Queer Perspectives of Medieval Europe

Phil 155, Philosophical Perspectives of Sex and Love, Dr.
Shira Tarrant, CSULB, Spring 2007 Queer Perspectives of Medieval Europe By James R. Walker
In this essay, I will begin by explaining the aim of the paper and the goal of queer theorists as they contemplate medieval texts. Next, I will briefly describe the postmodernist model used by the theorists, touching upon the main points pertinent to the purpose of the paper. Lastly, I will cite some examples of ancient texts that theorists have scrutinized through the lens of queer theory.
My Objective
The general thrust of my paper is twofold: First, that queer personalities are implicit in many historical texts and Second, that those traditional normative interpretations miss this important layer of European tradition in the historical discourse. Although I have cited sources that discuss homosexuality, not all cases I have presented in this essay depend upon sexual behavior as examples of queer characters. While the emphasis focuses on homosexuality, I remind the reader that queer is not synonymous with homosexuality. Sex is one of the constants in human experience, sexuality, one of the variables. Sexual desire can animate one to the highest noblest acts and conversely, it can motivate one to the darkest most shameful deeds. My intent is not to pass judgment but merely to expose the queerness of the past that some in the present may find comforting while others may find it disquieting.
The Goal of Queer Theorists

Queering is what queer theory does. Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary gives one definition of queer as strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint or unusually different (1584). Queer interpretations provoke readers to cross the comfortable border of culturally defined normality into a realm of new and strange social meanings and relations (Zeikowitz 70). Queer theorists have re-evaluated and re-interpreted the traditional European medieval narrative with the intent of usurping the heteronormative bias implicit in this discourse using May 2007 Page 1 of 12
Phil 155, Philosophical Perspectives of Sex and Love, Dr. Shira Tarrant, CSULB, Spring 2007 Queer Perspectives of Medieval Europe By James R. Walker
novels and epic poetry, court records, penitential manuals and ecclesiastical records. Queer theory exposes gender performance as a social construct imposed hegemonically upon the denizens of a culture. Queer theory deconstructs unexamined presuppositions revealing that heteronormativity is not an inherent essence. Femininity and masculinity are not innate but rather expressed by actions, gestures, speech and garb, among others, that hegemonic societal norms require its citizens to perform. Traditionally, this social construct has been impressed upon historical narratives as a template that frames our understanding of the past. Thomas A. Dowson, an archaeologist, affirms,
The past is interpreted in a strictly heterosexual manner. Archaeologists excavate living spaces, huts and houses, among other things, and impose on those units families. They talk of owners and wives. There is often no evidence produced or discussed that suggests that a male and a female, conjoined in some form of ritual matrimony, and their legitimate children lived in those structures. These families are drawn from our own modern, Western notions of what a family should be. Where homosexuals cannot be ignored, they are deviant or pathologicala threat to the family. The presumption of heterosexuality as the norm means that such interpretations of the past are adopted uncritically and go unchallenged (162).
