in this phrasal usage. One also has to contend with the reality of hypocrisy. I am not eager to attribute hypocrisy casually to persons without evidence, but we *do* know hypocritical positions on "sodomy" etc. existed within the church and state at various times, and certainly later. Sodomite popes & kings certainly never stopped condeming, officially, "sodomy." (Just as adulterers never stopped condeming adultery? And thieves stealing?) WHile the legislation is important for a history of social conventions & institutional treatments of same-sex sexuality, it seems to serve for some scholars as an excuse for not considering the existence of same-sex sexuality in a given society. This is much like ecclesiastical historians who build narratives that consider a "heresy" dead after its first condemnation by a council - even though one could easily show evidence that the "heresy" continued to be believed and taught for centuries sporadically, and probably had a continuous history of support among a subculture (Pelagianism anyone? Gnosticism? perhaps even Arianism?). If what one is interested in is history as it was lived & experienced "on the ground" and not just in official records, one has to do a little more work building realistic social models that reflect surmisable diversity. He also wrote a letter to a > former student whose homosexual amours had become a subject of gossip. The > student is risking Alcuin's love, his own social position, and his own soul, > by his indiscretions. Alcuin: don't cloud your reputation "with black > blemishes" (maculis nigris), "where is your fear of hell? your hopes of > glory? Why do you not shudder to perpetrate what you should have been > prohibiting to others?" "Change your ways, I beg you" and pray "for your > soul which will burn in the flames of Sodom," correct "your most foul > deeds". He conjures the "terror of the high judge", begs the student to > "break the chain of this diabolical suggestion and of impious consent." > (Boswell on this text, CSTH p. 191: "...[Alcuin] registers no shock or > outrage, simply annoyance... his primary objection is that the behavior in > question is puerile, unbecoming to a scholar, and apt to lead to a bad > reputation.") For Alcuin, the "flames of Sodom" seemed to refer to punishment in _this world_ (as opposed to the next world, the afterlife). I would like to know what the evidence is for the "homosexuality" here... Alcuin's admonition to Dodo (who was apparently having trouble DRINKING too much) also invoked Sodomitic flames: "Ue carni, que non timet sulphureos quinque urbium ignes..." - the Five Cities= Cities of the Plain, incl. Sodom) [Cotton Vespasian manuscript version]. > Halsall's suggestion that they might be reconciled by saying that > Alcuin's position changed won't work in this case, though maybe with > Augustine. Alcuin continued his heated letters and poems to his friends > throughout the period of the letter quoted above. The two sets of texts have > to be about two very different things. Alcuin had to distinguish between the > love of his student for his lovers and his own for Charlemagne and Arn. There is certainly a _discursive_ contradiction between the Alcuin who can argue rhetorically that being "on fire" for anything but God can lead to torture in eternal flames (classic Augustinianism) and the Alcuin who admits proudly that he burns with desire for his friends, and being on fire to have physical transactions with them. > Ennobling love responds to exceptional qualities in the friend: charisma, > virtue, sanctity, self-control, virginity, some kind of inner beauty > registering in outer. I believe that no one familiar with the love language > of "courtly love" would dispute this, though there is a wide range of Is someone still operating off the English myth that _fin amour_ was supposed to be chaste? :) > is not in question when they involve a man and a woman. The letter of > Constance of Brittany to Louis VII cited in my article for instance: the > chivalric love of Edmund Spenser, Walter Raleigh, PHilip Sidney for Elizabeth > I. Surely the "chivalry" of the Elizabethans was not the same thing as medieval "chivalry"! The difference in context and expression is profound. One will not find Spenser writing letters to Elizabeth about wanting to lick her breasts . . . > That's the minor challenge: to understand a certain kind of love of > men for men and men for women as "ceremonial action" and "ritual gesture", a > mode of doing and saying what makes the court and noble society go around: > giving and receiving "face", conferring honor, "raising the worth" of the > lovers. Isn't it possible, even necessary, to view all sexuality & erotic behavior as involving a certain amount of "ritual gesture" and "ceremonial action"? Excepting not even the most bestial tussles in the hay. The trouble is, Jaeger seems to be operating with a theoretical model that radically dichotimizes erotic behavior on the one hand, and "chaste" social relations and conceptions on the other hand. This is a discursive model which does not function in modern academic circles to my knowledge - it seems to be being unconsciously absorbed from a minority medieval discourse, the fanatical religious orthodox position (no desire except for God, thus no eroticism at all). Surely this position could not have been held by the majority of the medieval European population, and even among those who attempted it there must have been considerable recidivism. Alcuin and his associates were not doing continual penance for *nothing*. Then, also, the discourse of personal friendship was different from that of ecclesiastical pronouncement. Jaeger's reference to "the values of their society" seems to imply a homogenous Weltanschauung for medievals - yet weren't their innumerable discourses, and innumerable conflicts between them (exhibited between and within persons, both social and psychological). > erotic expression not available to men and women in the grips of eros. Those > who had wrestled with Eros and won were warriors and heroes -- and as in any > battle, so also in the erotic, the prerogatives of the conquered fall to the > conqueror. One is then only talking about _sublimated_ Eros, and an eroticism which either before or after sublimation became so plastic as to accept same-gender objects. And to that extent, then, we are still talking about the history of "homosexuality," same-sex erotic affect. Greg Jordan jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu From: SMTP%"MEDGAY-L@KSUVM.BITNET" 30-NOV-1996 12:29:34.85 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: medieval masculinities Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 10:52:27 -0500 Reply-To: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group Sender: Gay-Lesbian Medieval Studies Discussion Group From: Jeffrey Cohen Subject: medieval masculinities X-To: medfem-l@u.washington.edu X-cc: medgay-l@ksu.edu To: Multiple recipients of list MEDGAY-L In-Reply-To: Those of you who participated in the electronic "Medieval Masculinities" discussion via Interscripta a few years ago may be interested to know that the hypertext write-up was published recently in a slightly different form. "The Armour of an Alienating Identity" appears in _Arthuriana_ 6.4 (Winter 1996), 1-24. This volume of the journal contains a cluster on Arthurian masculinities, including good pieces by Patricia Ingham, John Plummer, Kathleen Kelly, Donald Hoffman, and Eriko Yamaguchi. The hypertext version will continue to be available via the Labyrinth, http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/e-center/interscripta/mm.html ________________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (202)994-5338 fax (202)994-7915 Department of English and Program in Human Sciences, George Washington U http://www.nicom.com/~jjcohen From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 30-NOV-1996 12:58:55.88 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 13:22:56 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L It seems to me that "definitions" have become very "fluid" as this discussion has gone along and the observations below may perhaps be of some help in continuing the discussion by limiting some confusions. 