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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I heard that they were Welsh and their names were William Fitzhugh and Hugh Fitzwilliam.
I know that escaping the death tax would be a good thing, but a pair of sisters lost a law suit in some state that had civil unions because they are sisters, not lesbians.
This article does indeed smell of B.S. I think anyone would be foolish to say that sodomy didn’t exist in the middle ages, but to falsely and hopefully (from their viewpoint) say that it was SANCTIONED is PURE BULL!
In reality if homos were caught back then they more than likely would have been tortured and then killed by the rulers and the church.
Just another Takoma Park boy made good...... NOT.
Not only was this LOL funny, but you posted it to "Hi Heels"...
From what I’ve read sodomites in the fourteenth century did not fare well under the inquisition.
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Needs to retitle his work ....
“Things You Didn’t Know that Aren’t Even True”
Oh yes! It was widely accepted back then! You didnt know that? They had the gay marriage churches right beside the partial birth abortion clinics and stem cell research labs. Jeez,you people need education,try Boulder CO,I hear the schools are greeat there!LOL!
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This fraud also reveals how the homosexual movement cannot abide fraternal love between men. Everything must be sexualized. I wouldn't be surprised if this creeping homoeroticism has poisoned male friendship.
First Things has a good essay on the rite of adelphopoiesis, the Eastern rite of brotherhood and the modern perversion thereof. I had heard rumors of a Western variant, through another propagandist who was trying to dupe my college-aged sister.
So what?
“Neither did Edward II’s wife. She had him murdered in the traditional way for homosexuals. A red hot poker up the rectum.”
Hmph. I guess sometimes it’s *not* good to be the king.
Well, if we confined it strictly to the Democrats and RINOs, this country could get straightened (!) out in two generations.
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