Postmodernism and Queer Theory

When we study human history, we are not subjects studying objects; we are subjects trying to understand subjects. In this way, we have entered into an intersubjective circle, a dialogical dance, an interior world. Monological discourse describes presupposed objectified exteriorities. Essentially, this is what traditional historical narratives have done. A dialogical discourse attempts to understand intersubjective interiorities. This is what queer theorists attempt through their re-evaluation of the past. These theorists enter into interior depths and realize that this is an intrinsic part of subjective and intersubjective reality and that these depths must be interpreted. Thus, interpretation is an integral part of human social and cultural structures. Interpretation is not something added onto social and cultural structures, it is a fundamental part of our world (Wilber 117). The disaster of some theories is that they reduce all introspective and interpretive knowledge to the objective monological eye-of-flesh model to May 2007 Page 2 of 12
explain subjective/intersubjective dialogical eye-of-mind issues. This erases the richness of interpretation from social scripts of our world, from our social theory discourse. Ken Wilber eloquently states it thus: In postmodernese: Modernity marginalized the multivalent epistemic modes via an aggressive hegemony of the myth-of-the-given that hierarchically inverted hermeneutic inscriptions due to the phallologocentrism of patriarchal signifiers (119). Translation: all interior intentions and interpretations were traditionally collapsed into exterior descriptions and representations. Subjective meaning was collapsed into physical descriptions and quality collapsed into quantity all imposed, directed, wielded and promulgated by hierarchical hetero-patriarchal fascist domination. This constitutes acquiescence to the myth-ofthe-given and to unexamined heteronormative assumptions. That notwithstanding, a fair number of academics are convinced that the postmodern perspective is a viable solution to understanding the human condition. It is now the best and most prevalent mode of academia, literary theory, the new historicism and a great deal of political theory (Wilber 120-121). Humans are both physical, exterior reality, and psychical, interior reality, therefore, we must proceed rationally and cautiously. The human realm is not in all ways a pre-given, but in some significant ways, it is a construction, an interpretation. This view is often called constructivism.
Ancient Texts Viewed Through the Lens of Queer Theory

Now let us turn our attention to some ancient texts. I will attempt a rough chronological sequence beginning with an Old English text known as Beowulf. Believed to have been composed between 700CE and 750CE the story is about Beowulf, a warrior hero, who offers his aid to the small Danish kingdom of Heorot. The kingdom has endured twelve years of nightly raids from the so called evil Grendel. Grendel was not a typical man of the time. In the text, queerness is mythologized. Richard Zeikowitz argues May 2007 Page 3 of 12
that traditional readings of the text obscured or ignored Grendels queerness (67). Grendel lived alone in a cave. He did not participate in the homosocial activities expected of all males of the time. The central gathering place for male bonding was the great mead-hall. There the king would bestow rewards to the valiant and love and devotion between the men was forged and reaffirmed. The men denied Grendel participation in this place of homosocial bonding and affection. The warriors of Heorot marginalized, ostracized and dehumanized the non-conformist Grendel and forced him to live outside of the citys protective walls. Grendel,
has been banished to the margins of society, living with monsters who apparently do not engage in the same social rituals as those that occur in the mead-hall. Although not clearly described, we know that the men who bond with one anotherlook like conventionally masculine men; we can also infer that Grendel does not share these physical characteristics. (Zeikowitz 72).
The men believed Grendel to be a sodomite as this was a common characterizations of all evil doers. Sodomy, in those days, meant any sexual activity that was not procreative intercourse. Strangely, the text reveals the behavior in Heorots mead-hall was suggestive of homoeroticism. two distinct forms of male-male intimacy are clearly expressed. Bonds of love and devotion between Hrothgar and his men, between Beowulf and Hrothgar, and, implicitly, between the Danes and the Geats are strengthened and expressed in Heorot (72). Zeikowitz concludes,
Grendel is the loathsome queer who is kept outside the boundaries of warrior culture because he is unable to interact with men according to acceptable mores. He unsettles the norm because his desire is incoherent. He apparently longs for interactions with men, eventually forcing his way inside the hall, but cannot conform to normative homosocial culture. Rather than bonding with men, drinking and listening to poetry, he devours them. Might Grendel be simply operating under a very different understanding of homosociality? Could he possibly be merely desiring some physical contact with the warriors? Must we assume that he intends to kill the men? Critically interrogating the cultural codes in Beowulf reveals that Grendel is marked as monstrous only in relation to the dominant society of Heorot. Thus, both his queerness and the sociocultural conventions against which he is defined are subject to redefinition (72).
