Same-sex Sexuality in Later Medieval English Culture

Same-sex Sexuality in Later Medieval English Culture

  • Auteur: Linkinen, Tom
  • Éditeur: Amsterdam University Press
  • Collection: Crossing boundaries
  • ISBN: 9789089646293
  • eISBN Pdf: 9789048522866
  • Lieu de publication:  Amsterdam , Netherlands
  • Année de publication électronique: 2015
  • Mois : Avril
  • Pages: 376
  • Langue: Anglais
This volume investigates the state of same-sex relations in later medieval England, drawing on a remarkably rich array of primary sources from the period that include legal documents, artworks, theological treatises, and poetry. Tom Linkinen uses those sources to build a framework of medieval condemnations of same-sex intimacy and desire and then shows how same-sex sexuality reflected“and was inflected by“gender hierarchies, approaches to crime, and the conspicuous silence on the matter in the legal systems of the period.
  • Cover
  • Contents
    • Introduction
      • 1. In search of same-sex sexuality and later medieval English culture
      • .2 Primary sources: Discussing the versatile past
      • 3. Secondary sources: Discussing medieval sexuality
    • I. Framing condemnations: Sodomy, sin against nature, and crime
      • 1. Judgement of sodomy
      • 2. Sin against nature and fallen flesh
      • 3. Disturbing gender boundaries
      • 4. A crime lacking law
    • II. Silencing the unmentionable vice
      • 1. Silence around same-sex sexuality
      • 2. Repeated silencing as shared knowledge
    • III. Stigmatising with same-sex sexuality
      • 1. The two kings and their rumoured lovers
      • 2. Sodomitical religious opponents
      • 3. Accumulating accusations
    • IV. Sharing disgust and fear
      • 1. “Stinking deed” and “spiteful filth”
      • 2. Fear of sin against nature in one’s nature
      • 3. Sharing nightmares of sin against nature
      • 4. Placing same-sex sexuality out of this world
    • V. Sharing laughter
      • 1. Laughing at same-sex sexuality
      • 2. Chaucer’s Pardoner, “geldyng or a mare” and more
    • VI. Framing possibilities: Silences, friendships, deepest love
      • 1. Possibilities behind silence and confusion
      • 2. Closest friends
      • 3. Deepest love
    • Conclusions
      • 1. From stinking deeds to deepest love
      • 2. Closing with queer possibilities
    • Acknowledgements
    • Bibliography
      • Primary sources
      • Secondary sources
    • Index
  • List of figures
    • Figure 1: Punishment for sodomy carved in stone, from the left, Lincoln Cathedral, a reconstruction of a twelfth-century stone frieze
    • Figure 2: Punishment for sodomy carved in stone, from the right, Lincoln Cathedral, a reconstruction of a twelfth-century stone frieze
    • Figure 3: Tutivillus the devil and two women gossiping in a church, Beverley Minster, Beverley, North Yorkshire, fourteenth century
    • Figure 4: A joined tombstone of Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville, Archaeological Museum of Istanbul
    • Figure 5: “A tomb slab of an English couple,” Archaeological Museum of Istanbul
    • Figure 6: A closer look at two helmets face-to-face above, and two coats of arms with shared heraldry below, Archaeological Museum of Istanbul

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