misanthropemom:

medievalpoc:

prokopetz:

retroactivebakeries:

narcissusbutterfly:

I can’t really understand people who complain about the possibility in “TEO: Skyrim” to marry a same-sex NPC ‘cause “it doesn’t fit with the whole medieval setting of the series”.
Yeah, you’re right, how could Bethesda dare to do something so anachronistic? I mean, the wonderful Middle Ages, such a beautiful period. Remember those old good times when we could marry hot lizards?

Yeah
Me neither

Ah yes, the Elder Scrolls, the medieval setting complete with orbital space stations, time-traveling cyborg demigods, and magic email.

Plus, institutions very like same-gender marriage did exist in medieval Europe. Up until around the 13th Century, “spiritual brotherhood” ceremonies that were identical to marriages all but in name – including joining hands and reciting prayers at an altar and a ceremonial kiss at the end – were commonly performed between two men. Though prohibitions against the practice began to arise in the early 1300s (prohibitions which in themselves constitute evidence for the prevalence of such ceremonies – you don’t specifically ban something that never happens!), it’s believed that in some regions it persisted well into the 16th Century.

(And that’s without even touching on the matter of pirates…)

For anyone who wants to get their research started with a bang (several of these open as PDF):

People with a History – the history of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people, edited by Paul Halsall

Between Monks: Tales of Monastic Companionship in Early Byzantium, by Derek Krueger

Transgressing
the Boundaries of Holiness: Sexual Deviance in the Early Medieval
Penitential Handbooks of Ireland, England and France 500-1000, by Christine McCann

The Roman De La Rose and the Thirteenth Century Prohibitions of Homosexuality, by Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran

Remarriage and Ass-F**king: Shifty Byzantine Views of Sex, by Stephen Morris

Woman-Woman Love in Islamic Society, by Stephen O. Murray

Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477), by Helmet Puff

Homosexuality in Medieval Iberia – extract from the Encyclopedia of Medieval Iberia (2003)

The Questioning of John Rykener, A Male Cross-Dressing Prostitute, 1395 – from the Medieval Sourcebook

The 600 Year Tradition Behind Same-Sex Unions – by Allan Tulchin, History News Network

Personae, Same-Sex Desire, and Salvation in the Poetry of Marbod of Rennes, Baudri of Bourgueil, and Hildebert of Lavardin, by Tison Pugh

Queer Vikings? Transgression of gender and same-sex encounters in the Late Iron Age and early medieval Scandinavia, by Sami Raninen

Homoerotic Liasons among the Mamluk Elite in Late Medieval Egypt and Syria, by Everett K. Rowson

Representing the Negative: Positing the Lesbian Void in Medieval English Anchoritism, by Michelle M. Sauer

Brotherhood of Vice: Sodomy, Islam, and the Knights Templar, by Mark Steckler

Salvation, Sex,  and Subjectivity, by Bruce Vernarde

(Un)Natural Love: Homosexuality in Late Medieval English Literature: Langland, Chaucer, Gower, and the Gawain Poet, by Swaeske de Vries

reading