The character of Grendel was queer indeed; however, queerness will become more widespread in Europe as we shall see. As the annals of time march forward, we find a queer development in Europe. Under the enormous pressure of the Black Plague, the Crusades, the Holy Inquisition and virtually nonMay 2007 Page 4 of 12
stop war between the emerging nation states, Europe witnessed the emergence of homosocial communities sequestered from mainstream society. Known as Beguine and Beghard, all female and all male respectively, these sub-communities withdrew from mainstream society and normative behaviors (Chambers, Cyclopaedia 95). The first Beguinage was founded in the early twelfth century primarily by widowed women widowed due to the series of prodigious events endured and perpetrated by the European people. These women were industrious and many of some significant means left to them by the deceased. The Beghards, on the other hand, were known to beg for subsistence hence the modern use of the term beggared. Both communities were proponents of the doctrines of Albigensianism which is closely related to Catharism (hence the term catharsis) and the doctrine of the Free Spirit. Briefly, these peripheral biblical doctrines espoused faith and grace as liberating their proponents from their need to follow moral law and norms. Thus, these doctrines were considered antinomian i.e. rejecting socially established and church sanctioned morality (Gilliant-Smith, Catholic Encyclopedia). The members of some of these communities practiced and preached free love and sex with whomever one chooses. According to some accounts, some of these communities engaged in group sex and homosexuality (Lerner 39, 7071, 117). Recall that in medieval Europe anything except procreative sex was regarded with disdain as sodomy. One can understand this stance as the population was decreasing at an alarming rate due to all the killing and disease. So queer were these doctrines and life styles that it garnered the scrutiny of the Holy See, an office of the Inquisition. One German man, John of Ossmannstedt, when questioned by the Inquisition eagerly responded that those who are truly free can be subject to no authority (Lerner 136). At that time, the Roman Catholic Church was wrestling the emerging nation states for power and control of the people and land. Seeing such communities as a threat to ubiquitous influence and control, the Roman Catholic Church isolated some of the leaders of this movement, declared them heretics and sodomites and saw May 2007 Page 5 of 12
them burn at the stake. Such leaders as Nicholas of Basel, Marguerite Porete and lady Hadewijch (Hadewych) of Antwerp, practiced, preached and wrote treatises and poems on Christian mysticism congruent with the queer Christian doctrine of the Beguine and Beghard movements (Gilliant-Smith). Most of their works were burned save those which the Holy See did not see. Records indicate they were interrogated by the officers of the Inquisition and were burned at the stake with the exception of Hadewijch for whom we have no biographical record (Gilliant-Smith). It is important to note that these communities were at their root religious although they did not subordinate themselves to the Holy Roman Catholic Church (GilliantSmith). Their defiance of hegemonic hierarchical patriarchy and of the norms and mores of the day sealed their fate and earn them their title as queer figures in history. Now let us consider the Green Knight in the epic poem entitled, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This Middle English poem was written circa 1375 by an unknown author. It is a chivalric romance in an Arthurian setting. Sir Gawain was a loyal nephew of King Arthur. It is the Green Knights physique however, that elicits special graphic description by the author. He observes that,
From broad neck to buttocks so bulky and thick, and his loins and his legs so long and so great. Half a giant on earth I hold him to be. The seemliest in stature [whose] waist in its width was worthily small and formed with every feature in fair accord was he. [The knights] coat cut close, that clung to his sides, [the] trim hose and tight [that wrapped his] great calves. he is a fashionably dressed knight (his mantle lined with fur, his heels embellished with silk bands, his belt adorned with gems) displaying a perfect physique (Zeikowitz 72, citing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 138-140).
In disguise as Bertilak, an alias, the Green Knight befriends Gawain who finds him,
a lusty fellowa man of massive moldstrong, steady his stance, upon stalwart shanks [and] [w]ell-suited he seemedto be a master of men in a mighty keep. Gawain and Bertilak, dallied and doffed all constraint, together with the courtly society, and finally the two friends, [w]ith compliments comelykiss one another goodnight. The erotically charged affection expressed between the two knights builds over the course of three days. Gawain bestows on Bertilak the kisses he receives from the lady of the manor. [He]embraces his broad neck with both arms and confers on him a kiss in the comeliest styleand clasps and kisses him thrice. As amiably and as earnestly as ever he could (Zeikowitz 72, citing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 843, 844, 846, 848-849, 1936-1937).
