Gay Civil Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe - Political Forum

Athena · 09-04-2007, 09:19 PM

I thought this article is interesting.

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Gay Civil Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe | LiveScience

Gay Civil Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe
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.

The same type of legal contract of the time also could provide the foundation for a variety of non-nuclear households, including arrangements in which two or more biological brothers inherited the family home from their parents and would continue to live together, Tulchin said.

But non-relatives also used the contracts. In cases that involved single, unrelated men, Tulchin argues, these contracts provide “considerable evidence that the affrèrés were using affrèrements to formalize same-sex loving relationships."

Brother Oz · 09-05-2007, 09:56 AM

Six hundred years ago in France? The height of Church-sanctioned executions? This was only a couple of hundred years after the King of England was executed for being a homosexual.
There is no reason that these should mean homosexual relationships. I can imagine living with one of my friends and sharing our money, I share food costs and bills with my housemates after all.

Izzibeth · 09-05-2007, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother Oz

Six hundred years ago in France? The height of Church-sanctioned executions? This was only a couple of hundred years after the King of England was executed for being a homosexual.
There is no reason that these should mean homosexual relationships. I can imagine living with one of my friends and sharing our money, I share food costs and bills with my housemates after all.

Who knows if it's true or not. It's just a theory at this point. BUT...

"Only a couple hundred years after..." can be more than enough time.

And I don't really see why two single men would bind themselves legally in a contract if they were just roommates. Regardless, it's not as if homosexuality is some crazy thing that just sprang up out of nowhere in the past 40 years so... I don't know why it would be so hard to believe that homosexuality was out in the open in France.

Athena · 09-05-2007, 02:55 PM

It just dawned on me that Frances was Catholic and fought many wars with Protestants, especially Britain.

I think Catholics and Protestants have different sensitivities when it comes to judging others, and judging sexual behaviors. Protestants in general have been more sexually up tight. Puritans, Quakers both sought to creat socisties of saints. Just sex was carnal and sinful. Protestant, Victorian England was sexually very up tight.

Catholics impress me as more tolerant and forgiving than Protestants. what do you think?

iTaliAN_ICe · 09-05-2007, 04:51 PM

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Originally Posted by Athena

Catholics impress me as more tolerant and forgiving than Protestants.

Like their pope, who claims Catholicism is "the only true religion" or something to that effect?

Alun · 09-05-2007, 05:51 PM

That certainly could've let them act as partners, but considering it doesn't include an open mention of the "one bed" part, I don't see how the scholar made his conclusions. Also, the French at that time weren't under the pope's rule; the Gallican element of Catholicism had enough pull to give them relative autonomy.

Brother Oz · 09-06-2007, 11:26 AM

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"Only a couple hundred years after..." can be more than enough time.

Sorry, I made a mistake. He was killed in 1327. So not much more before.

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Catholics impress me as more tolerant and forgiving than Protestants. what do you think?

We're talking about the 1400s. The period when one of the Popes (there were 3) was executed for, among other things, Sodomy, which was a capital crime throughout all of Christian Europe (and Islamic Europe, I don't know about the few pagan societies left by that time). And the difference between Protestants and Catholics meant nothing, as there were no Protestants at this time.

Look, while there certainly were homosexuals then, there is absolutely no way that it would have been legally accepted.
Sodomy was punishable by death.
Edward II lost power in the 1300s because his lords detested him, and one fo the main reasons was they suspected he was a homosexual.

Quirinalian · 09-06-2007, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother Oz

Six hundred years ago in France? The height of Church-sanctioned executions? This was only a couple of hundred years after the King of England was executed for being a homosexual.

He wasn't executed, he was murdered; the fashion in which it was done, nobody actually knew short of rumour, and considering as a result of his politics he was probably the most hated man in England. So no.

Quirinalian · 09-06-2007, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother Oz

Edward II lost power in the 1300s because his lords detested him, and one fo the main reasons was they suspected he was a homosexual.

You fail to mention his dispensing with every liberty of the Kingdom, abolishing parliament's right to government, going to war with his barons, going to war with the Scots (and losing, much to England's embarrassment)... the list really is endless.

They had very good reason to detest him, and many of his allies were killed in similarly brutal fashion (castration, for one). They wanted to execute him, but thought it would anger God.

Slartibartfas · 09-06-2007, 02:13 PM

Sounds like a very interesting theory...

Even though I am not exactly sure that in the last centuries the society was tolerant at all, also in this way.