1. there are people today and I assume in the MA of both sexes who desired various types of sex acts with people of the same sex, different sex, old people, children, dead people, and other non human fauna of all kinds or some combination of these. In addition to these broadly based desires some of these people actually managed to carry out there desires in a material sense. What term should WE give to such people so as not to confuse them with 2.people who desired only members of the same sex and got to satisfy their desires materially 3. people who desired only members of the opposite sex and got to satisfy their desires materially 4. people who desired children only of the same sex-etc 5. people who desired children only of the opposite sex, etc 6. people who desired only animals etc same sex? different sex? 7. Then we come to people who wrote about desiring others but did nothing about it other than write or so it would seem. Does anyone, for example, find medieval evidence for people desiring only dead bodies, animals, or children of one or either sex? If we can come up with words to keep these various types clear (maybe numbers will be ok) and likely others will be able to identify other types we can avoid some confusions perhaps. B.Bachrach U. of MN From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 1-DEC-1996 19:28:28.85 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 16:26:52 -0800 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Ellen Godfrey Subject: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Dear Medievalists: This novelist thinks the discussion is in need of anthropologist. There seems to be an inability of many to get out of their cultural box. Stephen Jaeger's (magnificently written) attempt to take 20thC classifications and cultural definitions OUT of the discussions so that we might try to see the medieval understanding of sexuality in its own terms is rebuked by B. Bachrach who says: >If we can come up with words to keep these various types > [then listing sexual habits as if they exist in tight boxes >that might be used to define] clear (maybe >numbers will be ok) and likely others will be able to identify other types >we can avoid some confusions perhaps. But when Jaeger reminded us that: > Alcuin wrote poems and letters of romantic longing for his friends in highly > erotic language: he longs to kiss each of Charlemagne's sweet and holy toes > many times, he wishes to embrace Archbishop Arn of Salzburg, lick his breast, > and wash his chest in his tears. He is also reminding us of centuries of art and poetry where spritual longings and erotic longings, including the homoerotic, are metaphors f or one another, and human desires needed not to be put into tight little boxes which could then be used to label people. The church tried hard to do this. Inventing (defining) sins and then charging people to save them was a good busines to be in. But the boxes that define when a passion is 'erotic' or when it is 'pure' and the attempt to categorize as one or the other, a deep longing for beauty and virtue, is a need that grows out of the language we use and out of our cultural milieu. The Jaeger quote about Alcuin ought to have made clear that our 'boxes' would never enclose or elucidate Alcuin's passion. The fundamental 'point' of metaphor is that it allows us to see how two things are one, are within one another, and that our understanding is enriched by seeing each AS the other. Understanding is lost by taking a metaphor apart, not gained. BTW, it seems that the scholars on the topic can not agree if the term 'sodomy' referred to male homosexual acts or not. A wide range of contemporary meanings has been ascribed to this term by the scholars commenting on this list. A much more tractable problem, one would have thought, yet even on this one, no consensus appears to be emerging. If this problem (what did the word sodomy mean in the Middle Ages) isn't solveable, it seems unlikely we can get at the deeper one of figuring out what was really going on and what the contemporary opinion of it was. Ellen Godfrey --------------------- Ellen Godfrey email ellen@pinc.com -- fax: +1 250 477 5958 -- Victoria, B.C, Canada From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 1-DEC-1996 20:40:31.06 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 21:46:16 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Ms Godfrey reminds us of the difference between poets and historians. The latter are bound to communicate with a certain amount of efficiency and are precluded by their discipline from a writing a series of poems to be explicated in place of a simple declarative sentence. Perhaps we can find a compromise and give a number to Alcuin's poem so that we do not have to quote it extensively each time it comes up in discussion. Perhaps we could go even further and label it the "nibbler". My list is not intended to be exclusive and thus to forclose discussion but to provide poets and everyone else the opportunity to add numbers to the list as they see fit. I think we needs words or numbers to describe various phenomena in an economical manner and most poems are just too long. As to medieval definitions of sods there are several with variations and with different orientations and, indeed, not all writers in the MA use one or another definition "correctly" so there is plenty of room for discussion and of course some writers use different words for the same act (these must be poets) and some writers use the same words for different acts. However, if we describe an act and give it a number then we can make lists of the different words different writers use to describe the number etc. B.Bachrach U. of MN From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 1-DEC-1996 20:46:47.73 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 21:53:22 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L I am sure there are some people in the MA who desired no sex and I am sure there are people today who desire no sex. However, sex is pretty important to the survival of the human race and it tends to interest most people sooner or later and this would seem to have been the case for a very long time. Indeed, so far as I can see this discussion has made very clear that people who desired no sex still had a very great interest in sex for a great many reasons. I do nevertheless agree with Frans that some topics get boring after a while. This one by contrast raises so many fundamental methodological questions for historians and apparently for poets, which could perhaps be raised in other contexts but have not, that I have not yet become bored. B.Bachrach U. of MN From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 2-DEC-1996 05:58:14.48 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 04:56:12 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "Lynn H. Nelson" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L In-Reply-To: <9612020139.AA12614@raven.cc.ukans.edu> I like Bernie's analytical approach to things, but I feel that a simple listing lacks the intellectual rigor that he usually demonstrates. Rather than a simple list, I would suggest that we consider the need to arrange Bernie's list by categories. The major categorization could be based upon the gender pairing and upon who was the initiator or leading partner, viz., Male=0 (a male uninterested in sex), Female=0, Male=Male (homosexuality), Male=Female (male dominant heterosexuality), Female=Male (Female dominant heterosexuality), Female=Female (lesbianism), Male=Animal (bestiality), Animal=Male (No generally recognized name), Female=Animal (bestiality), Animal=Female (King Kongism), Animal=Animal (Beneficent Nature), Deity=Male (ganymedism), Male=Deity (no known nomenclature), Deity=Female (undefined to avoid religious conflicts), Female=Deity (Europeanism), Male=Self (Narcissism), Female=Self (ZsaZsa Gaborism). Deity=Self can be discarded as an imponderable. Interestingly enough, this provides us with sixteen basic categories, which can be represented by a single hexadecimal number of 0 through F. I would suggest that the next category consist of the act involved ranging from 0 (none), 1 (Passing Thought), 3 (Definite Idea), 4 (Lust), and so on through F (Full Penetration). A reindeer chasing another reindeer could then be basically coded as B4, while a young lady idly watching _Xena, Warrior Princess_ might be entered as 61, unless Hercules appears, at which point we might wish to enter E4. Someone else might finish up the second category, and then we could move to the characteristics of the first element of the relationship, the characteristics of the second element, and so on. Consider that two categories allows us to present 256 different relationships, and a third would allow us 4,096 descriptions each consisting of only 3 hexadecimal numbers. Poets tell us that the varieties of love are infinite, but I'll wager than we could pretty well cover the field with an eight-digit code. Lynn From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 2-DEC-1996 07:31:38.03 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 06:29:45 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "James A. Brundage" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L So now it's sex by the numbers, Bernie? Perhaps a consequence of those dread Minnesota winters? And it's only the beginning of December, too. As for sodomy, clearly this was a polyvalent term in medieval discourse -- and still remains so nowadays, for that matter. Medieval writers could and did use the term to describe virtually any type of overtly sexual behavior of which they disapproved, whether between persons of different genders or of the same gender, and regardless of whether those persons were married to one another or not. Interspecies copulation was also occasionally classed as sodomy, although my impression is that that usage was relatively uncommon. The "standard" meaning of "sodomy," at least so far as medieval legal writers were concerned, included any act of coitus other than penetration of the vagina by the penis; see the _Glos. ord._ to C. 32 q. 7 c. 7 v. _sodomita_. Under this definition, therefore, anal or oral intercourse constituted sodomy, whether the act took place between a man and a woman or between two men. Some writers expanded the definition to include any deviation from what we now usually call the "missionary position." If I may plug my own work shamelessly, I dealt with much of this material in an article entitled "Let Me Count the Ways: Canonists and Theologians Contemplate Coital Positions," _Journal of