¹ In this essay, I use the following abbreviations in addition to those given in n. 1 of the Introduction: Google Scholar

Bray, , Homosexuality = Bray, Alan, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (London, 1982).Google Scholar

Cartulary of Oseney Abbey = Cartulary of Oseney Abbey , ed. Salter, Herbert Edward, vol. 4, Oxford Historical Society Publications 97 (Oxford, 1934).Google Scholar

Malaterra, Gaufredus, Historia Sicula = Malaterra, Gaufredus, Historia Sicula in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Raccolta degli Storici Italiani dal cinquecento al millecinquecento , ed. Muratori, Lodovico Antonio, new ed. Carducci, Giosue, Fiorini, Vittorio, Fedele, Pietro, vol. 5¹ (Bologna, 1928).Google Scholar

Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum = Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. and trans. Greenway, Diana, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1996); and Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum: The History of the English, by Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, From A.C. 55 to a.d. 1154, in Eight Books , ed. Arnold, Thomas, Rolls Series 74 (London, 1879). Google Scholar

Simeon of Durham, Opera Omnia = Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Arnold, Thomas, 2 vols., Rolls Series 75 (London, 1882–85).Google Scholar

² SSU, 259–61 (Gerald of Wales), 343–44 (the French pact of brotherhood, which Boswell wrongly indicates was in Latin; see also 188). In his text (ibid., 254–58), Boswell discusses three contracts (dated 776, 1031, and 1180, the first Italian and the last two Spanish) that he believed showed “two men arranging a common household based more on affection and understanding than contractual commercial arrangements,” but he acknowledged their “ambiguity” and admitted that they could not be “categoriz[ed] … unequivocally as same-sex marital contracts.” Neither these nor the story of blood brotherhood in the Gesta romanorum (see the Introduction, n. 35) contain any evidence of liturgical solemnization and hence were, strictly speaking, irrelevant to his quest for proof that (ibid., 259) “[t]he ceremony itself … was known in the Middle Ages in many areas of the West, including some from which no versions of the ceremony appear to survive (probably as the result of deliberate destruction [which he later attempts to establish]).” ties of brotherhood contracted formally and ritually between two individuals were more common in the West than Boswell believed. I shall argue that bonds of ritual brotherhood similar to those solemnized in the office of adelphopoiesis existed in many parts of Western Europe in the later Middle Ages, in areas far removed from the regions of Italy subject to Byzantine influence, where euchologies containing the Eastern ceremony were preserved.’ In dealing with the Western evidence I shall be particularly concerned with its nature, which contrasts strikingly with the Eastern sources. For the East, the most abundant documentation is liturgical, and traces of such relationships in other sources are rare — although (as Claudia Rapp shows in this symposium) not as sparse as has sometimes been thought. For the West the situation is precisely the reverse.’ The Western cases of individuals linked by ritual fraternal ties that Du Cange presented far outnumber the Eastern instances he cited, and additional Western examples have come to light since his time. However, as regards the ceremonial by which the ties were forged in the West, there is no strictly liturgical evidence. Western liturgical books contain no special prayers and offices for making brothers. Narrative and documentary sources cast fitful light on the nature of the ceremony that accompanied the unions, but they do not suggest that any uniform ritual ever existed. Why this was so is a matter for speculation, but I believe that the absence of fraternal ceremonial from the liturgy is closely related to another distinctive aspect of the institution in the West: the lack of prohibitions, ecclesiastical and secular, against the bond. I shall consider this issue after examining the various motives that seem to have underlain the Western fraternal alliances, and also the outcomes of the unions. In the end I shall propose that whatever the differences in documentation, and despite the difference in the ritual practices, striking formal and functional likenesses existed between the Eastern and Western institutions of ritual brotherhood linking two participants: in the purposes they served, the means by which they were contracted, and the gap that often existed between ideal and reality. In a final section I shall discuss the problems associated with attempting to establish whether or not — or when and how often — Western (or Eastern) rituals of brotherhood formalized relationships that involved or were expected to involve sexual intercourse between the participants.Google Scholar

