hedonism was part of their cult. The word itself survives to this day in English as
“bugger.”
In northern France, Chrétien de Troyes, like the troubadours of Languedoc, sang of
love—and its clandestine homoerotic culture. In Lanval, Marie de France has Queen
Guenevere accuse Lanval of homosexuality after he refuses her advances. In Paris,
already a center of academic and political life, Jacques de Vitry denounced the students at
the university for practicing sodomy. In 1270, Guillot, in his Dit des rues de Paris, cited
the rue Beaubourg as an area favored by sodomites. Again in the 15th century, the poet
Antonio Beccadelli alluded to the continued homosexual practices of the intellectuals in
Paris, and the still obscure jargon of François Villon has also been cited as evidence of
that Parisian subculture.
Politics have occasioned accusations of sodomy in many epochs, none more notorious
than the trial of the entire order of Knights Templar, Europe’s great bankers. The first
charges of sexual heterodoxy against the Templars date from 1304 or 1305 in the
Agenais. Many witnesses, including some whose testimony is suspect, claimed that the
order tolerated as sinless “acts against nature” between members, who were accused of
the osculum infame at their initiations. Philip IV the Fair pressured Pope Clement V to
take action against the Templars, and they were arrested throughout France in October
- Hundreds of episcopal and royal tribunals tallied the wealth of the order, gathered
witnesses, heard testimony, and passed judgment. Eventually, about 120 Templars met
their deaths in Paris. Only a few of the many who were accused actually confessed to
sodomy, but many more confessed to blasphemy and heresy. The guilt of the Templars
remains moot to this day. Some may have been involved in homosexual liaisons, but the
political atmosphere and controversy surrounding the investigation made impartial
judgment impossible.
Philip IV’s daughter, Isabella, with the help of her lover, Mortimer, imprisoned and
tortured her sodomitical husband Edward II of England.
Prosecutions for sodomy continued sporadically in late-medieval France. In 1317,
Robert de Péronne, called de Bray, was burned, and his brother Jean received an
unknown sentence the following year at Laon. Arnaud de Vernioles, a subdeacon of
Pamiers, was accused of sodomy as well as heresy in 1323–24 and was consigned to a
monastery for life. In 1333, in Paris, Raymond Durant was condemned for sex with his
male servants but managed to escape. In 1334, Pierre Porier was burned in Dorche.
Guillaume Belleti, in Chambéry, escaped with a fine in 1351. Jacques Purgatoire, charged
with violent assault, was burned at Bourges in 1435. If his confession is genuine, Gilles
de Rais cannot be labeled a victim. The same is true of Benjamin Deschauffours: since
the time of Voltaire, his trial has been seen as a classic example of persecution of
homosexuals.
A persistent fear of sexuality and the inability to stamp out its proscribed
manifestations even, or especially, within the strictly regulated confines of the cloister
plagued medieval society, with its celibate clergy. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas
condemned sodomites to death, and Lucas da Penna (ca. 1320-ca. 1390) even declared
that “if a sodomite had been executed, and subsequently several times returned to life,
each time he should be punished even more severely if this were possible....” The
medieval state, however, lacked the means of carrying out the mass arrests and
executions of homosexuals that were to occur in later periods.
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