Posted on 08/27/2007 1:22:56 PM PDT by Hi Heels
Gay Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe Jeanna Bryner LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Mon Aug 27, 12:00 PM ET
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."
The ins-and-outs of the medieval relationships are tricky at best to figure out.
"I suspect that some of these relationships were sexual, while others may not have been," Tulchin said. "It is impossible to prove either way and probably also somewhat irrelevant to understanding their way of thinking. They loved each other, and the community accepted that.”
The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos and Bizarre Facts 10 Things You Didn't Know About You A Brief History of Human Sex Original Story: Gay Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe
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This is sort of like leftists pointing at the current webster’s definition of marriage (”two PEOPLE”) and claiming that as “proof” that marriage isn’t defined as one man one woman.
However, they don’t want to, even if they know it to be the case, acknowledge that this definition has only recently been modified. I believe within the last 5-7 years.
No wonder the pilgrams got out of there.
Wow! This is as startling as the revelation that guns were very rare in colonial America!
(rolling eyes)
I wonder if Tulchin will gain the same accolades and awards as Bellesiles.
“... can be interpreted as supporting... tricky at best to figure out... I suspect that ... impossible to prove either way ...”
What a load of BS.
That was my first thought, as well. “Guess this guy needs to see Braveheart...”
Go Mel!
/SARC
Coming up next: Moorish winos at the dawn of the deconstructionist period!
Er...uh.... Nope, just going to leave that one alone.
“Was that considerate? Was that polite? And not a tube of Preparation H in sight.”
Burning witches was sanctioned in medieval Europe...should we go back to the good old days?
“...impossible to prove either way...”
Oh. So I guess that settles it.
This at best proves the Dark Ages has Communists. We know that “utopian” communities flourished (and died) by the dozens in the New World, failed attempts to put a stupid, non-functioning philosophy that looked good on paper into action. And the obvious conclusion is that if this kind of relationship did anything good for society, it wouldn’t take a medeival scholar with an agenda to surprise us with it.
Sure, they tied them to the same stake when they burned them.
Such behavior, when caught in Her Majesty’s Navy two centuries ago, brought about keel-hauling as a method of helping the British sailor think over his personal “lfie choices.”
So the same contract for brothers to share an inheritance is maze-logically argued by this “genius” to be a gay union contract.
Revisionist History in full swing.
These sort of things were nothing more than the Medieval equivalent of an S corporation. It had nothing to do with legalizing any sort of homosexual relationship.... which still would have put you frying at the stake before a Cannon Court. It was all about a legal contract governing property ownership.
Mostly this sort of thing would have been used by actual brothers or other individuals that had a blood relationship.
Medieval Europe faced serious problems with population growth and division of inheritance.... and developed various mechanisms to deal with it. Primogeniture was one of these... shared ownership like the contracts being discussed were another.
Essentialy, a plot of land that could easly support 1 man and his family in one generation..... couldn’t be subdivided indefinately among the heirs of succeding generations and still produce enough to support all those heirs and THEIR families. Figuring out methods to keep parcels of land intact through succeding generations was a huge deal for a relatively closed agrarian society like Europe. This was also one of the major primary drivers for exploration and colonization/conquest of lands outside of Europe.
Our Founders pleaded each other their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" and they weren't poncing nancy boys. Sometimes a pledge is just a pledge.
You don’t think Professor Tulchin is just another disinterested member of the scholary profession in search of truth (well, not that there is such a thing)?
Exactly!
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