Medieval History_ 10 (1984) 81-93, more recently reprinted in my _Sex, Law and Marriage in the Middle Ages_ (Variorum, 1993). In common law jurisdictions "sodomy" usually means "a crime against nature" or "an unnatural act"--we owe these broad and indefinite definitions to Sir Edward Coke's _Third Institute_, c. 10, which in turn draws upon the Statute of 25 Hen. VIII, c. 26. JAB At 09:46 PM 12/1/96 -0600, bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu wrote: > .... Perhaps we can find a >compromise and give a number to Alcuin's poem so that we do not have to >quote it extensively each time it comes up in discussion. Perhaps we could >go even further and label it the "nibbler". My list is not intended to be >exclusive and thus to forclose discussion but to provide poets and everyone >else the opportunity to add numbers to the list as they see fit.... > >As to medieval definitions of sods there are several with variations and >with different orientations and, indeed, not all writers in the MA use one >or another definition "correctly" so there is plenty of room for >discussion and of course some writers use different words for the same act >(these must be poets) and some writers use the same words for different >acts. However, if we describe an act and give it a number then we can make >lists of the different words different writers use to describe the number >etc. >B.Bachrach >U. of MN > James A. Brundage History & Law University of Kansas jabrun@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 2-DEC-1996 08:50:35.56 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 08:46:01 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Alas, Lynn, your approach has been taken before. But the results are interesting. Steve Epstein in an article some years ago in, I think, the Radical History Review, noted the vast number of possible arrangements of sexualities [His was more complicated than yours, since you took only object-choice and intensity as coordinates - but gender identity adds another variable]. What was interesting was that, while there are huge cultural disparities, a rather small number of patterns surface again and again. In the domain of same-sex sexuality for instance, only three, out of te many possible, constructs occur: age-dissonant sexual relationships [one partner older than other], gender-dissonant sexual relationships [one of the biological males assumes a different ged gender], or relationships based on rough equality [much rarer, but the predominant modern pattern in the West]. Similarly of all possible heterosexualities, few are manifested. So, although I think it is fine and important to make ourselves aware that social constructions of gender and sexuality did vary in the past, and sex cannot be reduced to biology, I also doubt that medieval people were so different from us that we can gain no purchase on their ways of thinking. People differ, but not that much. As to Prof. Brundage's comments on "sodomy". Clearly the word can be used for many things. And legal codes in the US use it for oral sex in particular. But when various enlightened members of congress were arguing that men who indulged in sodomy should be exlcuded from the US Armed forces, they were emphatically not talking about throwing out soldiers who had had oral sex with their wives, girlfriends or prostitutes (female). So while I agree about the latitude os the word in law codes, and hence moral treatises, I still am unconvinced that in in common usage the word did not *usually* have a meaning hanging somewhere between "homosexuality" and "anal sex". I would also be interested in Prof. Brundage's comments on the specific case of Richard I [where he has been attacked on all sides] and Edward II. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 2-DEC-1996 10:13:41.59 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 10:10:30 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L The article I earlier cited by Steven Epstein was: - Epstein, Steven, "Gay Politics, Ethnic Identity: The Limits of Social Constructionism", Socialist Review 17:3/4, 9-54 Sorry about the misleading reference to the RHR. I also note, btw, that the approach of amity towards these texts seems to have been taken by Dom Leclerq [so often ahead of the crowd!] in Leclerq, Jean, "L'Amitii dans les lettres au moyen age", Revue du moyen age latin 1 (1945), pp. 391-410 Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 2-DEC-1996 11:20:03.83 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 11:13:33 EST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Carol Symes <75123.1446@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Research into the context of vernacular plays produced in thirteenth-century France has recently lead me to contemporary translations of the Bible. Today, looking at the retelling of Genesis in the only extant MS of Geoffroi de Paris' _Bible "des .vii. estaz du monde"_ (B.N. fr. 1526), I happened upon this treatment of the destruction of Sodom. I should point out that Geoffroi, in an early attempt to cover the entire history of human salvation for a lay audience, tries to keep things brief. But selective editing, as he says in his prologue, is his way of emphasizing "nostre matiere" - the bits that he thinks his audience really needs to hear. So there is no negotiation between God and Abraham over the fate of the city. God appears in characteristically abrupt fashion and engages Abraham in conversation. I quote (transcribing from f.14rb l.25 through f.14va l.6): Sire dist il ou irois vou Diex respondi tout aestrous. Amis. Sodoume la cite. Vois destruire par verite. Tuit li habitant qu'isont Hommes et fames periont Qui mauves sont et sodomite. Et ort et buant et herite. Lun gist alautre charnelement Lune fame a lautre ensement. La pueur deleur ordre vie Est iusquen paradis sentie. I translate (forgive me): Sire, said he, why so distraught? And God responded, resolute: Ah, friend, that Sodom, that city Will be destroyed in verity. All of those that therein lie Men and women, all must die. Evil are they, and sodomites Blameful and drunken, heretics: One lies with another carnally - Woman to woman, conjunctively. The stench of their foul way of life Reaches to heaven, to paradise. OK, so my verse is just as bad as Geoffroi's - but at least I haven't set up as a poet; only as an historian. Obviously, one of the interesting things about this passage is that the women of Sodom are singled out for blame. I find that this carries over into the description of Lot's wife later on. For one thing, God tells Abraham to warn her explicitly. No one else is told not to look back. Is that because, given the proclivities of the Sodomite women as described above, Geoffroi's God feels that she is more at risk? Or perhaps her attachment to certain inhabitants in the city is greater? We are told that she turns her head ("foolishly") when she hears the anguished cries of the doomed inhabitants. I wonder whether this take on the sin of Sodom is typical? I don't know: I just stumbled upon the passage today and thought it might be relevant to the recent discussion. It doesn't preclude male homosexuality, but it doesn't focus on it either. And at least in Geoffroi's retelling the subtle message of inhospitality is lost (there are no heavenly visitors making housecalls here). Geoffroi is writing, as he tells us, in 1243 ("Mil et .cc. anz tous nombrez/ Et .xl.iii touz de fi" - f.187b ll.14-15). This a generation or so too late to help us with Richard and Philip. But he is clearly composing his work for oral performance somewhere in the Ile-de-France, and the tone of his prologue suggests a noble audience, probably assembled for post-prandial entertainment: "Gent debonneire/ Gent courtoise./ Or faites paiz/ Taisiez la noise." I wonder whether a more systematic study of versified stories from Scripture intended for performance might shed some light on medieval assumptions about sodomy. This is just a specific instance but Geoffroi is (according to Bonnard) basing his poem on Herman of Valenciennes' _Roman de sapience_, and it would be instructive to compare these and other versions. Carol Symes csymes@fas.harvard.edu From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 2-DEC-1996 14:06:12.15 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 20:02:00 MET Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Otfried Lieberknecht Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Dear Carol, Just a short (and pedantic) note regarding your translation and interpretation of Geoffroi de Paris: >Sire dist il ou irois vou >Diex respondi tout aestrous. >Amis. Sodoume la cite. >Vois destruire par verite. >Tuit li habitant qu'isont >Hommes et fames periont >Qui mauves sont et sodomite. >Et ort et buant et herite. >Lun gist alautre charnelement >Lune fame a lautre ensement. >La pueur deleur ordre vie >Est iusquen paradis sentie. > >I translate (forgive me): > >Sire, said he, why so distraught? >And God responded, resolute: >Ah, friend, that Sodom, that city >Will be destroyed in verity. >All of those that therein lie >Men and women, all must die. >Evil are they, and sodomites >Blameful and drunken, heretics: "drunken" or rather "drinking" would be "bevant" (whereas "drunken" is "ivre"), not "buant". Given the context of "ort" (ignoble, detestable) I suppose that "buant" is to be read "puant" (stinking). >One lies with another carnally - >Woman to woman, conjunctively. >The stench of their foul way of life >Reaches to heaven, to paradise. > >OK, so my verse is just as bad as Geoffroi's - but at least I haven't set up as >a poet; only as an historian. Obviously, one of the interesting things about >this passage is that the women of Sodom are singled out for blame. [...] It doesn't preclude male homosexuality, but it doesn't focus on it >either. I would say that "Lun gist alautre charnelement / Lune fame a lautre ensement" accounts well both for men (l'un a l'autre) in the first and for women (l'une fame a l'autre) in the second line. To mention interfemale 'sodomy' explictly in fact is an unusual trait, as far as I myself know, but nevertheless I think that the passage is more explicit about intermale 'sodomy' than simply 'not precluding' it. Yours, Otfried From: SMTP%"DIGNITY@AMERICAN.EDU" 2-DEC-1996 23:34:30.99 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger's article MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Message-ID: Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 13:46:06 -0500 Reply-To: LesBiGay Catholic List Sender: LesBiGay Catholic List From: "Anthony R. Franks" Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger's article To: Multiple recipients of list DIGNITY I've finally tracked down a copy of Annales and read Mr. Jaeger's article on Richard of England and Philip of France. To tell the truth, my own opinion is, that he has an understandable reaction--I share it--to modern attempts to read sex into any expression of affection between members of the same gender. Anyone who has suffered the indignities of lecturing on subjects medieval at eight in the morning to college freshmen has heard snickers and references to "fagging off" from one part of the room or other at one time or other. One then hastens to lecture insecure heterosexual males not to project their unread prejudices onto the past. Charging anyone with being "Freudian", is only inventing a strawman to knock down, rather than addressing the concerns raised over sexual ralations. Unfortunately, I don't think that Richard and Philip's relationship is the case with which to start turning back this tendency. Hoveden's is not just literary allusions and creative imagery--literary and creative are two terms that do not occur to one in connection with Hoveden in any case--as one can argue with Alcuin's floridity. Richard and Philip actually carried out some form of cohabitation that went beyond the then conventional sleeping arrangements of "bed-mates". And yes, Paul, the contrast of ius primae noctis and "amour de roi" seems sufficiently vague to imply that he is confusing the two. It does give rise to interesting speculations about the legal relationship between England and France, though: if one king has ius primae noctis over the other, which is the suzerein of which? And does this effect sexual positions? ***************************************************************************** * Anthony Franks * * Library of Congress * * afra@loc.gov * * franks@mail.loc.gov * * * * A personal opinion not the official position of the Library of Congress * ****************************************************************************** From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 3-DEC-1996 03:50:28.39 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 08:47:28 GMT Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: James R Ginther Organization: University of Leeds Subject: Re: Stephen Jaeger: Response To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L >And, in a typical twentieth-century preoccupation with sex, shouldn't we >forget that there also was a large group of people in the Middle >Ages whodesired NO sex ??? Even here the issue is not so black and white. In his recent book, _Eros and Allegory_ (1995), Denys Turner opens with the following observation: "I have compiled this volume in part to document and in part to explain a curious fact of western christian history. Male celibates, monks and priests, have for centuries described, expressed and celebrated their lover for God in the language of sex. They did this in many genres of writing, occasionally in poetry, more often in set treatises on love, but most prolifically in a thousand years of commentarial tradition on the Song of Songs. The apparent anomaly of their celibate condition taken together with their enthusiasm for the spiritually erotic is what I document and, in part, seek to explain." (p.17) At this point, I am unconvinced by his explanation, but Turner has hit upon an interesting paradox in medieval theology. Mind you, it may be the modern preoccupation with sex that hinders us from really grasping the resolution to this paradox -- and that term might not even be the most appropriate descriptor. Historical questions inevitably arise from our present context, and so the questions of sex and _______ (fill in the blank) in medieval society is an appropriate research programme. How we go about answering those questions is really the difficult part of this debate, as it has become clear here. Cheers Jim ========================================================= James R. Ginther Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT --------------------------------------------------------- E-mail: Phone: +44.113.233.6749 j.r.ginther@leeds.ac.uk Fax: +44.113.233.3654 -=*=- http://www.leeds.ac.uk/trs/trs.html ========================================================= From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 5-DEC-1996 00:39:20.50 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 22:30:13 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Richard Kay Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L > >Sire dist il ou irois vous >Diex respondi tout aestrous. >Amis. Sodoume la cite. >Vois destruire par verite. >Tuit li habitant qu'isont > Hommes et fames periont >Qui mauves sont et sodomite. >Et ort et buant et herite. >Lun gist alautre charnelement >Lune fame a lautre ensement. >La pueur deleur ordre vie >Est iusquen paradis sentie. > >I translate (forgive me): > >Sire, said he, why so distraught? >And God responded, resolute: >Ah, friend, that Sodom, that city >Will be destroyed in verity. >All of those that therein lie >Men and women, all must die. >Evil are they, and sodomites >Blameful and drunken, heretics: >One lies with another carnally - >Woman to woman, conjunctively. >The stench of their foul way of life >Reaches to heaven, to paradise. > The verses reported by Carol Symes are an extremely important witness to the vernacular concept of Sodom. The people of Sodom are characterized (according to Otfried's revision of the translation) as "sodomites / destestable and drinking and heretics." The key word is *heretics*! Church fathers, such as Jerome, took the Sodomites to be the prototypical heretics (e.g. his commentary on Hoesea 11:8-9; also on Sophonias 2.9), and this view was repeated by the _Glossa ordinaria_ to the Bible, which was a major authority in the schools in the time of Richard the Lion-hearted. It is no surprise to find this interpretation current in Latin clerical culture, but here it is clearly attested as a *vernacular* view of Sodom! In other words, we cannot assume that a reference to "the sin of Sodom" ca. 1200 must refer to some sexual offence. The 48 references to Sodom in the Bible offered many other possibilities, such as heresy, blasphemy, paganism, and nonsexual offences against the law of nature (violating the laws of hospitality). We moderns jump to the conclusion that is most familiar (and most congenial to our prurience). I have worked this out in detail in chapters 8-9 (pp. 208-289) of _The Swift and the Strong: Essays on Inferno XV_" (1978). The underlying concepts, I am told, are still current in Roman Catholic exegesis, so for some I am belaboring the obvious. Thus I heartily endorse the view, now often expressed on the Richard thread, that we should not naively use modern concepts to interpret medieval texts. Richard Kay / History / UKansas Richard Kay Department of History University of Kansas Lawrence, KS USA 66045-2130 skipkay@falcon.cc.ukans.edu From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 5-DEC-1996 10:56:15.48 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 10:53:19 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Umm, Prof. Kay, The translated text identified the "sodomites", most interestingly both men and women [certainly not part of Gen 19] by their sexual activity, defined rather clearly as same sex activity. I read the same text as you, and cannot see how you do not see that. If anything, the text *strengthens* the link of sodomy with homosexual activity. Now of course this was not the meaning in the Bible [although try telling that to a fundie], but, essentially, the original meaning of any text in the Bible is irrelevant to its later use by religious people. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 5-DEC-1996 23:54:54.55 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 22:53:12 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Richard Kay Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L At 10:53 AM 12/5/96 -0500, you wrote: >Umm, Prof. Kay, > >The translated text identified the "sodomites", most interestingly >both men and women [certainly not part of Gen 19] by their >sexual activity, defined rather clearly as same sex activity. > >I read the same text as you, and cannot see how you do not see >that. If anything, the text *strengthens* the link of sodomy with >homosexual activity. > >Now of course this was not the meaning in the Bible [although >try telling that to a fundie], but, essentially, the original >meaning of any text in the Bible is irrelevant to its later >use by religious people. > >Paul Halsall > >Sire dist il ou irois vous >Diex respondi tout aestrous. >Amis. Sodoume la cite. >Vois destruire par verite. >Tuit li habitant qu'isont > Hommes et fames periont >Qui mauves sont et sodomite. >Et ort et buant et herite. >Lun gist alautre charnelement >Lune fame a lautre ensement. >La pueur deleur ordre vie >Est iusquen paradis sentie. > >I translate (forgive me): > >Sire, said he, why so distraught? >And God responded, resolute: >Ah, friend, that Sodom, that city >Will be destroyed in verity. >All of those that therein lie >Men and women, all must die. >Evil are they, and sodomites >Detestable and drinking and heretics: >One lies with another carnally - >Woman to woman, conjunctively. >The stench of their foul way of life >Reaches to heaven, to paradis sentie. Paul, I think this is worth going over in detail, because your incomprehension of my argument nicely illustrates the problem of approaching a text with modern preconceptions. Let me attempt a paraphrase, an excellent ancient-medieval hermaneutic device. Geoffroi de Paris, the poet, has God say: (1) All the inhabitants of Sodom, both men and women, must die. (2) They are evil - "sodomite" and/or "detestable" and/or "drinking" and/or "heretics." (3) The women of Sodom have sex together. (4) The lifestyle of Sodom stinks to high heaven. (1) Nothing surprising about this. God did destroy Sodom, including the women by implication (unless Lot had the only household with women in it, which seems improbable). (2) This is tough sentence, the like of which bedevils Dante scholarship. To begin with, the punctuation in the Symes transcript clearly needs revision, as "Et ort et buant et herite." is surely not a complete sentence, but must be joined to the previous clause. In my paraphrase, I take it that that the first term ("mauves") is a general characterization, explaining in a general way why God has just announced that they must die. There follows a list of their sins, set off by "et ... et ... et" which could be taken either disjunctively or conjunctively, and hence has been paraphrased "and/or". Whichever way you choose to read it, I think you must agree these are specific instances of the general assertion that they are "evil." The question is: do they describe aspects of one sin, or a variety of different ones, or perhaps a complex of sins? The key here, I think, lies in the next sentence (3), which is not the next item in the list given in (2) but rather seems to exemplify the epithets in (2). Consequently, returning to (2), we should expect that whatever it refers to can be exemplified by (3). I would argue that it must exemplify a sin that is sodomite + detestable + drink-related + heretical. (Or, taking those &'s disjunctively, one that can be characterized by any one of those epithets.) Now the modern reader has no difficulty in seeing that the copulating women of (3) are a case of bad folk who are "sodomite." It is equally apparent why Geoffroi's God labels them as "detestable" or "ignoble." In my last post, I attempted to explain why they are also considered "heretics," because the Sodomites were taken as a type of heresy in patristic-scholastic biblical commentary. But how do the drinking habits of the people of Sodom fit in? To begin, drinking is associated with Sodom in the Bible. Luke 17:28b: "in the days of Lot: they did eat and drink" ("they" being the Sodomites, named in vs. 29). Indeed, the vineyards of Sodom were proverbial (Deut. 32:32) - the fruit thereof was ultimately their downfall. But the best and simplest explanation is the case of the surviving citizen of Sodom, Lot, who committed another unnatural sin - incest - because his daughters made him drunk (Gen. 19:30-36). The evil of the folk of Sodom, then, is a complex of interconnected vices, including unnatural sex, drunkenness, and heresy. That seems to be the message encoded in Geoffroi's text. The point you are missing, Paul, is that for Geoffroi and for educated clerics ca. 1200, the sin of Sodom was any misuse of nature. Sure, it included sex in ways that seemed to them unnatural (let Jim Brundage count them!), but also violating the laws of hospitality, misusing the fruits of viticulture, and, worst of all, rationalizing these unnatural acts. It was the rationalizations (not the specific acts) that were especially singled out by the OT prophets for condemnation. Essentially, Sodom's sin was blasphemy. It was the (mis)leaders of Sodom, the intellectuals who created and taught these rationalizations, who were particularly condemned - the heresiarchs. And Geoffroi evidently knew this, so it is relevant to the Richard thread. Today we have a lively interest in homosexual acts, and quite naturally we tend to concentrate on them when we find them in a medieval text. But - and this is my big BUT - for medieval men they were only instances of a larger category of "unnatural acts." Sure, we're bored by abstract discussions of "the law of nature," and consequently, when asked to list "unnatural acts," we are unlikely (probably unable) to list any that are not sex related. That's our deficiency, for which as historians we must strive to compensate. It is often an long and arduous process - witness this note. I have tried to be brief, but a full sense of what Sodom meant to a medieval exegete can only be obtained by mastering the biblical texts and the complex tradition of commentary on them, which all too few modern scholars have cared to do. It was with good reason that the scholastics thought the uneducated were apt to misinterpret the Bible - they were! Richard Kay / History / UKansas Richard Kay Department of History University of Kansas Lawrence, KS USA 66045-2130 skipkay@falcon.cc.ukans.edu From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 6-DEC-1996 07:28:40.80 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 07:24:20 EST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Carol Symes <75123.1446@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L This is a copy of my reply to Otfried, as posted to the List --------------- Forwarded Message --------------- From: Carol Symes, 75123,1446 Date: 3, Dec 1996, 8:25 AM RE: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Oh, dear. I knew I shouldn't have attempted a translation - especially in rhymed octosyllabic couplets. Not my medium, you know. Thanks to Otfried, as ever, for the information. I didn't mean to suggest that people in the Ile-de-France during the mid-thirteenth century thought sodomy was an exclusively feminine vice. But here (as always?) women are singled out for censure and this does inform one's view of Lot's wife. My main point about the depiction of Sodom in Geoffroi is that here we have a source which we know was intended to be performed before a lay audience. We are thus, arguably, closer to popular conceptions and concerns than we can be when looking at the _Summa theologiae_ or other academic texts. And, if that is the case, we are closer to a "medieval" definition or idea of sodomy. We have already seen that the very ancient Jewish tradition of exegesis did not obtain among most Christian commentators and it certainly didn't filter down to Geoffroi or - by extension - his audience. It is therefore not helpful to speak of what Genesis 19 "really" means as far as this particular segment of the Middle Ages is concerned. That information was not available or useful to them. What I suspect is that the nature and characteristics of "sodomy," like those of holiness or the fief, changed over time and varied from place to place. Regional studies, anyone? Humbly, Carol Symes Department of History Harvard University From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 6-DEC-1996 07:28:48.65 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French - MISSING LINK Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 07:24:29 EST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Carol Symes <75123.1446@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French - MISSING LINK To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L I have a feeling I've missed out on some of the discussion of the passage I submitted earlier this week and am certain that Otfried Lieberknecht's prompt correction of my translation did not, unfortunately, make it to the U.S. Rather than paraphrase him, I will resend his message along with my own reply and hope that it reaches the listmembers in their entirety. Essentially, the problem appears to arise precisely in the rendering of the obscure "buant [sic]" as "drinking," when it should probably be read as a variant of "puant," "stinking." I have received only parts of the exchange between Professors Kay and Halsall (dated Friday the 6th), but since Prof. Kay's argument is partially founded on an equation between the "vices" of drunkenness and homosexual activity, and my translation erred on exactly that point, some re-thinking may be necessary. Again, I'm sorry about the fact that the correction did not filter through to folks in the States; I don't know why this should be, perhaps because Otfried is