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LHMP entry

LHMP #278d Boswell 1980 Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality

Part IV: The Rise of Intolerance

Chapter 10: Social Change

The fanaticism and intolerance popularly associated with the “medieval” period date primarily to the later middle ages. Prior to the 13th century, social and religious tolerance were more typical. In the 13-14th century this changed, though historians are unclear on the exact reasons. Among the forces that are considered relevant: the rise in absolute government, both secular and clerical, and movements to reform, regularize and enforce power systems.

LHMP #278c Boswell 1980 Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality

Part III: Shifting Fortunes

Chapter 7: The Early Middle Ages

LHMP #278b Boswell 1980 Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality

Part II The Christian Tradition

Chapter 4: The Scriptures

There were massive changes to attitudes to same-sex relations that can be attributed to Christian influence on Eureopean culture, but that influence was complex and derived from several separate factors including scripture, social dynamics, and theology.

LHMP #278a Boswell 1980 Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality

Part I Points of Departure

LHMP #271a Cadden 1993 Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture

While covering much of the same timeframe, Cadden takes a broader and more diverse view than Laqueur, while acknowledging the reality of his two models (the one-sex and two-sex models). In all eras, the “facts” about sex and sexuality are filtered through cultural prejudices. Medieval ideas about sex difference were part of the culture’s assumptions about gender. Medieval society was not a single culture, and the era covered several overall shifts in thinking, so there isn’t a single unified “medieval idea” of sex difference that can be pointed to.

Cadden 1993 Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture

LHMP #259 Zatta 2003 The Single Woman as Saint

This paper looks at three female Anglo-Saxon saints, as depicted in Anglo-Norman hagiography: Osith, Etheldreda, and Modwenna. The women are doubly “other” within the texts: Anglo-Saxon lives being portrayed for a readership of Norman churchmen, and women being portrayed by and for men.

LHMP #241 Nederman & True 1996 The Third Sex

[Content note: This article deals with overlapping uses of the word “hermaphrodite” in medieval contexts. In some cases, it indicates a person of ambiguous genitalia, that is, an intersex person. In other cases, it indicates a person who combines aspects of performative gender assigned to men and women or who performs aspects of a gender not matching the one assigned to their physiology. Medieval theory did not clearly distinguish these concepts.

LHMP #211 Lemay 1996 Human Sexuality in Twelfth- through Fifteenth-Century Scientific Writings

This is an overview of treatments of human sexuality as indicated in the title. Only a very small amount of material pertains to same-sex sexuality, so this summary will be brief. The subject matter is medical, astrological, and philosophical treatises of the 12-15th centuries, either written in or translated into Latin.

LHMP #207 Wiethaus 1993 In Search of Medieval Women’s Friendships

Wiethaus addresses the problem of finding and identifying women’s same-sex relationships in history by looking at the general context of women’s same-sex friendships and especially features of those friendships that are specific to women’s experiences.

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