³ Useful information is provided by Strittmatter, , “Notes,” 96–98 (the presence of Byzantine liturgical manuscripts in Italy, and the special importance of those of Grottaferrata; see also idem, “The ‘Barberinum S. Marci’,” 330–31 n. 1); and by Jacob, , “L'euchologe,” 174–77, 197 (a tenth-century Greco-Italian manuscript, Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, gr. 226, containing two prayers for adelphopoiesis, which was owned by the monastery of Saint Catherine of Sinai until 1850); and 177 (Sinai, gr. 966, “euchologe italo-grec du XIII^e siècle”); on the Saint Petersburg manuscript, see also Strittmatter, , “Notes,” 66–67 esp. n. 7; cf. Boswell, , SSU, 372, 373, and see also ibid., 178, 183–84, 259, 264, 351 esp. n. 46.Google Scholar

⁴ Cf. Hamilton-Grierson's comments on the evidence relating to the East, in “Brotherhood (Artificial),” 869.Google Scholar

⁵ Du Cange, , “Dissertation XXI,” 261–62, 267; Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 15–18 (discussing the Old English expression wed brodra on 15–16, and citing the Historia Anglorum [bk. vi, ch. 13; ed. Greenway, , 360; ed. Arnold, , 185] of Henry of Huntingdon [ca. 1088–1156/64], in which Cnut proposes to Edmund that they become fratres adoptivi and divide the kingdom; and the Gesta Regum Anglorum of William of Malmesbury [born ca. 1095], which describes the pact between the two as fedus, and in which Cnut calls Edmund frater mihi fœderatus); see Willelmi Malmesbiriensis monachi De gestis Regum Anglorum libri quinque; Historiae novellae libri tres, 2 vols., ed. Stubbs, William, Rolls Series 90 (London, 1887–89), 1:217, 219; on Henry and his history, see Greenway's introduction to her ed. of the Historia Anglorum, xxiii–lvii, and, on the Historia, lvii–clx; and Gransden, Antonia, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974), 193–201; on William of Malmesbury's work, ibid., 166, 178–79. For Carl and Ealdred, see Simeon of Durham, Opera Omnia, 1:219 (Auctarium: III. De obsessione Dunelmi et de Ucthredo comite); for Malcolm and Tostig, ibid. 2:174–75 (Historia Regum). Google Scholar

⁶ Malaterra, Gaufredus, Historia Sicula, 53–54; see Du Cange, , “Dissertation XXI,” 261 (suggesting that per aurem should be read per arma; cf. Malaterra, Gaufredus, Historia Sicula, 54 n. 1); and Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 14.Google Scholar

⁷ Cartulary of Oseney Abbey, 1 (fol. 9; “De Fundacione capelle sancti Georgii”). Although the cartulary was not assembled until the late thirteenth century, the description is likely to be based on reliable tradition: Stenton, Frank Murray, “Domesday Survey,” in The Victoria History of the County of Oxford, vol. 1, ed. Salzman, L. F. (London, 1939), 373–95 at 382–83. I am grateful to Susan Reynolds for bringing this evidence to my attention.Google Scholar

⁸ Flores Historiarum, ed. Luard, Henry Richards, 3 vols., Rolls Series 95 (London, 1890) 2:502 (under the year 1264; Luard unconvincingly proposes that frater refers to Charles's biological brother, Louis IX); on this portion of the Flores, composed at Saint Alban's as a continuation of Matthew Paris's chronicle, see ibid. 1:xl–xlii. On the situation in England in 1264 and this passage, see Maddicott, John Robert, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, 1994), 243–44, esp. 244 n. 72, and 370.Google Scholar

⁹ Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 11–13. Chaplais considers the possibility (ibid., 111–12) that sometime before 1313 Edward II contracted a similar relationship with Richard de Neueby, a Gascon yeoman who claimed to be the king's frater. Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid., 14. Claudia Rapp learned of the Germanic custom in a paper that Warren Brown delivered at a recent meeting of medievalists at the University of California at Los Angeles in which he refers to Brunner, Heinrich, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ed. von Schweren, Claudius Freiherr, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1928), 2:529–30.Google Scholar

¹¹ Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 20.Google Scholar

¹² Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis , ab adventu Hengesti et Horsi in Britanniam usque ad annum M.C.XVII. cui accesserunt continuationes duœ, quarum una ad annum M.C.XLI, altera, nunc primum typis vulgata, ad annum M.CC.XCV. perducta , ed. Thorpe, Benjamin, 2 vols. (London, 1848–49), 1:178–79; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, bk. vi, ch. 13, ed. Greenway, , 360, and ed. Arnold, , 185; Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 15–16. On the Worcester chronicle, see Gransden, , Historical Writing, 143–48. Google Scholar