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As Zeikowitz notices, heteronormative readings of the text fail to recognize the homoeroticized detail of the Green Knight and his relationship with Gawain. His otherness is marked by his stature and his distinct green hue making him a rather queer character. Like Grendel, he poses a threat to the homosocial society, in this case, in King Arthurs court. He illustrates how the queer intrigues yet threatens, attracts but repels homosocial normativity (Zeikowitz 73). It is interesting to note that as soon as the Green Knight dons the garb and gender performance of the culture he is not only accepted but also embraced and even loved. I think this only serves to underscore the force of hegemonic homosociality. I also find it interesting that the Green Knight is intelligent enough to be able to style shift, that is, he can, if he chooses, blend in. Let us now turn our attention to a tale by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer lived between 1342 and 1400. The epic poem, The Pardoners Tale, will be our focus. In it, the Pardoners gender is under question, as the narrator cannot decide if he is a gelding or a woman, a eunuch or an effeminate man. The confusion is based entirely on physical features. His flax-like yellow hair hangs upon his shoulders as a womans would. The description of the Pardoner is,
intended to call forth images of effeminate, fashion-conscious knights at the court of Richard II, the narrators focus on the Pardoners other-than-manly physical features evokes medieval understanding of eunuchs. For we are told that [a] voys he hadde as small as hath a goot. No berd hadde he, ne nevere solde have [sic]. There is, indeed, something queer about this character (Zeikowitz 74, citing Chaucers Pardoners Tale 688-689)
Clearly, the characters sexuality and gender performance is under scrutiny and represents a disquieting counter example of heteronormativity and culturally defined masculinity. The Pardoner goes further, as he demands of a man to, [u]nbokele anon [his] purs [sic]. Purs not only means money sack but also a part of the male anatomy, namely, the scrotum (Zeikowitz 75, citing Chaucer 6.945). The man refuses with great disdain usually reserved for May 2007 Page 7 of 12
homosexual innuendo. then [he] threatens the audacious queer: I wolde I hadde thy coillons [testicles] in myn hond in stide of relikes. Lat kutte hem of [let them be cut off] (Zeikowitz 75, citing Chaucer 6.952-954). Now, we turn from literature to litigation. Helmut Puff unearthed a surprisingly detailed legal and penitential record documenting two males living together in one house in an intimate relationship.
On the seventh of August, 1475, at seven in the morning, a certain Johannes Stocker, chaplain at the Cathedral of Basel, singed a verdict that sentenced him to perpetual exile from the area north of the Alps: I, Johannes Stocker, the aforesaid priest and sodomiteprebiter et sodomita acknowledge all and everything of the above about myself to be true and I acknowledge having acted in the said manner. Therefore, I have signed this document in my own hand. In harshly condemnatory legal rhetoric it [the document] states that Stocker confessed to having perpetrated in the current year, at the most nefarious instigation of humankinds foe and oblivious to his spiritual salvation and his honor, the abominable sodomitical vice several times with a youth named Johannes Muller from the town of Bruck in the diocese of Constance who then lived in Basel in his [Stockers] house (172)
It is important to note that in medieval Europe the church made a distinction between a series of similar sinful acts and a personage as defined by those acts, i.e. homosexual behavior versus homosexual identity.
The noun sodomita, written in the accuseds own hand, seems to suggest a marginal person, whereas the offense itself is conceived of as a succession of acts, instigated by the devil. These references to personage and deed in Stockers verdict reconcile Michel Foucaults account of the transition from sodomy as a category of forbidden acts to the nineteenth-century homosexual as a personage in one single document (Puff 172).
What is even queerer is that the record shows that sexual normativity was reversed in the town where Stocker lived, i.e. Basel. Hyperbole, perhaps, but nonetheless, it does speak of a community of homosexuals in Basel. In the following, Stockers words appear first trailed by Puffs commentary.
