Homosexuality in the Middle Ages long remained virtually unexplored. All that the pioneer investigators of the preHitler period, Xavier Mayne [pseudonym of Edward Irenaeus Prime Stevenson], The Intersexes (1907), Magnus Hirschfeld, Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes (1914), and Arlindo Camillo Monteiro, Amor sáfico e socrático (1922), had to say on the entire period from the death of Justinian the Great in 565 to 1475 could have been contained in two pages. The first to venture into this “blind spot” in history were Canon Derrick Sherwin Bailey,Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (1955), who sought to exculpate Bible and Church from blame for homophobia, and J. Z. Eglinton, Greek Love (1964), who devoted a section to the continuity of pagan pederastic tradition into the Middle Ages. More recently, Vern L. Bullough, Sexual Variance in History (1976), consigned 100 pages to unconventional sexuality in Byzantium and the Latin West. Michael Goodich, The Unmentionable Vice.(1979) and John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980), offered the first booklength studies.
Homosexuality in the Middle Ages
Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A.
Homosexuality in the Middle Ages (2009)
Abstract
Homosexuality in the Middle Ages long remained virtually unexplored. All that the pioneer investigators of the preHitler period, Xavier Mayne [pseudonym of Edward Irenaeus Prime Stevenson], The Intersexes (1907), Magnus Hirschfeld, Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes (1914), and Arlindo Camillo Monteiro, Amor sáfico e socrático (1922), had to say on the entire period from the death of Justinian the Great in 565 to 1475 could have been contained in two pages. The first to venture into this “blind spot” in history were Canon Derrick Sherwin Bailey,
Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (1955), who sought to exculpate Bible and Church from blame for homophobia, and J. Z. Eglinton, Greek Love (1964), who devoted a section to the continuity of pagan pederastic tradition into the Middle Ages. More recently, Vern L. Bullough, Sexual Variance in History (1976), consigned 100 pages to unconventional sexuality in Byzantium and the Latin West. Michael Goodich, The Unmentionable Vice.(1979) and John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980), offered the first booklength studies.
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