Gay Art. James SmallsЧитать онлайн книгу.
were considered sodomitical acts “against nature” because they excluded the possibility of procreation, the touchstone of marriage and sexual morality. Sodomy was especially condemned among members of the clergy who had, by that time, gained a reputation for indulging in such activities. Sodomy, a vice ascribed mostly to clerics at the time, was repeatedly linked with heresy. Under Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), clerical celibacy was mandated. The drive to ensure conformity was relentless and gave rise to a moral purity crusade directed against Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Jews, as well as heretics and sodomites (Johansson & Percy, p.168). After 1250, severe penalties for homosexual acts were ordained and became part of canonical law. By the mid-thirteenth century, the church had become obsessed to the point of paranoia with the topic of sodomy.
41. Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights
(detail of centre panel of the triptych), c. 1504.
Oil on panel. Museo nacional del Prado, Madrid.
42. The Rape of Ganymede, 850–1120/1150–1190.
Column capital. Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Vézelay.
The medieval notion of sodomy and justification for its condemnation originated in particular interpretations of the biblical source Genesis, where the destruction of Sodom is described.
Enraged by the sodomite’s sin, God destroyed the city of Sodom with flaming rain. The plot of the story suggests retribution for a variety of sexual offences by both men and women of all sexual persuasions. Sodomy’s prohibition, no matter if the act were hetero- or homo-sexual, was based on its non-procreativity. Although sodomy also applied to heterosexual anal sex, the term had a stronger application to homosexuals. The “sin of Sodom” gradually became the standard euphemism for male-male intercourse. Later theologians and lawmakers combined the biblical reference to the destruction of Sodom with classical allusions that left its homosexual meaning unmistakeable. Around 1170–1190, a mosaic decorating the cathedral at Monreale in Sicily was created that centred on the story of the destruction of Sodom. Art historian James Saslow has recently commented that homosexuality and sodomy were so chilling as both act and thought during the Middle Ages that it was not only morally unspeakable, but also visually unimaginable. This explains why homosexuality is never explicitly depicted in medieval art (Saslow, pp.57–8). There were ways, however, of getting around this, especially for those interested in expressing homosexual emotions and behaviour.
Medieval society, like societies of classical antiquity, glorified intense emotional bonds between men and, less widely, between women. During the medieval period, emotional bonding remained a potent ideal in both the realm of the secular and the sacred. In the realm of the sacred, homosexual desire was secretly fostered in monasteries, places in which people of the same sex lived together and swore fraternal links as well as celibate lives. In real life, medieval men and women found it difficult to adhere to such ideals of intimate, non-sexual bonding.
43. The Visitation. Relief.
In the fourth century AD, Constantine founded a new Eastern empire at Constantinople (now Istanbul in Turkey). Strict proscriptions against homosexual acts were incorporated into the Byzantine Code of Justinian I (483–565) in 529, 534, 538, 544, and resurrected in the West beginning in the eleventh century. Justinian outlawed all male prostitution and condemned to death both partners in any homosexual act. Despite these drastic measures, homosexuality was widespread in the Byzantine world, and it was in Byzantium where a tradition of sacred ‘marriages’ sanctioned by the church emerged that celebrated the spiritual union of two people of the same gender.
The late historian John Boswell has written books about Church toleration, if not sanction, of homosexuality in this period. His views remain extremely controversial and continue to stir up much debate over the issue. In his writings, Boswell discusses Christian same-sex unions in both canonical texts and in secular laws as they had been previously sanctioned by the Church. It has been argued, however, that “not a single Christian father, Penitentialist, Scholastic or Canonist, Protestant Reformer or Catholic Counter-Reformer or even any Orthodox, Coptic, or Nertorian ever wrote even a neutral, much less kind, word about sodomites.” (Johansson & Percy, p.179). Many scholars of medieval art and history agree that Boswell has distorted our understanding of Christian marriage in that he attempted to make a modern-day gay marriage out of the medieval practice of asexual same-sex spiritual bonding.
The earliest examples of homosexual sacred marriages are Byzantine devotional pictures of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, both Roman soldiers martyred around the year 300. Many icons were produced depicting the two together as physically and spiritually united. By the 600s the couple enjoyed a huge cult following in the eastern (later Orthodox) church. Sergius and Bacchus were the best known of several “paired saints” whose mutual devotion epitomised the ideal of self-sacrifice. These couples are often shown in tender embrace and are essentially a transposition of the pagan theme of committed lovers like Harmodius and Aristogeiton or Achilles and Patroclus onto a Christian image. Such pairings at times also included women like Perpetua and Felicitas.
The biographer of Saints Sergius and Bacchus wrote that “being as one in their love for Christ, they were also undivided from each other in the army of the world” (quoted in Saslow, p.61). When Bacchus refused to recant his beliefs, the emperor ordered him flogged to death. Sergius lamented his lost comrade as a “brother”, a term then charged with sexual potential. Later, Bacchus appeared to Sergius in a vision, prophesising that after Sergius’ death he would receive Bacchus as a heavenly reward for this suffering.
The blessing of Sergius and Bacchus was invoked in a religious ceremony performed frequently throughout the Middle Ages. The ceremony between two people of the same sex paralleled heterosexual marriages in that its purpose was also the joining together of two people in a sacred bond of mutual affection and support. After the ceremony, each would set up house and share their lives together (Saslow, p.61). Boswell has discovered dozens of texts verifying the existence of such same-sex unions. Some of these texts describe the rituals as involving certain aspects that resemble contemporary heterosexual orthodox marriages. The Greek ritual manuals for these ceremonies were widely copied, some well into the fifteenth century. Some accounts record that same-sex unions were even performed in Renaissance Italy until they were outlawed in the 1600s.
Same-sex unions in the Byzantine world stimulated in the West a similar ambiguous conflation of spiritual and physical desire. In the year 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne attempted to revive a Christianised “Holy Roman Empire” with its capital at Aachen in Germany. He modelled his new empire on Byzantium. Charlemagne’s courtiers wrote lyrically about male friendships. Many of their stories were full of quotes from classical authors recounting nostalgic moments of temptation by pederasty (Saslow, p.62). As a result of this return to Latin sources for inspiration, these authors began to blur the boundaries between what was permissible and what was forbidden in terms of the physical expression of same-sex love. The medieval church continued to grapple with issues concerning the carnal expressions of these lofty desires.
44. Jonathan, David and Saul from Somme le roi.
Illuminated manuscript. The British Library, London.
Between the time of Charlemagne to the year 1000, Western Europe had recovered from most of its social and economic problems resulting from internal and external strife, invasions and anarchy.
Food became more plentiful once again, wealth expanded, and populated urbanised centres sprang up. During this period, homosexuality was more widely reported among all classes of society – nobility, clergy, and commoners. Increasingly, the urban centres began to rival the aristocracy and the monastery as centres of culture. In the cities, same-sex social networks developed. Secular urban authorities cultivated an atmosphere of liberty and tolerance, turning a blind eye to an increasingly visible subculture