queer history

305 Spain The Church Council of Elvira denies communion even at the hour of death to men who "defiled" boys, but is silent about consensual same-age male sexuality.
314 Italy Because of an inaccurate Latin translation, the Church Council of Ankara is incorrectly assumed to have referred to homosexuality, when it was referring to bestiality. As a result early Western Christian penances for sodomy are based on the penance for bestiality.
330 Rome A tax on male prostitution is instituted during the reign of Constantine.
330 Lactantius, a Christian author and apologist expresses disgust that a man could be passive sexually.
342 Rome Homosexual marriages are outlawed in the West, although no penalties are imposed.
360 St Basil wrote on how to avoid the temptations posed by a beautiful young monk in a monastery.
390 Constantinople In his legal code, the Emperor Theodosian imposes the death penalty for forcing or selling males into prostitution.
390 Eastern Roman Empire Driven by a profound horror of a man's sexual passivity to another man, St John Chrysostom issues many diatribes against homosexuality. He contends that homosexuality was rampant within the Christian society of Antioch.
391 Egypt Fanatical Christians burn the library at Alexandria because its books were pagan. All but a small portion of Sapho's poetry, as well as an unknown amount of material touching on homosexuality is lost.
400 AD Africa St Augustine in describing the desolation he felt at the death of a friend of his youth regrets the sexual aspects of his passion. Augustine will set the anti-sexual tone of the emerging Catholic Church. His argument that sex is justified only for procreation becomes known as the Augustinian Rule.
476-7 Eastern Empire The Roman custom of forming a union with another man by the legal expedient of declaring him a brother is declared invalid in outlying Syriac, Armenian & Arabic speaking provinces of the Easter Roman Empire. The Syriac and Arabic versions of the code include a law imposing the death penalty for homosexual behavior.
500 AD Eastern Roman Empire At the beginning of the 6th Century the tax on male prostitution is abolished under the emperor Anastasius. While relieving the Christian government of this tacit acceptance of homosexuality, it probably did little to alter the institution. The Sixth-Century African poet Luxorius wrote a poem about a man who gave his wealth away to men who sodomized him.
533 Eastern Roman Empire Justinian Code. In his codification of Roman law, the Emperor Justinian placed homosexual acts under the same category as adultery, and put them for the first time under civil authority. In a 538 revision of the Code homosexuality is criminalized for the first time under Roman law. "Because of such crimes there are famines, earthquakes, and pestilences; wherefore we admonish men to abstain from the aforesaid unlawful acts, that they may not lose their souls...We order the prefect of the capital to ...inflict on them the extreme punishments, so that the city and the state may not come to harm by reason of such wicked deeds." A great plague struck Constantinople in 541, that wiped out more than a third of the population in the next three years. It is not surprising that the "emperor and the Church believed this proved his predictions of the dangers posed by homosexuality. In a 544 revision of the Code, the emperor reminded the citizens that "Though we stand always in need of the kindness and goodness of God, yet is this specially the case at this time, when in various ways we have provoked him to anger on account of the multitude of our sins...We ought to abstain from all base concerns and acts -and especially ...the defilement of males which some men sacrilegiously and impiously dare to attempt, perpetrating vile acts with other men." Homosexuals were urged to desist and seek forgiveness through penance. The recalcitrant were turned over to the city prefect. The penalty was death, and the confiscation of the property of the guilty. Justinian and the Empress Theodora used the law to attack enemies and to enrich themselves through the confiscation of property. In the process, the homosexual became the enemy of the state.
538 Eastern Roman Empire Isaiah of Rhodes, prefectus vigilum of Constantinople is tried under the new law against homosexuality. After severe torture Isaiah is exiled. Eastern Roman Empire - Alexander, Bishop of Diospolis in Thrace, tried under the Justinian ban, is exposed to public ridicule after being castrated.
540 Europe Rule of St Benedict. The code regulating most medieval monastic life stipulates sleeping arrangements to discourage sexual activity between monks.