writing from Germany and I am getting everything forwarded from Harvard? I originally posted my message on Monday 2 December and the correction was noted the following day. I then packed up and left for points in northern France and have not been able to get a reliable connection until today. Now that my credibility has been destroyed by the exigencies of cyberspace, I will blushingly defend my transcription of the passage. Prof. Kay wrote: >>This is tough sentence, the like of which bedevils Dante scholarship. >>To begin with, the punctuation in the Symes transcript clearly needs >>revision, as "Et ort et buant et herite." is surely not a complete sentence, >>but must be joined to the previous clause. The punctuation is given as it appears in the manuscript. The poem is pointed throughout in this rather tendencious way. Carol Symes Department of History harvard University csymes@fas.harvard.edu From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 6-DEC-1996 09:31:50.80 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 09:30:07 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Prof Kay writes citing me >>The translated text identified the "sodomites", most interestingly >>both men and women [certainly not part of Gen 19] by their >>sexual activity, defined rather clearly as same sex activity. >> >>I read the same text as you, and cannot see how you do not see >>that. If anything, the text *strengthens* the link of sodomy with >>homosexual activity. THE TEXT >>Diex respondi tout aestrous. >>Amis. Sodoume la cite. >>Vois destruire par verite. >>Tuit li habitant qu'isont >> >Hommes et fames periont >>Qui mauves sont et sodomite. >>Et ort et buant et herite. >>Lun gist alautre charnelement >>Lune fame a lautre ensement. >>La pueur deleur ordre vie >>Est iusquen paradis sentie. >> >>I translate (forgive me): >> >>Sire, said he, why so distraught? >>And God responded, resolute: >>Ah, friend, that Sodom, that city >>Will be destroyed in verity. >>All of those that therein lie >>Men and women, all must die. >>Evil are they, and sodomites >>Detestable and drinking and heretics: >>One lies with another carnally - >>Woman to woman, conjunctively. >>The stench of their foul way of life >>Reaches to heaven, to paradis sentie. > >I think this is worth going over in detail, because your incomprehension of >my argument nicely illustrates the problem of approaching a text with modern >preconceptions. I do not uncomprehend your argument. I think it is wrong. There is a difference. Both of us, by the way, are approaching the text with modern preconceptions. >Let me attempt a paraphrase, an excellent ancient-medieval hermaneutic >device. Geoffroi de Paris, the poet, has God say: (1) All the inhabitants >of Sodom, both men and women, must die. (2) They are evil - "sodomite" >and/or "detestable" and/or "drinking" and/or "heretics." (3) The women of >Sodom have sex together. (4) The lifestyle of Sodom stinks to high heaven. > >(1) Nothing surprising about this. God did destroy Sodom, including the >women by implication (unless Lot had the only household with women in it, >which seems improbable). > >(2) This is tough sentence, the like of which bedevils Dante scholarship. >To begin with, the punctuation in the Symes transcript clearly needs >revision, as "Et ort et buant et herite." is surely not a complete sentence, >but must be joined to the previous clause. I note Carol Symes' comment here that the transcription she gave was based on the MS punctuation. Surely you are correct that MS punctuation may be wrong, but so far, to maintin your reading, you have to assume a specific hermeneutic, which you have not shown *this* author had access to, and emend the punctuation. >In my paraphrase, I take it that >that the first term ("mauves") is a general characterization, explaining in >a general way why God has just announced that they must die. Agreed. Since this is verse, scansion is also an issue. >There follows a list of their sins, set off by "et ... et ... et" which >could be taken either disjunctively or conjunctively, and hence has been >paraphrased "and/or". Whichever way you choose to read it, I think you must >agree these are specific instances of the general assertion that they are >"evil." I think "sodomite" had acquired a meaning beyond "inhabitant of Sodom" by this time [in fact I know it had], thus it was possible to be both a "Sodomite" and an "inhabitant of Sodom" [just as "English Literature" means more than "literature written in England"] >The question is: do they describe aspects of one sin, or a variety of >different ones, or perhaps a complex of sins? The key here, I think, lies >in the next sentence (3), which is not the next item in the list given in >(2) but rather seems to exemplify the epithets in (2). As Carol Symes pointed out, you have to violate the MS text to asset this. I agree it is a possible reading, but I think it to be wrong. >Consequently, returning to (2), we should expect that whatever it refers to >can be exemplified by (3). I would argue that it must exemplify a sin that >is sodomite + detestable + drink-related + heretical. (Or, taking those &'s >disjunctively, one that can be characterized by any one of those epithets.) >Now the modern reader has no difficulty in seeing that the copulating women >of (3) are a case of bad folk who are "sodomite." It is equally apparent >why Geoffroi's God labels them as "detestable" or "ignoble." In my last >post, I attempted to explain why they are also considered "heretics," >because the Sodomites were taken as a type of heresy in patristic-scholastic >biblical commentary. Which Geoffroi read? >But how do the drinking habits of the people of Sodom >>fit in? > >To begin, drinking is associated with Sodom in the Bible. Luke 17:28b: "in >the days of Lot: they did eat and drink" ("they" being the Sodomites, named >in vs. 29). Indeed, the vineyards of Sodom were proverbial (Deut. 32:32) - >the fruit thereof was ultimately their downfall. But the best and simplest >explanation is the case of the surviving citizen of Sodom, Lot, who >committed another unnatural sin - incest - because his daughters made him >drunk (Gen. 19:30-36). There is comparatively little stress on drinking [assuming Prof. L. was write that the word does mean drinking] as a sin in the Bible. Jesus after all creates more wine for the already tipsy at Cana, and the imbibing of alcohol is a central Christian symbol. IN Protestant American however, drinking has been identified as a major sin for a number of centuries. Indeed in some tracts it is almost equated with sin and several churches stress it [Methodists. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses]. Ireally wonder if it requires familiarity with Protestant culture to read the text as you do? After all, although modern sexuality is certainly different [although not *that* different] from that of human beings in the past, it does have some biological basis, and hence continuity. Religion is a much purer human construct, and massively informs how we understand the past. American Protestantism seem to me to be remarkably far from Medieval Catholicism [not to mention early Christianity], and such is Protestantism's cultureal power that even American Catholics have been affected. [Reading Catholic Newsgroups reveals a Biblicism quite alien to Catholicism, for instance]. >The evil of the folk of Sodom, then, is a complex of interconnected vices, >including unnatural sex, drunkenness, and heresy. That seems to be the >message encoded in Geoffroi's text. >The point you are missing, Paul, is that for Geoffroi and for educated >clerics ca. 1200, the sin of Sodom was any misuse of nature. Sure, it >included sex in ways that seemed to them unnatural (let Jim Brundage count >them!), but also violating the laws of hospitality, misusing the fruits of >viticulture, and, worst of all, rationalizing these unnatural acts. It was >the rationalizations (not the specific acts) that were especially singled >out by the OT prophets for condemnation. Essentially, Sodom's sin was >blasphemy. It was the (mis)leaders of Sodom, the intellectuals who created >and taught these rationalizations, who were particularly condemned - the >heresiarchs. And Geoffroi evidently knew this, so it is relevant to the >Richard thread. I am not missing this. I just do not think the texts support it. There were all sorts of use of the word sodomy. Most often it was connected specifically with "unnatural sex". I suppose the only way to prove this would be to count and contextualise all surviving uses of the word. Anyone game? >Today we have a lively interest in homosexual acts, and quite naturally we >tend to concentrate on them when we find them in a medieval text. But - and >this is my big BUT - for medieval men they were only instances of a larger >category of "unnatural acts." Sure, we're bored by abstract discussions of >"the law of nature," and consequently, when asked to list "unnatural acts," >we are unlikely (probably unable) to list any that are not sex related. >That's our deficiency, for which as historians we must strive to compensate. You may be bored with discussion about natural law, I am not, and have written a great deal about it, and discussed it ad infinitum. In fact I think it is an excellent system of moral thinking. It would be a severes mistake to think the marker for morality woulld be "for" or "againts" nature in any natural law system, by the way. But as Prof. Bacrach has noted, medieval Churchmen were indeed pretty concerned about sex. JOhn BOswell once argued that Penetential literature did not emphasise homsexuality. Prof. Brundage showed that indeed it did [as I recall]. >It is often an long and arduous process - witness this note. I have tried >to be brief, but a full sense of what Sodom meant to a medieval exegete can >only be obtained by mastering the biblical texts and the complex tradition >of commentary on them, I think this may be the case when we are dealing with professional exegetes. It is less so in popular usage. >which all too few modern scholars have cared to do. >It was with good reason that the scholastics thought the uneducated were apt >to misinterpret the Bible - they were! And so, of course, were the Scholastics. