John Boswell - Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe

Acclaim for J OHN B OSWELL S

SAME-SEX UNIONS IN PREMODERN EUROPE

Boswell is an accomplished medieval historian, noted for his work on Christianity and homosexuality. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe is certain to arouse more than scholarly passions.Most controversial.

Newsweek

Boswell laudably provides the reader with transcriptions of the documents in the original Greek, along with his own English translations of them. No less laudably, he guides the reader through interpretations of this material that differ from his own.

New Republic

Fascinating.Professor Boswells book will certainly provoke a sharp debate.

The New York Times

The question [of homosexual unions] has acquired new urgency with the publication of Boswells latest book [and] is likely to fuel an ongoing debate. His findings are taken seriously not only by those likely to be pleased with his conclusions but also by detractors who say they do not underestimate his role in helping to shape the continuing debate within the churches over sexual morality.

Washington Post

Boswells thesis will enliven the meetings of the Medieval Academy of America for years to come.

Chicago Tribune

Boswell is a brilliant historian. And by casting new light upon a neglected and misunderstood past, he helps us see a premodern world much more diverse, complex and pluralistic than our simple-minded images of it, and a world that still has much to teach those of us who think we know so much and have come so far. To reflect accurately on the past may be the most revolutionary thing a historian can do. Boswell has done this splendidly, and even those who are bound to disagree with him stand with the rest of us in his debt. No discussion of the topic will now be complete without reference to Boswells work.

Boston Globe

Boswells thesis is accessible, not to say sensational.

Hartford Courant

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 1995

Copyright 1994 by John Boswell

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Random House Penguin Company, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Villard Books, a division of Random House, New York, in 1994.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Villard edition as follows:

Boswell, John.
Same-sex unions in premodern Europe / John Boswell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-679-43228-0
1. HomosexualityEuropeHistory. 2. LesbianismEuropeHistory. 3. Gay marriageEuropeHistory. 4. Civilization, Medieval. I. Title.
HQ76.3.E8B68 1994
306.766094dc20 93-44831
eBook ISBN: 978-0-804-15095-8
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-75164-9

v3.1

This book is dedicated
with gratitude and affection to
James Meehan,
without whom
it would not have been completed.
And with sadness to
Mac and David,
and all the others
who did not live
to see it finished.

T HIS BOOK HAS TAKEN much longer to write than I expected it would when I began it twelve years ago. It was undertaken as the result of a notice about a ceremony of same-sex union sent to me by a correspondent who prefers not to be named. I thank him heartily now without disclosing his identity. In the meantime, many professional obligations (being chair of several departments, including the largest one, at the university where I teach), completing another book that already languished on my desk, the deaths of many close friends from AIDS, and several major computer disasters have all steadily impeded my progress and prevented completion of the book I had intended to finish at least five years ago.

The unnamed correspondent brought to my attention a version of the ceremony published in Jacques Goars Euchologion,discovered he had in fact done so, but in a direction opposite to the one I had first suspected.

The next summer when I got to Italy I discovered many versions of the ceremony that were obviously the same-sex equivalent of a medieval heterosexual marriage ceremony (though not necessarily a precise equivalent of its modern descendants). Only then did it occur to me how remarkable it was that there should not have been a ceremony solemnizing or hallowing friendship in the religion of the teacher who described friendship as the highest love. In retrospect, and considering how much distortion and censorship of the ceremony I have discovered, I wonder if the Paris versions represent simplified (or even bowdlerized) medieval versions of the ceremony of union. In any event, I publish them here so that readers can judge for themselves.

Over the years, I have often spoken publicly about the ceremony and its ramifications. I now doubt that this was a wise decision, but at the time I felt an obligation to share information about the discovery. At least one of these addresses was published; several were videotaped and sold or distributed without my authorization. This is particularly unfortunate because over the decade I have been assembling the material, my opinions on various aspects of it have evolved and changed, as is inevitably the case in any long scholarly project. Many people may have been misled in minor ways by what I said at earlier stages of my research, since these informal presentations on work in progress were widely disseminated and quoted.

Possibly as a result of these developments, a number of critics have offered critiques of or disagreements with a work that did not yet exist. Such comments are to informed criticism and disagreement what the modern American vulgarism preboarding is to boarding a plane. No one could possibly have known what would be said in this study, even by paying close attention to lectures or videotapes of the work as it developed.

Over the dozen years I have worked on the project I have amassed an enormous debt to many individuals, only a few of whom I will remember to thank. First and foremost, I am forever indebted to James Meehan, whose timely intervention rescued the project at many junctures where, without his cheerful and unstinting assistance, I would have abandoned it. This help involved not only his laboriously transferring the contents of disks from one operating system to another during several computer disasters, but even making long trips to photograph manuscripts I needed to consult but could not see myself. In an equally practical way Elizabeth Archibald provided assistance of the most direct kind while I was conducting research in Italy, Jerone Hart offered practical support of crucial kinds in the United States, and John S. Morgan has faithfully contributed for years to the research expenses for the project. For pointers, bits of information, or advice about how to translate I am grateful to Geoffrey Block, Marie Boroff, Paul Bushkovitch, David Cohen, Ljerka Debush, Katherine Dittmar, Harvey Goldblatt, Jeri Guthrie, Peter Hawkins, Thomas Head, Michael Jones, Diana Kleiner, Matthew Kuefler, E. Litsas, Harry Magoulias, Kathryn Miller, Bruce OBrien, Dennis ONeal, Jaroslav Pelikan, Zlatko Plese, Alexander Schenker, and, above all, to Ralph Hexter, on whom I have always relied as my most attentive and helpful critic, and who has rendered timely and generous assistance at every stage of the writing. In the end, of course, responsibility for everything said in the pages that follow is mine alone.