¹³ Du Cange, , “Dissertation XXI,” 260–61 (citing the testimony of Baldwin, count of Flanders and emperor of Constantinople [1171–1206], regarding the Greeks’ fraterne societates with barbarians, and Joinville's report of the account that Philippe de Toucy gave Louis IX concerning the ceremony that made Baldwin and his followers freres de sanc of the Cumans); see also the edition of Joinville's Life of Saint Louis by Natalis de Wailly (see the Introduction, n. 29), 330–31 esp. 331 n. 1; and Tamassia, , L'affratellamento, 68. Cf. de Sainte-Palaye, La Curne, Mémoires 1:225–26 (1826 ed., 1:191); Tamassia, , L'affratellamento, 31–32; and Flach, , “Le compagnonnage,” 166 (three knights in the romance Lancelot du Lac who mingled their blood); and also Boswell, , SSU, 258 (a story in the Gesta romanorum of two knights who drink each other's blood; see the Introduction, n. 35).Google Scholar

¹⁴ In the case of Edward II and Gaveston, Chaplais (Piers Gaveston, 13) believes it likely that “if any document or documents were drawn up … Edward I would have insisted on their destruction” in February 1307, when Gaveston was forced to swear to leave the realm and not to return unless the king allowed it, and when Prince Edward swore not to “receive or retain” Gaveston without his father's authorization: ibid., 22. Had the archives of the Chambre des comptes in Paris not burned in 1737, more documentary evidence like that with which Vyon d'Hérouval provided Du Cange might well survive: see n. 16 below.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The letter of 14 July 1411, which the sons of the murdered Duke Louis of Orléans sent to King Charles VI, refers to “plusieurs grandes et solemnelles promesses, en tel cas accoustumées [my italics].” Jean Juvenal des Ursins cites the letter, in his Histoire de Charles VI, roi de France, et des choses mémorables advenues durant quarante-deux années de son règne , depuis 1380 jusques à 1422 , in Nouvelle collection des mémoires …, ed. Michaud, Joseph-François, Poujoulat, J.-J.-F. et al., 34 vols. (Paris, 1854–57), 1st ser., 2:333–569 at 457; see also Du Cange, , “Dissertation XXI,” 266.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Du Cange, , “Dissertation XXI,” 266–67 (remarking that “[c]ette sorte de Traité n'est pas tant vne fraternité, qu'vne espece d'alliance étroite ou de ligue offensive & défensive, en vertu duquel les contractans s'obligeoient à vn mutuel secours dans les occasions, tel que deux freres seroient tenus de se donner”); see also de Sainte-Palaye, La Curne, Mémoires 1:273 (1826 ed., 1:233); Keen, , “Brotherhood in Arms,” 5–7; Henneman does not discuss this compact, in Olivier de Clisson. Rather than relating it to the institution of ritual brotherhood, Georges Minois views the pact as “une bonne illustration de ces traités d'homme à homme qui viennent se superposer aux liens vassaliques chancelants de la féodalité finissante.” Without citing any source, he declared that this covenant, like other “pactes d'alliance ou de fraternités d'armes,” “s'accompagn[e] d'un échange de sang: quelques gouttes, mêlées à du vin dans une couple dont chacun boit la moitié.” See Minois, Georges, Du Guesclin (Paris, 1993), 371–73 (assigning the agreement the incorrect date of 23 October, which, curiously, is found in other editions, such as that in Nouvelle collection des mémoires , ed. Michaud, Poujoulat et al., 1:573–74).Google Scholar