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 6-DEC-1996 10:19:16.66 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 11:19:17 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L I agree with Skip's observations and I surley agree that both the uneducated then and now-even academics-are wont to misinterpret the Bible. However, is not this "misinterpretation" in its boradest perspective what, in part, Paul is after? Skip has correctly, in my view, noted how modern scholars focussed on such matters as homosexuality or perhaps more PC "the Gay Lifestyle" have misinterpreted these and a plethora of other texts. However, should we not be trying also to see how the vulgus misinterpreted these same "text" however transmitted to them. Were there people out there in the 13th century as there are today who were eager to believe that Richard had his penis firmly wedged up Philip's butt? Unfortunately we do not have much access to the "queer" jokes, if any, that circulated in the 13th century as one means of getting insight regarding popular culture as in the modern clearly non-P.C. "joke": How do the X separate the men from the boys? I will not tell the punch lines because this might be construed in some quarters as advocating such humor!!! B.Bachrach U. of MN From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 6-DEC-1996 15:10:21.39 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 13:46:00 MET Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Otfried Lieberknecht Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Dear Prof. Kay, Although your biblical citations connecting Sodom with drinking and wine were instructive for me, because I myself had not even thought for a moment of this biblical connection, there nevertheless remains the linguistic impossibility, in the Old French text, to translate "buant" with "drinking" (because to translate with "drinking" we would need "bevant" or at least, if the text was a bit later, "buvant"). I still have no better to offer than to read "ort et buant et herite" as "ignoble and STINKING and heretic", assuming that "buant" is simply a corrupted reading of "puant". If my emendation is correct, it should be clear, or almost, that the passage in question first condemns the trespass(es) in question and then specifies in what it (they) consist: >>Tuit li habitant qu'isont >>Hommes et fames periont >>Qui mauves sont et sodomite. >>Et ort et buant et herite. >>Lun gist alautre charnelement >>Lune fame a lautre ensement. >>La pueur deleur ordre vie >>Est iusquen paradis sentie. All the inhabitants which are there, men and women, have to perish, because they are [literally: who are] evil and sodomitic and ignoble and stinking and heretic: one [sc. man] lies [together] charnally with the other [sc. man], one woman together with the other [sc. woman]; the stink of their ignoble life is smelled even in paradise. (my English prose is much worse than Carol's verse, but I hope that my translation is correct) The crucial question seems to be whether we take "herite" to have a comparably uncommon, but not impossible sense decrying abominable sin in general, or whether we take the word in its common and tecnically specific sense as referring to sin of faith in particular (like heresy as a rationalization of humane disobedience against divine law, as you inferred from theological tradition). In the first case the passage specifies only one single sin (homosexual -- i.e. intermale and interfemale -- practice, and nothing else). In the second case it specifies a variety or complex of two different sins, i.e. heresy (mentioned only briefly, and somewhat out of order, in one single word) and homosexual practice (more extensively described in two verses). I prefer the first, more simple understandng, but maybe I tend to oversimplify. Otfried --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Otfried Lieberknecht, Schoeneberger Str. 11, D-12163 Berlin Tel.: ++49 30 8516675 (fax on request), E-mail: lieberk@berlin.netsurf.de Homepage for Dante Studies: http://members.aol.com/lieberk/welcome.html ORB Dante Alighieri: A Guide to Online Resources: http://orb.rhodes.edu/encyclop/culture/lit/Italian/Danindex.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 7-DEC-1996 08:48:56.62 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 07:47:45 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "James A. Brundage" Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L OK, I guess the time has come to put in a few words on this continuing thread about same-sex relations in general and the question of Richard Lion-Heart's sexual orientation in particular. At 09:30 AM 12/6/96 -0500, Paul Halsall wrote: > [here citing, and replying to Skip Kay] >>The evil of the folk of Sodom, then, is a complex of interconnected vices, >>including unnatural sex, drunkenness, and heresy. That seems to be the >>message encoded in Geoffroi's text. > >>The point you are missing, Paul, is that for Geoffroi and for educated >>clerics ca. 1200, the sin of Sodom was any misuse of nature. Sure, it >>included sex in ways that seemed to them unnatural (let Jim Brundage count >>them!), but also violating the laws of hospitality, misusing the fruits of >>viticulture, and, worst of all, rationalizing these unnatural acts. It was >>the rationalizations (not the specific acts) that were especially singled >>out by the OT prophets for condemnation. Essentially, Sodom's sin was >>blasphemy. It was the (mis)leaders of Sodom, the intellectuals who created >>and taught these rationalizations, who were particularly condemned - the >>heresiarchs. And Geoffroi evidently knew this, so it is relevant to the >>Richard thread. > >I am not missing this. I just do not think the texts support it. There >were all sorts of use of the word sodomy. Most often it was connected >specifically with "unnatural sex". I suppose the only way to prove this >would be to count and contextualise all surviving uses of the word. Anyone >game? Thanks for the invitation, but I am otherwise engaged. With specific reference to Richard C-d-L, however, it seems reasonably certain to me that the central meaning of "sodomy," "sodomite," etc. at the end of the C12 and the beginning of the C13 was any sexual practice that deviated from heterosexual intercourse in the missionary position. "Professional" theologians and others may already have extended the connotations of these words to include drunkenness and the like, but it's pretty clear that the authors of confessional literature in this period believed that "sodomy" meant sexual relations between persons of the same gender. See, for example, Robert of Flamborough's _Liber poenitentialis_ 5.3.1, ed. J.J. Francis Firth (Toronto: PIMS, 1971)at 228-31, under the title _De fornicantibus sodomitice_. This is a long and fairly graphic text and it seems to me utterly inescapable that Robert is writing explicitly about carnal copulation, not about drinking, heretical beliefs, or anything else. Perhaps during the course of the C13 the term "sodomy" did pick up some of these other connotations, but at least in the period around Richard I's reign they don't seem to be there. Of course, as Bernie and others have pointed out, we have no way of knowing just what went on between Richard and Philip in the bed(s) they shared, although the descriptive language about the warmth of their relationship does seem to suggest that it may have involved more than simple slumber. But perhaps I just have a dirty mind. I do find it difficult, however, to get around his encounter with the hermit, where sodomy is specifically mentioned, and his public repentance and abjuration of an [admittedly unnamed] vice at Christmas, 1190. Perhaps all these episodes may be unrelated, but I beg leave to doubt it. We will never know with certainty about Richard's sexual inclinations and actions in graphic detail (at least unless some hitherto unknown source were to emerge--say, at the Pseudo-Society!). The best we can do is to reach tentative conclusions on the balance of probabilities. My conclusion on that basis is that Richard probably fell into the category that we now label bisexual. Clearly he was capable of experiencing sexual arousal with women and did have sexual relations with them occasionally. But there seems to be no evidence that he pursued them very vigorously or very often. > >>Today we have a lively interest in homosexual acts, and quite naturally we >>tend to concentrate on them when we find them in a medieval text. But - and >>this is my big BUT - for medieval men they were only instances of a larger >>category of "unnatural