A scholarly critique of how the term "sodomy" arose in the Middle
Ages and came to influence Roman Catholic moral discourse. Although
the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is at least as old as the book of
Genesis, the view of sodomy as a form of sexual sin seems to have
been invented in the 11th century by the Italian ascetic St. Peter
Damian. Jordan (Medieval Institute/Notre Dame Univ.) restates the
now generally accepted view that the sin leading to Sodom's
destruction was transgression of the laws of hospitality rather
than same-sex intercourse per se, and he gives some very relevant
philosophical warnings about using centuries-old texts to find
answers to modern questions. For example, there is no clear
medieval equivalent for our concepts of "homosexuality" (a
19th-century neologism of forensic medicine) or, indeed, of
"sexuality." Jordan's study begins with the Canoness Hrotswitha of
Saxony's account of the martyrdom of St. Pelagius, who died rather
than serve a caliph's sexual desires, and Peter Damian's Book of
Gomorrah. Our author guides us adeptly through the writings of Alan
of Lille, St. Albert the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as
several confessors' handbooks, as he explores how the terms
"sodomite" and "sodomy" were used and notes inconsistencies in
emphasis and argumentation. For example, Albert the Great, contrary
to his normal method, omitted medical data from his Arabic sources
that would have suggested a natural (and therefore morally
positive) basis for sodomy. Jordan succeeds in showing that Thomas
Aquinas's analyses of luxuria and unnatural vice are inadequate for
contemporary Catholicism's evaluation of gay and lesbian
relationships, but the methodological problems he highlights would
seem to emphasize the tradition's stance that sexual intimacy
belongs to heterosexual marriage. A stimulating, if not quite
convincing, contribution to Thomistic and gay studies. (Kirkus
Reviews)
This text explores the invention of sodomy in medieval Christendom,
examining its conceptual foundations in theology and gauging its
impact on Christian sexual ethics both then and now. It traces the
historical genealogy of this enduring cultural construct through
many of the idiosyncratic worldviews of the Middle Ages -
worldviews at war with themselves in their attitudes toward sex,
love and eroticism. Moving from poetic conceit through medieval
treatise to confessor's manual and scholastic summa, the text
demonstrates that the medieval notion of sodomy was fashioned out
of conceptual instabilities and tensions.
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