¹⁷ McFarlane, , “A Business-partnership,” 309–10.Google Scholar

¹⁸ See above, Introduction, following n. 41; de Sainte-Palaye, La Curne, Mémoires 1:279–81 (1826 ed., 1:239–40); Keen, , “Brotherhood in Arms,” 8–9, 13, 15. Economic interests played a significant role in the relationship between two young sworn brothers from southern France during the reign of Louis XII (1498–1515). Pierre de Bourdeille, lord of Brantôme (1540–1614), recounts the astonishing (and doubtless partly fictive) career of these two “frères d'alliance et de fortune,” in his “Discours sur les couronnels de l'infanterie de France,” in œuvres complètes , ed. Lalanne, Ludovic, 11 vols., Publications de la Société de l'histoire de France 127, 132, 136, 143, 149, 163, 168, 172, 177, 199, 207 (Paris, 1864–82), 5:398–405; see de Sainte-Palaye, La Curne, Mémoires 1:278 (1826 ed., 1:237–38).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Histoire de Gaston IV, comte de Foix , par Guillaume Leseur; chronique française inédite du XV ^e siècle , ed. Courteault, Henri, 2 vols., Publications de la Société de l'histoire de France 263, 277 (Paris, 1893–96), 2:308–9 no. X. Both participants excepted the king and dauphin; the count of Foix excepted the king of Navarre, and Brézé the king of Sicily. Cf. the terms of the oath, sworn on the gospels, recorded in the fifteenth-century Catalan romance Tirant lo Blanc : Martorell, Joanot and de Galba, Marti Joan, Tirant lo Blanc , ed. Gómez, Victor, 3 vols., Biblioteca d'autors valencians (Valencia, 1990), 3:1002–5 (chap. 330); see Keen, , “Brotherhood in Arms,” 6. In the alliance recorded on 14 November 1412 between the distant cousins Thomas, duke of Clarence, and Charles, duke of Orléans, Thomas pledged to be “vray et bon parent, frere, compaygnon d'armes et amy” to his “cousin.” The act is said to have been written, signed, and sealed by Thomas, but does not describe any special ceremony. See Choix de pièces relatives au règne de Charles VI , ed. Douet-d’ Arcq, Louis, Publications de la Société de l'histoire de France 119, 123 (Paris, 1863–64), 1:359 no. 158; Keen translates the act, in “Brotherhood in Arms,” 6.Google Scholar

²⁰ Du Cange, , “Dissertation XXI,” 265–66. Keen's general analysis of the bonds between brothers-in-arms (“Brotherhood in Arms,” 1–2, 5, 12) reflects the terminology of this act. As Keen recently wrote me, “where people pledge the faith of the body, I assume they are simply saying they are ready to die for whatever they promise.” On Boswell's use of the act, see above, n. 2 and the accompanying text; regarding the document, he comments (SSU, 188), “Its many and profound differences from the ceremony of same-sex union will be obvious to the reader.” Du Cange's edition of the original pact (which has apparently disappeared) unfortunately omits the dating clause, although since Charles is called duke of Burgundy it must have been enacted after his father Philippe's death on 15 June 1467, and after Louis XI instructed his envoys on 17 November 1471 to propose such an alliance to Charles: Contamine, Philippe, “Un serviteur de Louis XI dans sa lutte contre Charles le Téméraire: Georges de la Trémoille, sire de Craon (vers 1437–1481),” Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France (1976–77): 63–80 at 73; Bittmann, Karl, Ludwig XI. und Karl der Kühne. Die Memoiren des Philippe de Commynes als historische Quelle, 2 vols., Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 9 (Göttingen, 1964–70), 1:566. Antoine Vyon d'Herouval, auditor of the Chambre des comptes in Paris, provided Du Cange with this agreement and the compact of 1370 between Du Guesclin and Clisson, as well as additional information relating to sworn brotherhood; on him, see Brown, Elizabeth A. R., “Franks, Burgundians, and Aquitanians” and the Royal Coronation Ceremony in France, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 82⁷ (Philadelphia, 1992), 28–30. Vyon d'Herouval doubtless found the material in the Chambre des comptes, whose archives burned in 1737. Du Cange notes that the compact between Louis and Charles was a minute or slightly abbreviated copy made for the clerk of the Parlement of Paris; cf. Boswell, , SSU, 343 n. 359.Google Scholar

²¹ des Ursins, Juvenal, “Histoire de Charles VI,” 444 (1407; “ils oüyrent tous la messe ensemble, et receurent le corps de Nostre Seigneur. Et prealablement jurerent bon amour et fraternité” [italics mine]); 456–57 (1411; a detailed description of the ceremony in letters distributed by Orléans’ heirs denouncing his murder), 553 (1419; criticism of the duke of Burgundy by councilors of the dauphin). Du Cange (“Dissertation XXI,” 264–65) prints excerpts from the sections without discussing their context. Bernard Guenée provides background, in Un meurtre, une société. L'assassinat du duc d'Orléans, 23 novembre 1407, Bibliothèque des histoires (Paris, 1992). See also Keen, , “Brotherhood in Arms,” 4 and n. 15 above.Google Scholar