If everybody who committed this [the act of sodomy] was burnt at the stake, not even fifty men would survive in Basel. This statement is almost without parallel among the relevant medieval sources currently known to scholars. Expressed in modern, statistical terms, this implies an estimated 99 percent of Basels male population at the time. the supposed distribution between the center of sexual orthodoxy and the margins of sexual heresy was reversed. For a moment of intimate communication, the actual margins were transformed to a dominating norm of sodomy (173).
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So far, we have focused on men however, many women lead non-normative lives in the past. Judith M. Bennett points out that the task of identifying queer and homosexual males in historical writs is perhaps challenging however, lesbian histories are even more challenging. Women wrote less; their writings survived less often (Sapphos works are the classic example); and they were less likely than men to come to the attention of civic or religious authorities (2). Bennetts goal is to discover the ordinary lesbian in historical texts. Realizing that the upper class is more often represented in the history we have inherited than the lower class; men more often than women and modern more often than medieval, she laments,
The medieval problem is bleak and simply stated. We can find information about medieval lesbian practices in the writings of theologians and canonists, in some very suggestive literary texts, and even in a few artistic representations, but if we want to write about actual women whom extant sources explicitly associate with same-sex genital contact, we have, as best I can tell, about a dozen women for the entire medieval millennium: all of them from the fifteenth century, and all of them either imprisoned or executed for their activities (4).
Bennett uncovers the extent of medieval othering of women through the disinterest and even dismissal of lesbian sex. It hinges upon money, power, inheritance and lineage and underscores male dominance and phallocentrism. I find this fascinating.
The intellectual approach has focused mostly on why lesbianism was so underplayedcompared to male homosexualityin the literatures of the Middle Ages. Most medieval physicians discussed male homosexuality much more fully than lesbianism; most authors of penitentials (that is, handbooks designed to guide priests in assigning penance during confession) either ignored lesbianism or rated it a lesser sin than male homosexuality; most theologians similarly either overlooked or trivialized same-sex relations between women (5).
Why was lesbianism unthreading? First, we must consider that the power to write history and law was wielded solely by men. Furthermore, same-sex intimacy between women neither produced bastards nor introduced false heirs into lineages, it was relatively unproblematicas long as women loving women did not use dildoes or other devices that seemingly mimicked penises (Bennett 5-6). Evidently, dildo use offended the machismo of the delicate male ego. Moreover, since no sperm was spilled, lesbian love was inconsequential. Sperm was hailed as May 2007 Page 9 of 12
the sole agent of siring male inheritors. While Bennett hails the possible female homoerotic music of Hildegarde Von Bingen, and the texts of the female mystics Hadewijch and Margery Kempe, she cautions,
many of these readings draw on mystical textsthat is, texts that were profoundly obscure at the time of their composition and are profoundly hard to interpret today. the obscurity of these texts might have allowed female mystics to express and still mask same-sex desire. But the obscurity of these texts might also encourage modern scholars to read desire into them that would have been foreign to their authors (8).
Nonetheless, lesbian impunity was not completely proscribed. In 1444CE, two women were involved in the vice against nature which is called sodomy (Puff 182). In a short transcript from the vicar general to the deacon of the township, the vicar ordered the local deacon to conduct an investigation and to transfer one of the women to the Bishops court in another town. Queer life styles were not easy then and they are not easy now. As mentioned above, medieval woman were less likely to write. Women were not allowed the same academic opportunities as men. To circumvent this unfair sexist norm one woman donned mens clothing and entered a university.
In the earliest years of the fifteenth century, a young womanwe do not know her name disguised herself as a man and studied at the University of Krakow. This student maintained her male identity for two years, and when discovered, she was more marveled at than punished. Like most other female cross-dressers in the Middle Ages, she was admired and rewarded for improving herself through a male persona: she became the abbess of a nearby monastery. We have only two words reputedly spoken by this young cross-dresser, and they explain her decision to take on a male persona in clear and non-sexual terms. When asked why she had deceived everyone, she replied, amore studii (for love of learning) (Bennett17).
