Sodomy Masculinity and Law in Medieval Literature (France and England, 1050-1230) (original) (raw)

Locating Sodomy & Imagining Sodomy

Sodomy Masculinity and Law in Medieval Literature (France and England, 1050-1230), 2004

Jordan argues that it is Peter Damian who first coined the term sodomia, though he notes that adjectival forms of the word can be found in earlier documents: "The central terms used by medieval Christian theologians to describe what we call 'sexual activity' cannot be translated into modern English. They condense in themselves different and in some ways briefer histories of category formation. Consider the terms luxuria, vitium sodomiticum, and peccatum contra naturam as they figure in Scholastic texts. It might be permissible to transliterate the last two as 'Sodomitic vice' and 'sin (or vice) against nature,' with appropriate warnings. But luxuria, the root term, cannot even be transliterated as 'luxury' without provoking misunderstandings each time" (Jordan, Invention of Sodomy, p. 29). 5. Jordan says it was inevitable that the resultant category would be anything but concrete or discrete: "The essential thing to notice in the processes by which 'Sodomy' was produced is that they first abolish details, qualifications, restrictions in order to enable an excessive simplification of thought. Then they condense a number of these simplifications into a category that looks concrete but that has in fact nothing more concrete about it than the grammatical form of a general noun" (Jordan, Invention of Sodomy, p. 29). 6. One of these diatribes is reproduced in the Prologue to this book; see also my article,

Queering the Celtic: Marie de France and the men who don't marry

Sodomy Masculinity and Law in Medieval Literature, 2004

Jordan argues that it is Peter Damian who first coined the term sodomia, though he notes that adjectival forms of the word can be found in earlier documents: "The central terms used by medieval Christian theologians to describe what we call 'sexual activity' cannot be translated into modern English. They condense in themselves different and in some ways briefer histories of category formation. Consider the terms luxuria, vitium sodomiticum, and peccatum contra naturam as they figure in Scholastic texts. It might be permissible to transliterate the last two as 'Sodomitic vice' and 'sin (or vice) against nature,' with appropriate warnings. But luxuria, the root term, cannot even be transliterated as 'luxury' without provoking misunderstandings each time" (Jordan, Invention of Sodomy, p. 29). 5. Jordan says it was inevitable that the resultant category would be anything but concrete or discrete: "The essential thing to notice in the processes by which 'Sodomy' was produced is that they first abolish details, qualifications, restrictions in order to enable an excessive simplification of thought. Then they condense a number of these simplifications into a category that looks concrete but that has in fact nothing more concrete about it than the grammatical form of a general noun" (Jordan, Invention of Sodomy, p. 29). 6. One of these diatribes is reproduced in the Prologue to this book; see also my article,

Sara F. Matthews-Grieco, ed., Cuckoldry, Impotence and Adultery in Europe (15th-17th Century)

European History Quarterly, 2016

This paper provides insight into some of the research findings regarding two main aspects of women's language, namely taboos and euphemisms. The main aim is to reveal topics that are considered as taboos, and the linguistic devices that women employ to express them. Exploring the motives that have given way to the creation of euphemisms we reached the conclusion that fear that people have of supernatural powers, superstitions and even the concern that we can cause offence to other human beings if we use a direct language, prevail among other reasons that account for their use. Furthermore, we will focus on the main areas that make a fertile ground for producing many euphemisms. We will be introduced to the lexicon of disease, death, sex and tabooed body-parts. The various ways euphemisms are conceptualized reflect directly the mindset and mentality of the community that uses them. Undoubtedly, euphemisms represent a wealth of vocabulary in oral culture. Thus, this topic is of a great interest for lexicographers, linguists and literaticians.

The Forbidden Fruit or the Taste for Sodomy in Renaissance Italy

Quaderni d'Italianistica, 2006

In medieval and Renaissance Italian literary texts, the immoderate desire for food {la gola) is often associated and sometimes equated with the desire for male-male sex, labelled "sodomy" at the time. 1 In medieval times the two sins, gluttony and lust and/or sodomy, were closely intertwined in the writings of the Fathers of the Church and unequivocally condemned by Saint Augustine in his Confessions, where they appear one after the other in the same discussion (S. Augustine, Confessions, book X, xxx-xxxi). Indeed, carnal pleasures for him include both lust, especially sodomy, and immoderate desire for food and drink. Even the pilgrim Dante-during his encounter with his friend Forese in Purgatory-supports this view in the condemnation of both the sin of gluttony, attributed to Forese Donati, and of licentious Florentine women who dared to show their breasts on the streets of Florence {Purg. 23:97-1 1 1). Gluttony and lust in various forms-as the motive for comic play-are represented in Renaissance culture: in the Decameron, in some fifteenthcentury short stories {novelle), in the mock-heroic poem Morgante by Luigi Pulci, and finally in the sixteenth-century burlesque poetry of Francesco Berni and his followers, the Accademia dei Vignaiuoli. In his De Honesta Voluptate, a collection of recipes and advice for good living, written in the 1 With the term "sodomy" in this context I refer to male-male sex primarily as anal intercourse. The term is an umbrella that was used in Medieval and Renaissance periods to categorize all forms of homoerotic behaviour between men and between women, as well as anal and oral sex between men and women and/or sexual intercourse with animals. In sixteenth-century Italy to engage in malemale sodomy was not an exclusive practice; often it did not preclude sexual relations with women and was related to age (old-young) and a hierarchical (activepassive) structure. See Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros, chap. VI, for fourteenth-and fifteenth-century prosecution of sodomy in Venice and the chapter "Marriage, Love, Sex and Renaissance Civic Morality" for the age/hierarchical structure. See also Giannetti and Ruggiero, "Introduction." For Florence see Michel Rocke, Forbidden Friendships and the essay "Gender and Sexual Culture." A valuable analysis of the homoerotic sexual environment in sixteenthcentury Italy and Siena is in Ian Frederick Moulton, "Introduction."

Sodomy and the Sick Body of Women

Imago Temporis: Medium Aevum, 7 (2014), pp. 323-341

The aim of this article is to analyse the literary, religious and medical discourses that converge in one of the leading works in medieval Catalan: the Espill (Mirror) (1460), by Jaume Roig. Firstly, it should be remembered that the author was one of the most prestigious doctors in 15th century Valencia, so it should be judged in the scientific context that nurtured it. Nor should we forget, in second place, the misogynist tradition behind this long narrative poem. On the other hand, I would like to emphasise a cultural crossroads that was quite unusual in its time, and is as yet little studied, which is linked to sodomy as a female “creation”; I will assess the significance of this construction, compared with leprosy in the same text.