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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