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Male and female homosexuality, a modern identity but not a modern practice, is largely un-spoken of in medieval literature. The avoidance in addressing the practice makes queer histories, ironically, easier to identify. In the middle ages, queerness is linked to sin and damnation via the biblical story of Sodom. Nonetheless, some forms of same-sex intimacy and love were praised and sanctified.
Homosexuality was lumped under the sexual sin category of ‘sodomy’ or ‘sins against the nature’, which included a lot of sexual practices including extramarital sex, oral and anal sex, masturbation and bestiality. Sexually-forward women, as well as women who desired each other, are often a motif referring to a world where natural order is turned upside down.
Topsy-turvy world Roman de la Rose (Spain, c1400) University of Valencia BH MS 0387, f.7v
Due to its textual lumping as an ‘unspeakable sin’, homosexuality was often obscured in legal and penitential texts. More than that, the name of Sodom (the biblical city destroyed by god because of the ‘wickedness’ of the inhabitants) by itself seems so dangerous, that the words in this manuscript were erased, and therefore un-spoken.
Story of Sodom, censored Weltchronik (Germany, c.1430) Bayerisches Stadtbibliothek, Cgm 250, f.29v
Fairly sex-segregated vocations like the monastic or military one were predisposed for homosocial contact (between people of same gender) and relationships. Plenty of intense ‘friendships’ between knights or between a knight and his squire are recorded in romance literature. The Knights Templar were specifically prosecuted for alleged homosexual practices.
Burning of homosexual knight and his squire Chronik der Burgunderkriege (Germany, 1483) Zürich Zentralbibliothek, Bilderchronik, Band 3
While heterosexual marriage was church- and state-sanctioned, formal relationships between people of the same gender – without any visualised concern about sexual intimacy or affectionate contact – were thought of as the work of the devil. This early printed work visualising lesbianism as cursed incidentally promotes queer representation in contemporary media.
Devil officiates a lesbian wedding Das buoch der tugend (Germany, 1486) Bayerisches Stadtbibliothek, Ink V219GW M50692, f.70r
When same-sex intimacy is explicitly represented in medieval visual media, it is most often in association with damnation. Queer sex can be found in depictions of sodomites being punished in hell and actual violent punishment like impaling. In this psalter marginal image, the text ‘spiritu fornicationis’, meaning corruption of the soul, is illustrated literally with two devils fornicating.
‘Spiritu fornicationis’ Queen Mary Psalter (England, 1310-1320) British Library, Royal MS 2 B VII f.310r
Nonetheless, some same-sex relationships were lauded as virtuous or even sanctified. Nuns, the ‘bride of Christ’ or ‘of the lamb’, are depicted kissing each other, effectively wedded not only to the heavenly husband but also to each other. The religious vocation was therefore often a haven for queer individuals escaping compulsory heterosexuality.
'Agnum sponsium' Bréviaire de Charles V (France, 1340-1380) Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Latin 1052 f.334r
Homosexual and homoerotic intimacy was also made visible in the guise of allegorical constructs. Un-gendered angels, and binarycoded (male or female) personifications of virtues and other concepts (Wisdom, Love, Air, Soul) are depicted not only interacting, but forming loving, eroticised or sexual bonds with humans of the same sex.
Amour kissing the Love Roman de la Rose (Netherlands, c.1500) British Library Harley 4425, f24r
While most depictions of heterosexual sex are normalised, if rare, by representation in marginal miniatures, queer sex is seldom visualised in other contexts than hell or punishment. In the margins of this unique psalter two pairs of male-coded bodies engage in what could be called ‘scissoring’, mirroring another, clearly heterosexual, couple depicted.
Marginalia Psalter-Hours of Guiluys de Boisleux (France, after 1246) Morgan Library, MS M.730, ff.176r, 224r
If you want to learn more: Pocket Miscellanies #4: Sex and #6: Transgender Mills (2015) Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages Boswell (1994) Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe Sauer (2004) Positing the Lesbian Void in Medieval English Anchoritism, Thirdspace Steckler (2008) Sodomy, Islam, and the Knights Templar, Perspectives COVER: Sodomites and lesbians Bible Moralisee (France, 1220s) Ă–sterreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 2554, fol. 2r
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