²² Alfred Coville discusses other chronicle sources and the brief against the duke of Burgundy presented in 1408, in Jean Petit. La question du tyrannicide au commencement du XV^e siècle (Paris, 1932), 384–87; see also Guenée, , Un meurtre, 203–8; and de Sainte-Palaye, La Curne, Mémoires 1:226–27 (1826 ed., 1:192–93).Google Scholar

²³ de Thurocz, Johannes, Chronica Hungarorum, vol. 1 (Textus), ed. Galántai, Elisabeth and Kristó, Julius, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Medii Recentisque Aevorum, new ser. 7 (Budapest, 1985), 276, chap. 254 (“Et, ne rex ipse apud comitem Ladislaum quandocumque de exigenda mortis fraterne vindicta suspectus haberetur, utrosque comites, Ladislaum scilicet et Mathiam fideli sub iuramento super sacratissimo corpore Christi prestito in fratres adoptavit, eodemque sub iuramento nunquam futuris in temporibus aliquam tallionem comitibus ab eisdem ratione previa se exigere velle spopondit. Et in tam gloriose fraternalis adoptionis signum ambos comites lugubri vestimento, quod paterne mortis in memoriam deferebant, exui iussit, ac eosdem propria sua pro persona rubeo de purpure sartitis vestibus amicire fecit”). I am grateful to Janos Bak for helping me to locate this passage and to him and Ivan Jurković for discussing it with me. Tamassia (L'affratellamento, 74 n. 3) cited this incident but wrongly dated it 1494.Google Scholar

²⁴ On Gerald's name and life, see O'Meara's, John J. introduction to his translation of Gerald's Topographia: The First Version of The Topography of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis (Dundalk, 1951), 1–6; the introduction by Scott, A. B. to his and Martin's, F. X. ed. and trans. of Gerald's Expugnatio Hibernica: The Conquest of Ireland, A New History of Ireland; Royal Irish Academy, Ancillary Publications 3 (Dublin, 1978), xii–xvi; Gillingham, John, “The English Invasion of Ireland,” in Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict, 1534–1660, ed. Bradshaw, Brendan, Hadfield, Andrew and Maley, Willy (Cambridge, 1993), 24–42 esp. 33–34; and Gillingham, John, “The Beginnings of English Imperialism,” Journal of Historical Sociology 5 (1992): 392–409, at 397. Richard Colt Hoare called Gerald “Giraldus de Barri” in his translation of Gerald's Welsh works, published in 1806: The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, a.d. MCLXXXVIII. by Giraldus de Barri; Translated into English, and Illustrated with Views, Annotations, and a Life of Giraldus, 2 vols. (London, 1806).Google Scholar

²⁵ Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. Brewer, John Sherren et al., 8 vols., Rolls Series 21 (London, 1861–91), 5 (Giraldi Cambrensis Topographia Hibernica, et Expugnatio Hibernica , ed. Dimmock, James Francis, 1867), 164–65 (Distinctio III, cap. XIX), 181 (Distinctio III, cap. XXXV). For a suggestive parallel, see Jonathan Goldberg's discussion of apologists associated with the conquest of the Americas who justified the enterprise by accusing all Indians of sodomy: Sodometries: Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities (Stanford, 1992), 179–222. On the Topographia, see O'Meara, , First Version, 1–7; Scott's introduction to Expugnatio Hibernica, xv, xvii–xx, xxvii–xxxi; Gillingham, , “Beginnings,” 399, 403, and also 403–4 (English views of Celtic marriage and sexual practices); idem, “English Invasion,” 24, 26–27, 36–38; Richter, Michael, Giraldus Cambrensis: The Growth of the Welsh Nation, 2nd ed. (Aberystwyth, 1976), 4–11, 27, 62; and Bartlett, Robert, Gerald of Wales, 1146–1223, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford, 1982), esp. 4–5, 21, 25, 37–45, 58, 59, 75, 178, 185, 213.Google Scholar

²⁶ Boswell considers Gerald's description of the ceremony (SSU, 259–61, 264) proof that the rite of adelphopoiesis was performed in Ireland. He characterizes the passage as “a vivid firsthand description,” although he also remarks (ibid., 260 n. 194) that “it might be argued that Gerald's vehement hostility to the Irish and generally bitter tone justify reading the whole passage as sarcasm.” Google Scholar

