Gay Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe

[Tab]

Source: LiveScience

Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says.

Historical evidence, including legal documents and gravesites, can be interpreted as supporting the prevalence of homosexual relationships hundreds of years ago, said Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

If accurate, the results indicate socially sanctioned same-sex unions are nothing new, nor were they taboo in the past.

“Western family structures have been much more varied than many people today seem to realize," Tulchin writes in the September issue of the Journal of Modern History. "And Western legal systems have in the past made provisions for a variety of household structures.”

For example, he found legal contracts from late medieval France that referred to the term "affrèrement," roughly translated as brotherment. Similar contracts existed elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe, Tulchin said.

In the contract, the "brothers" pledged to live together sharing "un pain, un vin, et une bourse," (that's French for one bread, one wine and one purse). The "one purse" referred to the idea that all of the couple's goods became joint property. Like marriage contracts, the "brotherments" had to be sworn before a notary and witnesses, Tulchin explained.
...
"I suspect that some of these relationships were sexual, while others may not have been," Tulchin said. "It is impossible to prove either way and probably also somewhat irrelevant to understanding their way of thinking. They loved each other, and the community accepted that.”

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070827/sc_livescience/gayunionssanctionedinmedievaleurope

[Kagemusha]

1. I'm sure that the fundamentalists of the day rolled this back eventually.

That's why we haven't heard much about the idea for the 600 years in the interim.

[yardwork]

2. Wow! k&r

[fightthegoodfightnow]

3. Old News

John Boswell wrote about this over a decade ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boswell_%28historian%29

[TrogL]

5. Some people discount Boswell

because he was open about having an axe to grind, a dog in this fight.

I mean, really, his cover portrait had his shirt open three, count-em three buttons!!!

[fightthegoodfightnow]

11. If he had an ax to grind, he chopped his own head off by .........

remaining a Catholic. I hope he got some from a priest before he left this world.

[Hieronymus]

14. I recall hearing about this too ... hell, priests used to marry too.

[DemBones DemBones]

18. Priests definitely married centuries ago. But

that doesn't mean this claim about same sex civil unions is true.

You're comparing two unrelated issues, one of which has always been known, while the other is questionable.

[DCKit]

30. The best explanation I've ever heard for enforcing celibacy among the clergy

Is that it keeps their work-product and estates within the church. I wonder if they'd have done it differently if they knew how much tragedy they'd be causing?

[aquart]

4. "Affrerement" is a great word. Needs more use.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. And look what happened to Medieval Europe!

Gone, lost, destroyed!

Let us take warning, brothers and sisters! If we emulate Medieval Europe in this, we too could find ourselves overwhelmed by ... um, a Rennaissance.

Nevvvver mind.

[MLFerrell]

10. That there's a DUzy!

:rofl:

[ComerPerro]

26. awesome post

[The Doctor.]

7. I believe the suffix 'ment' in French is the adverbial function 'ly'...

Therefore "affrèrement" means "brotherly".

It's a small point, but one that's worth noting before anyone goes about with it.

I remember listening to a lousy manager at an excellent restaurant I worked at years ago telling a customer, in authoritative terms, that "Buffalo" (the city) got it's name from the French "Beau Fluer", "Meaning "beautiful flower"", he said.

It was my pleasure to correct him in front of the customer, "Actually, the name comes from "Beau Fleuve", which is "beautiful river"... that of course being the Niagara."

I loved embarrassing him.

[DemBones DemBones]

21. Absolument! Certainement!

Sans aucun doute! Mais oui! ;-)

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. Not just an adverbial ending - it is for nouns which denote the result of a verb

From the OED:

Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French, French -ment, suffix forming nouns from verbs (to denote the result or product of the action of the verb, e.g. garnement GARMENT n., habillement HABILIMENT n., or the action itself, e.g. abrégement ABRIDGMENT n., accomplissement ACCOMPLISHMENT n., commencement COMMENCEMENT n.) and its etymon classical Latin -mentum, suffix forming nouns from verbs (to denote the result or product of the action of the verb, as in fragmentum FRAGMENT n., or the means or instrument of the action, as in alimentum ALIMENT n., {omac}rn{amac}mentum ORNAMENT n.) and from adjectives (e.g. {amac}tr{amac}mentum ATRAMENT n., pal{umac}d{amac}mentum PALUDAMENT n.) < an Indo-European base representing a variant (with -t- extension) of the Indo-European base of classical Latin -men, suffix forming nouns from verbs (e.g. ac{umac}men ACUMEN n., fl{umac}men FLUME n., n{omac}men NAME n.), and ancient Greek -{mu}{alpha} (see -OMA).