567 France The second Church Council of Tours endorses the Benedictine rule that monks should never sleep two to a bed.
600 AD Eastern Empire St Theodore of Sykeon. While visiting Constantinople , the patriarch Thomas became "so attached to him...that he begged him to enter into ceremonial union with him and to ask God that he would be together with him in the next life."
654 Spain King Reccesvinth, the ruler of Visigoth Spain passes legislation penalizing sodomy, stipulating castration as the penalty. This is the first European secular law to criminalize sodomy.
693 Spain The church Council of Toledo describing sodomy as being "prevalent" in Spain, declares that, "if any one of those males who commit this vile practice against nature with other males is a bishop, a priest, or a deacon, he shall be degraded from the dignity of his order, and shall remain in perpetual exile, struck down by damnation." Guilt by association carries with it the penalty of a hundred lashes, a shaved head, and banishment.
735 AD Rome Penitential of Pope Gregory III specifies a penance of 160 days for lesbian activity, and as little as one year for homosexual acts between males.
741 Eastern Empire The Edoques, a legal handbook issued by Leo III and Constantine V, constitutes the major code of secular law in the East for several centuries. It ameliorates the penalty of Byzantine civil law for homosexual behavior from death to mutilation.
789 France Charlemagne warns monks to desist from homosexual practices. A church council admonished priests and bishops to "attempt in every way to prohibit and eradicate this evil." No penalties were recommended.
829 AD France The church Council of Paris prohibits priests from referring to penitentials for penances for homosexual acts, as it considered those penances as too lenient.
867 Eastern Empire Basil I (867-886) founder of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire possibly entered into same-sex unions with two men, each of whom helped to advance his career. Nicholas, a parish cleric, upon finding the homeless Basil "went with him to the baths and changed (his clothes) and going into church established a formal union with him, and the rejoiced in each other." Basil next entered the service of Theophilos, who "had a great interest in well-born, good-looking, well-built men who were very masculine and strong". Basil was appointed chief equerry. While traveling in Greece a wealthy widow showered Basil with gifts asking only that he enter into a same-sex union with her son, John. After this Basil was taken into the service of the Emperor Michael III, who became so attracted to him that he named him "companion of the bed chamber", adopted him as a son, and eventually made him co-Emperor. Not long after Basil assisted in the assassination of Michael.
900 AD Europe The Penitential of Regino of Prun which enjoyed widespread authority and influence was largely gender blind. The penance for anal intercourse whether heterosexual or homosexual received a three years of penance, the same as for simple heterosexual fornication.
938 Rome Pope John XII (938-964) models himself after the emperor Heliogabalus, holding homosexual orgies in the papal palace.
1000 AD Germany Burchard, Bishop of Worms classified homosexuality as a variety of fornication less serious than heterosexual adultery. He assigned penance for homosexual acts only to married men. In civil legislation regulating family life in the diocese of Worms there is no mention of homosexual behavior.
1051 Europe In his denunciation of the clergy, Liber Gomorrhianus, (The Book of Gomorrah) St Peter Damian describes homosexual activity among the clergy in lurid detail, claiming it is all too common. He also complains about the widespread practice of priests confessing to one another in order to avoid detection. Pope St Leo IX is angered by St Peter Damian's attack on the clergy and in his reply agrees only to defrock those who have engaged in homosexuality "as a long-standing practice or with many men." He is more concerned with maintaining stability and seems to have had a low estimatimation of the seriousness of homosexual offenses among the clergy. This is at a time when the church is trying to impose a ban against the marriage of priests. No doubt the hierarchy relied on the tacit acceptance of the ban by homosexual priests for support.. Anselm of Lucca, the future Pope Alexander II, and a pupil of the Abbot Lanfranc famous for his passionate devotion to younger monks, stole the Liber Gomorrhianus from Peter Damian, thus suppressing its distribution.
1059 Rome The Lateran Synod issues a series of canons responding to each of St Peter Damian's demands for clerical reform except the issue of homosexuality .