²⁷ “De argumento nequitiæ, et novo desponsationis genere. Inter alia multa artis iniquæ figmenta, hoc unum habent tanquam præcipuum argumentum. Sub religionis et pacis obtentu ad sacrum aliquem locum conveniunt, cum eo quem oppetere cupiunt. Primo compaternitatis fœdera jungunt: deinde ter circa ecclesiam se invicem portant: postmodum ecclesiam intrantes, coram altari reliquiis sanctorum appositis, sacramentis multifarie præstitis, demum missæ celebratione, et orationibus sacerdotum, tanquam desponsatione quadam indissolubiliter fœderantur. Ad ultimum vero, ad majorem amicitiæ confirmationem, et quasi negotii consummationem, sanguinem sponte ad hoc fusum uterque alterius bibit. Hoc autem de ritu gentilium adhuc habent, qui sanguine in firmandis fœderibus uti solent. O quoties in ipso desponsationis hujus articulo, a viris sanguinum et dolosis tam dolose et inique funditur sanguis, ut alteruter penitum maneat exsanguis! O quoties eadem hora et incontinenti vel sequitur vel prævenit, vel etiam inaudito more sanguinolentum divortium ipsam interrumpit desponsationem!”: Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 5:167 (Distinctio III, cap. XXII). Du Cange quotes from this text (Sub religionis … indissolubiliter fœderantur, ad majorem … negotii consummationem), and, suggesting that compaternitatis should be read as confraternitatis, cites it as evidence that “les Irlandois semblent auoir pratiqué quelque chose de semblable [aux fraternités]”: “Dissertation XXI,” 264. Boswell prints and translates the passage, in SSU, 259–60; he criticizes Thomas Wright's rendition, referring to it as “the sole published English translation” (ibid., 260 n. 194); O'Meara's far more accurate version appeared in 1951 (see The First Version, esp. 92).Google Scholar

²⁸ Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. and trans. Scott, and Martin, , 6.Google Scholar

²⁹ Pitt-Rivers, , “Ritual Kinship in the Mediterranean,” 317–18; see also Lynch, , Godparents, 192–201; and, above, the Introduction, n. 45 and the accompanying text. Boswell interpreted compaternitatis fædera to mean “pacts of kinship” (SSU, 259) although “kinship” does not reflect the common paternity that compater literally implies; of the agreements he commented (ibid., n. 192), “This could be the equivalent of negotiations at the beginning of a heterosexual ceremony at the door of the church, or something completely different.” O'Meara translates the phrase (First Version, 92) as “a treaty on the basis of their common fathers,” but this seems to me misleading. It is important to remember that compater had a wide range of meanings in medieval Latin. Although it ordinarily seems to have signified “godfather,” it was also used, more broadly, to mean “comrade” or “companion.” Google Scholar

³⁰ Giraldi Cambrensis Opera 5:164–65 (Distinctio III, cap. XIX: “De Hiberniensibus in fidei rudimentis incultissimis”); see Bartlett, , Gerald of Wales, 37–38.Google Scholar

³¹ See above, Introduction, n. 13.Google Scholar

³² “Nam omnes barbari illi et eorum duces ac magistratus sanguinem venæ præcordialis in magno vase per minutionem fuderunt, et fusum sanguinem insuper perturbantes miscuerunt, et mixtum postea sibi ad invicem propinantes exhauserunt, in signum quod essent ex tunc in antea indissolubili et quasi consanguineo fœdere colligati, et in prosperis et adversis usque ad capitum expositionem indivisi”: Paris, Matthew, Chronica majora, ed. Luard, Henry Richards, 7 vols., Rolls Series 57 (London, 1872–83), 3:365 (under the year 1236); cited by Du Cange (“Dissertation XXI,” 264) and Tamassia, (L'affratellamento, 13–14 n. 3). Matthew Paris does not suggest that the church was involved in the rite. Peter Linehan sees in Matthew Paris's statement regarding the Scottish chiefs “[confirmation of] what Gerald of Wales had reported”: see “In Isherwood Country: Same-Sex Unions in the Medieval Balkans,” his review of Boswell's book, in The Times Literary Supplement, 4795 (24 February 1995): 6–7, at 6.Google Scholar

³³ Matthew's editor, Henry Richards Luard, placed the marginal comment “Barbarous custom of the chiefs of Galloway” next to the account of the Scottish ceremony: Chronica majora 3:365; see Linehan as cited in the preceding note.Google Scholar