[NashVegas]

8. Richard I, Edward II

Although Eds ran into some trouble with it.

Homosexual relationships have probably always been better tolerated among the upper classes, as long as one did one's duty and got an heir, and didn't go flaunting over much.

[daleo]

9. Christopher Marlowe's play on Edward, is interesting to read on that score

That's what I recall taking away from a reading of the play. Others may not agree with my interpretation.

[NashVegas]

17. There's a Movie

I saw the Derek Jarman film, and would give it a heavy recommendation.

[jpgray]

15. Richard I is disputable. Made for a good play/movie, though

:D

[NashVegas]

16. I Don't Think I Saw That One

..

[DemBones DemBones]

19. King James who commissioned the King James Version

of the Bible had many male lovers, a fact not known by most who insist the KJV is the real Bible, the way God talked.

James was married and had children, as is expected of kings and queens, but his preference was for men.

[NashVegas]

20. Didn't Know That

His "Song of Songs" is hot hot hot.

[DemBones DemBones]

23. True, though I think he simply paid translators,

rather than having direct input into the translation.

I saw a bumper sticker a few months ago that said "IF IT AIN'T THE KING JAMES, IT AIN'T THE BIBLE."

I so much wanted to go ask the college students in the car if they knew King James swung both ways.

:evilgrin:

[entanglement]

31. Louis XIII of France

[Odin2005]

12. That doesn't suprise me.

Medieval Europe was more socially tolerant then commonly assumed, as long as you paid lip service to the Church and church doctrine. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation changed that however. I've read that many cities in Medieval Europe had nice public baths until puritanical Protestant zealots and the spread of Syphilis caused thier closure.

[DemBones DemBones]

22. Absolutely. Protestants were iconoclasts, quite literally.

They destroyed a lot of beautiful churches and beautiful religious artwork. They didn't approve of art or music or anything enjoyable, drinking, dancing, theater, sex. Life was supposed to be all work and prayer to many of them. Not the earliest Anglicans or Lutherans but those who split off from them, Anabaptists, Jansenists, etc. The puritanical Protestant zealots you mentioned.

The Middle Ages were not the Dark Ages, as they're often called. Knowledge was valued, books were values, literacy was valued, art was valued because it could teach those who couldn't read. Great universities began in the Middle Ages.

Because of the cost of hand-copying books, not many people were literate and many who could read could not write. The two skills were separated, which seems strange today. The rich were not necessarily literate but had someone in their household who read correspondence and books aloud to them.

The poor have always had a hard time but no worse in the Middle Ages than later. Better in many cases since there were no puritans around yet.

The Renaissance idealized the ancient Greeks and Romans more than the Middle Ages did and it changed art and literature. But Medieval art and literature is as beautiful as Renaissance art, simply in a different way.

[Thothmes]

34. Tolerance

That apparent tolerance was present only in the best of time. During the black plague years, the Jewish population all over Western Europe was brutalized for being cause of the plague.

[Odin2005]

35. Oh, I'm not dismissing the outragous acts of intolerance during the period.

I was just saying it wasn't as intolerant as commonly assumed.

[TalkingDog]

13. I used this example last year while "discussing" with friends why marriage was not

defined by sexual orientation.

The fellow in question said he had no problem with Civil Unions between gays, but that marriage as a Christian concept, was between a man and a woman. *pffft*

I gently but firmly 'splained to him that:
1) marriage is not only a Christian concept.
2) our current definition of marriage is quite different than it was 100 years ago (when marriage was more of a business arrangement) and even more different than 500 years ago (when women were merely property) and incredibly different than 2000 years ago in a culture completely unlike our own. So we have no idea what the original "Christian concept" of a marriage even is.
3) The Church performed ceremonies that allowed men to marry each other.

I had to follow # 3 up with some links to websites with the relevant proof. And since this fellow is one of the few people I know that can be swayed by a rational argument, rather than digging in heels and remaining entrenched he hasn't made one peep about it since.



My Favorite Master Artist: Karen Parker GhostWoman Studios

[DemBones DemBones]

24. Still got those links? I've read the claims before

but never seen reliable proof to verify them, would like to.

A lot of claims made by feminists as well as gay activists about historical events don't seem to be verifiable by primary sources. For instance, in the Seventies, some feminists were saying 9 million women had been burned as witches in Europe in a certain time span. It seems extremely unlikely that that many women could have been burned as witches since the population of Europe was nowhere near as large as it is today. I've read articles by historians with good academic credentials debunking the figure of 9 million, which was pushed by feminists who weren't historians.