acts." Sure, we're bored by abstract discussions of >>"the law of nature," and consequently, when asked to list "unnatural acts," >>we are unlikely (probably unable) to list any that are not sex related. >>That's our deficiency, for which as historians we must strive to compensate. > >You may be bored with discussion about natural law, I am not, and have written >a great deal about it, and discussed it ad infinitum. In fact I think it is an >excellent system of moral thinking. It would be a severes mistake to think >the marker for morality woulld be "for" or "againts" nature in any natural >law system, by the way. > >But as Prof. Bacrach has noted, medieval Churchmen were indeed pretty concerned >about sex. JOhn BOswell once argued that Penetential literature did not >emphasise homsexuality. Prof. Brundage showed that indeed it did [as I recall]. > Interest in sexual matters may certainly owe much to Freud and his followers in the C20, but in my view it would be a mistake to believe that people in the C12, C13, and C14 were immune to the Freudian plague and hence not terribly concerned about sexual practices. The way that C20 folks approach the subject may well have been profoundly influenced by the psychodynamic speculations of Freud et al. But the fascination of medieval moralists, canonists, theologians, and pastors with sexual behavior seems pretty plain in view of their surviving writings. On the early medieval penitentials, BTW, don't overlook Pierre Payer's _Sex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code, 550-1150_ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984). >I think this may be the case when we are dealing with professional exegetes. It >is less so in popular usage. > >Paul Halsall > It certainly seems plausible that exegetes _were_, in the nature of their trade, a bit more apt than others to seek for (and find) extended meanings of the terms they were trying to explain. But I know too little about medieval exegesis to feel comfortable going beyond that speculative observation. James A. Brundage History & Law University of Kansas jabrun@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 7-DEC-1996 09:10:02.03 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 10:17:06 CST Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: "bachr001@maroon.tc.umn.edu" Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Jim for another best seller what you need to do is take the starting description of richard and philip in bed and plug in several of your most graphic descriptions in the penit. this would then give the reader a good idea of what r and p were doing. Now that is the kind of "history" that the people really want to read. I would think that is the kind of gossip the people in the 13c wanted hear as well. Bernie From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 8-DEC-1996 22:04:30.52 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 21:03:33 -0600 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Richard Kay Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L After a flurry of responses to my observations concerning the treatment of Sodom in Geoffroi de Paris's Old French paraphrase of the Bible, it may be useful to summarize my position. 1. I have not the least quarrel with Jim Brundage's remarks concerning sodomy in canon law and pastoral theology. No doubt in a *practical* context, "sodomy" referred to sexual acts that were considered "unnatural." 2. Nonetheless, biblical exegetes linked Sodom with a number of non-sexual concepts associated with it in the Bible, including heresy, blasphemy, ingratitude to God, and any behavior (not just sexual) that was contrary to nature. A lengthy analysis of the relevant passages will be found in my _Dante's Swift and Strong_. Circa 1200 this interpretation would be known to anyone who read the Glossa Ordinaria to the Bible; this would especially include any theology student at the University of Paris. 3. Accordingly, the Sodom-heresy link was a commonplace of Latin clerical culture and therefore would not be remarkable in Latin authors writing in this tradition. What seemed remarkable to me was that Geoffroi had made the connection in a vernacular work, so the concept was not limited to Latin culture. Of course it is not at all surprising that Geoffroi should be familiar with contemporary biblical scholarship, since his work was based primarily on the Bible. I suspect that one could find plenty of similar adaptations of biblical exegesis in contemporary vernacular sermons as well. But all I want to insist on is that in linking Sodom and heresy, Geoffroi was following a widespread and authoritative exegetical tradition that was readily available to him. He made it available in turn to a vernacular audience. There are some technical matters that I will address in later posts; the present statement covers the points of immediate relevance to the discussion of what "sodomy" meant ca. 1200. Richard Kay Department of History University of Kansas Lawrence, KS USA 66045-2130 skipkay@falcon.cc.ukans.edu From: MURRAY::HALSALL 8-DEC-1996 23:53:44.91 To: SMTP%"lhnelson@raven.cc.ukans.edu" CC: HALSALL Subj: Re: King Richard.... Prof. Nelson, SOrry to take so long to get back to you on this. You wrote >One thing that has been piquing my curiosity. I note that the >nature-nurture debate on the causes of homosexuality have lately been >coming down on the side of nature. Is it worthwhile to ask whether there >are currently any biological studies in this area that could lead to an >evolutionary typology for the characteristic? If we're dealing with a >genetic factor, should we expect to see patterns of dispersion, such as >are recorded for various blood types, eye color, cranial indices, and so >forth? Although quite high [more than coincidental] correlations between stated homosexual identity and a number of genetic traist have been document, there are still many cases of people who do not have the genetic traits identified who are, nonetheless, homosexual and cases of heterosexuals with the traits. Since the data is so inconclusive [although it is driving the Christian Right nuts], and based on quite small populations, I know of no evolutionary typology. >I suppose that I'm wondering whether there is any definitive truth to be >found in discussion of the attitudes toward a physical phenomenon without >knowing the nature of that phenomenon. The problem is that culture must play a large role, even if there is a biological underlay. And what is being discussed, I suppose, is culture. And boy, was I happy with Prof. Brundage's contribution. I had been feeling I was hanging out to dry. Paul Halsall From: SMTP%"lhnelson@raven.cc.ukans.edu" 9-DEC-1996 04:37:06.29 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: King Richard.... Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 03:37:00 -0600 (CST) From: "Lynn H. Nelson" To: HALSALL@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU Subject: Re: King Richard.... In-Reply-To: <961208235344.21050174@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 8 Dec 1996 HALSALL@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU wrote: > And boy, was I happy with Prof. Brundage's contribution. I had been > feeling I was hanging out to dry. Hello, Paul; If you were, I certainly didn't notice it. What I _did_ notice was the general willingness in the latest stage of the discussion to offer definitive solutions to a textual question without first analyzing the text thoroughly. It's a bit like a three-ring circus. 8^) Lynn From: SMTP%"MEDIEV-L@UKANVM.BITNET" 9-DEC-1996 19:43:25.67 To: HALSALL CC: Subj: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 23:45:45 -0500 Reply-To: Medieval History Sender: Medieval History From: Paul Halsall Subject: Re: Sin of Sodom in French Bibles To: Multiple recipients of list MEDIEV-L Richard Kay writes > 1. I have not the least quarrel with Jim Brundage's remarks >concerning sodomy in canon law and pastoral theology. No doubt in a >*practical* context, "sodomy" referred to sexual acts that were considered >"unnatural." This is odd, because I could discern little difference [although considerably more "auctoritas"] in Prof. Brundage's conclusions and te ones I have been arguing for. And yet at least one of your posts was to instruct me on how to read the texts! > 2. Nonetheless, biblical exegetes linked Sodom with a number of >non-sexual concepts associated with it in the Bible, including heresy, >blasphemy, ingratitude to God, and any behavior (not just sexual) that was >contrary to nature. A lengthy analysis of the relevant passages will be >found in my _Dante's Swift and Strong_. Circa 1200 this interpretation >would be known to anyone who read the Glossa Ordinaria to the Bible; this >would especially include any theology student at the University of Paris. > 3. Accordingly, the Sodom-heresy link was a commonplace of Latin >clerical culture and therefore would not be remarkable in Latin authors >writing in this tradition. What seemed remarkable to me was that Geoffroi >had made the connection in a vernacular work, so the concept was not limited >to Latin culture. What was *remarkable* to me about the passage quoted from Geoffroi [apart from the upsetting punctuation] was that it equated the sin of Sodomy with female same-sex activity. This seemed to indicate some awareness of a same-sex activity abstracted from any particular act. Paul Halsall