1095 Europe An Appeal from the Eastern Emperor, a forgery widely circulated in the West to drum up support for the Crusades, accuses the Muslims in Jerusalem of having "degraded by sodomizing them men of every age and rank: boys, adolescents, young men, old men, nobles, servants, and, what is worse and more wicked, clerics and monks, and even - alas and for shame something which from the beginning of time has never been spoken of or heard of bishops! They have already killed one bishop with this nefarious sin."
1102 AD England When the Church Council of London decreed that the general public be informed that homosexual intercourse should in the future be confessed as a sin. St Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury prohibits the decrees publication saying, "this sin has hitherto been so public that hardly anyone is embarrassed by it, and many have therefore fallen into it because they were unaware of its seriousness." Anselm, like Pope Alexander II, had been a pupil of the Abbot Lanfranc.
1114 France A heretic at Bucy-le-long, a village near Soisons confesses that after desecrating the sacraments the heretical devotees seized whoever was nearest, even men with men, and women with women. While sexual orgies were often ascribed to the rituals of heretics and witches, this is the first to explicitly mention homosexuality. It would become a commonplace allegation in later trials.
1120 The Church Council of Nablus specifies burning at the stake as the penalty for homosexual acts.
1123 Rome The first Lateran Council declares clerical marriages invalid. Contemporaries point out that homosexual priests are more likely to enforce the prohibition, which may explain the rather casual attitude taken towards homosexuality amongst the clergy by Popes Leo IX and Alexander II.
1150 France Echoing the 1st Century Epistle of Barnabas, Bernard of Cluny attacks homosexual relations, writing that he who "dishonors his maleness (is) just like a hyena." He also noted that homosexuals "are as numerous as grains of barley...the entire universe - alas is addicted to this sordid practice."
1179 Rome The Third Lateran Council decrees degradation and confinement within a monastery for clerics guilty of sodomy, and excommunication for the layman.
1210 AD A number of heresies appear in Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy. Known as the Brethren of the Free Spirit in the North, and the sect of the Freedom of the Spirit in Italy. Arguing that since all things are God, there is no evil. Urges to lust, greed or other so-called sins should not be resisted. Practicing asceticism as neophytes, they believe that when they are fully initiated as "men of freedom", they will be incapable of sin. They fully accept homosexuality in those having the desire.
1212 France In Paris the penalty for sodomy is fixed at death. This is the first secular law to criminalize sodomy since the Spanish Visagoth law of 654. It is the first to prescribe the death penalty.
1227 Denmark Pope Honorius II, in reply to a request for advice on dealing with sodomy, advises the Danish archbishop to adopt a penance which is neither to harsh, nor too lenient.
1230 France Jacques de Vitry denounces students at the Sorbonne for practicing sodomy.
1233 Italy The papacy accuses the forces of the Holy Roman Empire, with whom it is fighting, of sodomy, and enlists the aid of the newly founded Franciscan and Dominican orders (who were currently directing the Inquisition in Southern France) to denounce the supporters of Emperor Frederick II of heresy, sodomy and other offenses against morality.
1259 Italy Bologna punishes sodomites with burning at the stake, or perpetual banishment.
1262 Italy In Siena those accused of sodomy are given a week and a day to confess, or they will be expelled and their property confiscated.
1265 Spain The most important medieval compilation of Spanish law, Las Siete Partidas of Alfonso X, prescribe the death penalty for sodomy.
1265 Italy A Dominican brother, and a Guelph (a member of the pro-Papal party) introduce statutes in Bologna requiring the state to assist in prosecuting heretics and sodomites.
1266 Italy With the Guelph victory over the Ghibellines at Benevento, the Inquisition again attacks political opponents as heretics, sodomites and adulterers. The first record of burning at the stake for sodomy in Italy dates from this time.
1270 France Article 22 of Le Livres de jostice et de plet, the French penal code derived from the district of Orleans states: "He who has been proved to be a sodomite must lose his testicle. And if he does it a second time, he must lose his member, and if he does it a third time, he must be burned." This is perhaps the first secular law to also regulate lesbian sexuality.