It never helps any cause to exaggerate or misrepresent what happened in the past so I hate to see liberals doing it. I'm not saying you are doing so, please don't misunderstand. Those who do it are often misled, I think, not necessarily trying to misrepresent.

Marriage was indeed different in past centuries, and not solely a Christian institution, but I question that the Church ever performed a marriage ceremony for two people of the same sex, or for a threesome, polygamist or polygynist, for that matter. The essential concept of Christian marriage was defined early on. Jesus discussed it. What has changed is that people now marry for love, women are not chattel, women may own property of their own, etc.

[pingzing58]

25. These so called unions (really civic contracts) were not about homosexual love but about inheritance

[Lilith Velkor]

27. Marriage had nothing to do with love until very recently

[sutz12]

28. Not a problem...

all of our "real" traditions date way back...................to a 1950's sitcom.

:evilgrin:

[Beerboy]

29. But isn't this during the time that

our contemporary fundies of Christianity and Islam want to return us? Whatever will they say if this is true?
Also, from the OP cited, "I suspect that some of these relationships were sexual, while others may not have been," Tulchin said. "It is impossible to prove either way and probably also somewhat irrelevant to understanding their way of thinking. They loved each other, and the community accepted that.”
Mr. Tulchin isn't saying he's uncovered concrete proof that a particular duchy, kingdom, let alone the Church looked at the arrangement of affrerement as equivalent to a heterosexual marriage. Still, a very interesting article.
I suppose only several professors of Medieval French legal documents could give Tulchin's find the actual historical context.
I'd hazard a guess that those who could hire representation and have their case heard and recorded must have been very well off indeed, 600 years ago. It's well known that the Church has spent centuries acquiring massive wealth which it still holds; it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Church officials of that time would take filthy lucre to overlook certain biblical passages, to grant indulgences.
I wonder if there's record from Medieval France regarding executions of gays? I would imagine there are, how would those records, if any, juxtapose to the affrerements?

[Tab]

33. As a previous poster pointed out, it's only recently that marriage had anything to do with "love"

Of course there may well be love if you're in a relationship, but marriages were financial arrangements - and power arrangements - between families. That's why there were so many arranged marriages. In some cultures, kids were married at age 7 or something. It had nothing to do with love, it had everything to do with consolidating power and money.

Even now, what do you get from marriage? (And I am happily married, so don't jump all over me) You do get an intangible feeling of commitment from your partner, but mainly you get tax benefits, inheritance rights, and stuff like that. If two people love each other, marriage doesn't make it any more different other than to reaffirm the commitment, although many never-married people seem to think it will. You basically get a lot of legal and financial benefits that you wouldn't if you weren't legally "connected". So, after all these years, it's still more of a legal commitment than a religious or happiness one.

And consider this:

Generally you could have been in a relationship for many, many years and not be married, then break it off. However, if you were "married" and then divorced (the legal equivalent of breaking it off) you could owe alimony. Except in some extreme cases, two people living together who are not married are not obligated financially if the relationship ends.

I kind of like to compare it to being a contract employee vs. a full-time employee. In my industry (software development) people work as freelance contractors, or they work as full-time employees (or, sometimes nowadays, they don't work at all, but that's GWB's economy).

If you're a contractor, you make a lot more money, but you carry a lot more risk of being terminated more easily, and you carry your own expenses. If you join the company as a full-time employee, you'll probably end up in the same cubicle, making less money, but perhaps with benefits like insurance and hopefully not as likely to get terminated as easily. But you're still doing the same stuff for the same place. In other words, the relationship is basically the same, but the terms are different. Some people think that marrying their #(*$(*&$ of a boyfriend/girlfriend will magically change them, but it won't. It just changes the terms of the relationship, not the relationship itself. Marriage has always been about terms. To hear these nutball fundies, you'd think marriage was the end-all and be-all of love, and of course, if you are in love, you want to be married (usually), but they themselves end up in restrooms prostituting themselves.

I love my wife, but I'm under no illusions about any magic about marriage. Marriage is what you make it. And although I'm hetero, frankly a marriage can be between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man, or even a man and a lizard, although I can't think of what beneficial financial arrangement would result from officially being married to a lizard. Likewise, although they talk about the "slippery slope" of letting man/woman marriages devolve into man/man and woman/woman marriages and then into threesomes and foursomes, it just gets legally so much more complicated then. I don't see it. It's ultimately just a legal arrangement, that's all. The "marriage" component is what you put into it regarding commitment.

[roguevalley]

36. people have found masses from the Catholics that were for gay

marriage between men and between women. Registers in England show registrations for marriages between gay people up through the seventeen hundreds.