This illustrates the limits men imposed upon women, the length to which a woman had to go to participate in the benefits offered to men and how this forced that particular woman into queer behavior. She circumvented female disenfranchisement by effectively becoming male. At about the same time in France a sixteen-year-old married female, Laurence, befriended and was seduced by Jehanne who was also a married woman. They enjoyed a sexual May 2007 Page 10 of 12
relationship for some time before Laurence withdrew from the liaison. This resulted in a brawl between the women that attracted the attention of the authorities who imprisoned Laurence. Jehannes fate is unknown; Laurence ended up in prison, whence came the document that today tells her version of their encounter (Bennett 19). Another archetypal queer life was that of Joan of Arc, France. In 1431 she was about nineteen or twenty years old when the inquisitor, the Holy See of the infamous Inquisition, ordered her to be burned at the stake as a heretic. However, trial records indicate outrage at her appearance. She was a gender bender. Article twelve of her indictment read:
Jeanne [Joan], rejecting and abandoning womens clothing, her hair cut around like a young coxcomb [a jesters cap implying fool], took shirt, breeches, doublettight-fitting boots or buskins, long spurs, sword, dagger, breast-plate, lance and other arms in fashion of a man of war (Murray 345-346).
During her trial, she refused to don womens clothing insisting that her transvestism was a religious duty commanded by God. The following was one of the chief charges brought against her:
Jeanne attributes to God, His Angels, and His Saints, orders which are against the modesty of the sex, and which are prohibited by the Divine Law, things abominable to God and man, interdicted on pain of anathema by ecclesiastical censure, such as dressing herself in the garments of a man, short, tight, dissolute, those underneath as well as aboveTo attribute all this to the order of God, to the order which had been transmitted to her by the Angels and even by Virgin Saints, is to blaspheme God and His Saints, to destroy the Divine Law and violate the Canonical Rules (Murray 346).
She challenged phallocratic authority by means of her gender performance inversion. The English reviled her as well for this defiance and urged the church to condemn her for that reason if for no other.
The King of England, Henry VI, even got involved on this point. In a letter he wrote about Joan, he said, It is sufficiently notorious and well-known that for some time past a woman calling herself Jeanne the Pucelle [the maid], leaving off the dress and clothing of the feminine sex, a thing contrary to divine law and abominable before God, and forbidden by all laws, wore clothing and armour such as is worn by men (Scott 52).
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Clearly, she did to conform to the gender socialization of the day. The judges were also interested in her relationship with a certain woman know as La Rousse the Red who was an innkeeper. In the Middle Ages, inns were often brothels in disguise. Additionally, the judges had Joans virtue examined with the report that she was in fact a virgin (Evans 6). Secular authorities and the clergyall menexercised unqualified power over womens bodies thus exemplified by Joans predicament. Clearly, Joans non-normative dress and behavior single her out as queer and for the unfortunate fate perpetrated upon her by those who felt threatened by such queer gender performance.
Conclusion
In this short essay we have examined the lives of some famous and some common people, some fictitious and some real people who refused to abide by heterosocial norms. Potentates, both ecclesiastical and secular as well as the average person were all threatened by the curiosity of such non-normative personalities. The result was often cruelty visited upon the queer figure. The odd, the unusual constitutes the unknown which scares people and challenges authority. There are distant echoes of our own time reflected in these stories of individuals and self-sufficient communes dropping out of society. Like then, perhaps our age too is a time of psychic threat. In light of the examples above, one may wonder how far from such small mindedness of medieval days we have really traveled. Perhaps the present is too much like the past for us to see. Queer theory is an important attempt to open a dialog that may one-day effect a positive change for the betterment of all humankind.
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Queer Perspectives of Medieval Europe

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Phil 155, Philosophical Perspectives of Sex and Love, Dr.

The Goal of Queer Theorists

Postmodernism and Queer Theory

Ancient Texts Viewed Through the Lens of Queer Theory

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