1270 France The poet Guillot cites the Rue Beaubourg in Paris as a cruising place for sodomites.
1270 Italy Siena expels those accused of sodomy, and confiscates their property.
1281 Sweden The Bishop of Skara proclaims that "a person who sins against nature, must pay a fine of nine marks to the bishop. There was no civil law against sodomy.
1292 Belgium John de Wettre, "a maker of small knives", is condemned for sodomy and is burned on the pillory next to the church of St Peter, in Ghent.
1292 France There are 26 public baths in Paris, providing steam and hot water, even during the winter. They are closed to prostitutes, vagabonds, lepers, and men of bad repute.
1305 AD Italy Fra Giordano condemns the city of Florence for being a veritable Sodom, where fathers encourage their sons to engage in prostitution.
1309 Italy In Perugia, mild penalties for sodomy are replaced with burning at the stake.
1309 Italy The Siena commune orders a fine of 300 lire for first sodomy offense. Those who can not pay within a month are to be hung by their penis in the town square.
1309 Europe Trial of the Knights Templars in France, Italy, Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland and Cyprus. The Militia of the Templars had been formed to guard the holy places of Palestine, and the routes of the pilgrims. A military order, their rule was said to have been devised by St Bernard. Novices were initiated at night behind guarded doors, in rituals that remain secret. As the Crusades declined the order became the bankers of the Mediterranean, and much of Europe. At dawn on Friday, October 13,1307, all the Templars in France, some two thousand in number, were arrested and charged with idol-worship and obscene practices. Tortured, they confessed to worshipping idols, one shaped like a cat, another like the devil and another like a satyr; that they had spat on the cross, that they had engaged in sodomitical practices and that they had betrayed the cause of the Crusades and had plotted against the Pope and the King of France. When the Templars faced the tribunals of the Inquisition, under the control of Pope Clement V, they withdrew their confessions, but pressed by Philip of France the Pope ordered all Christian princesses to arrest the Templars. While charges of widespread homosexuality among the Templars is likely true, it is doubtful that it ever received official sanction. The real motive for attacking the Templars was to plunder their vast treasuries, and to break their considerable power.
1324 Italy Siena orders its citizens to track down sodomites "in order to honor the Lord, ensure peace, maintain the good morals and praiseworthy life of the people."
1325 Italy Florence issues a law proscribing severe penalties for sodomy.
1327 England Murder of Edward II. Notoriously attracted to male favorites during his reign, he is held in the Tower, tortured and eventually murdered by his wife Isabella, whose henchmen shove a molten poker up the King's rectum.
1336 Austria Trial of heretics extracts testimony that they met underground in covens where Lucifer appeared as the king of heaven with a crown and scepter. After practicing a blasphemous communion they engaged in sexual orgies that included homosexuality.
1342 Italy The city code of Perugia establishes that a delegation of eight men from each of the five sections of the city be chosen to denounce sodomites.
1348 Italy Venice, two servants caught sharing a bed, confess under torture to sodomy. One is burned alive in front of the Doge's Palace.
1350 France Jean II gives the office of Constable to his relative and favorite, Charles d' Espagne, who is rumored to be the object of the King's "dishonest affection."
1361 Sweden In a political attack on King Magnus, St Bridget jeers, "You have the most indecent reputation inside and outside this land that any Christian male can have, namely that you have had intercourse with men. This seems likely to us, because you love men more than God or your own soul or your wife."
1368 France Violante Visconti marries the seventeen year old Marquis de Montferrat, who is given over to strangling boy servants.
1373 Belgium Willem Case and Jan van Aersdone are executed for sodomy in Antwerp. Another man is burned at the stake in the town of Mechelen.
1375 Belgium Two men are executed for sodomy in Ypres.
1391 Belgium A mass trial of seventeen people accused of Vuyle faicten (sodomy), including two women, is held in Mechelen. One person confesses and is executed.
1403 AD Italy The Questa is created in Florence, to protect publicmorals and suppress sodomy.

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