³⁴ Geraldi Cambrensis Opera, 5:108 (Topographia Hibernica) (“Parum enim ante adventum Anglorum in insulam, ex coitu viri cum vacca, quo vitio præcipue gens ista laborat … vitulum virilem bos edidit”; Distinctio II, cap. XXII [“De semibove viro semiviroque bove”]); 164–65 (men's seduction of and marriage to their dead brothers’ wives; Distinctio III, cap. XIX [“De Hiberniensibus in fidei rudimentis incultissimis”]); 6:215 (Descriptio Kambriæ) (saying that the ancestors of the Welsh lost Troy and Britain because of the detestabili illo [peccato] et nefando Sodomitico, but that “multo jam tempore adeo a Britonibus enormitas illa prorsus evanuit”). See Bartlett, , Gerald of Wales, 43–44.Google Scholar

³⁵ Simeon of Durham, Opera Omnia, 1:219; Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 17–18.Google Scholar

³⁶ Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 15–17. Greenway and Arnold review various chronicles’ accounts of Edmund's death, in their editions of Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum , ed. Greenway, , 361–63 nn. 69–70, and ed. Arnold, , 186 nn. a–b.Google Scholar

³⁷ Simeon of Durham, Opera Omnia 2:174–75 (Historia Regum); Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 18; see n. 5 above.Google Scholar

³⁸ Malaterra, Gaufredus, Historia Sicula, 54; Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 14, 18.Google Scholar

³⁹ Champion, Pierre, Guillaume de Flavy, capitaine de Compiègne. Contribution à l'histoire de Jeanne d'Arc et à l’étude de la vie militaire et privée au XV ^e siècle (Paris, 1906), vii–ix, 1, 63–77, 90, 103, 110, and esp. the editions of arguments before the Parlement of Paris on 13 August 1444 (217–24 no. LXXI, at 219, 221) and 11 February 1445 (224–27 no. LXXII, at 225–26), and the Parlement's final decree of 7 September 1509, which forced Flavy's greatniece and heir Jeanne to make amends to Rieux's heir (272–77 no. CVIII). See Keen, , “Brotherhood in Arms,” 5, 10–11, and, for another compact that failed of its purpose, ibid., 12 at n. 46.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See above n. 20 and the accompanying text; Contamine, , “Un serviteur,” provides useful bibliography.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Thurocz, , Chronica Hungarorum, 277–84 (chaps. 255–58).Google Scholar

⁴² “[F]undata est ecclesia Sancti Georgii in castello Oxoniensi a Roberto de Olleyo primo et Rogero de Iuereyo tempore regis Willelmi Bastard. Qui in dicta ecclesia canonicos seculares instituerunt, & certos redditus de duabus baroniis predictis eisdem assignauerunt de ecclesiis, terris, decimis, & possessionibus, & rebus aliis”: Cartulary of Oseney Abbey, 4:1. The charter that accompanies these entries, which granted the church various property, was issued by Robert d'Oilly alone, with the consent of his wife and two brothers. In it, Robert says that he had founded the church “for the salvation of King Henry and the safety of the whole realm” (quam ecclesiam ego fundaui pro salute regis Henrici & incolumitate tocius regni), and also for the salvation of himself, his wife and brothers, and their relatives and friends. King Henry I's confirmation of the church's property rights, issued ca. 1127, also refers to the church as Robert d'Oilly's foundation without mentioning Roger d'Ivry (quam Robertus de Oilleio fundauit in castello Oxenefordie). Domesday Book, however, shows that Roger possessed property in a number of the places mentioned in King Henry's confirmation, and that he and Robert jointly held lands in others: Salter, Herbert Edward, Facsimiles of Early Charters in Oxford Muniment Rooms (Oxford, 1929), no. 58. No surviving document reveals precisely what part Roger played in the foundation, but the cartulary's statement indicates that it was substantial, if secondary to the generosity manifested by Robert d'Oilly.Google Scholar

⁴³ Maddicott, , Simon de Montfort, 272–73, 277, 295–96, 350, 370–71.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 109–11; Hamilton, Jeffrey S., Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, 1307–1312: Politics and Patronage in the Reign of Edward II (Detroit and London, 1988), 99–107.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ “Quod militari professione rarum erat”: Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denys 3:64 (bk. 23, chap. 14 [1402–3]), where Du Guesclin is also called Sancerre's consors; see above, Introduction, n. 22, and above, following n. 15, for Du Guesclin's compact with Clisson. On Du Guesclin, see also de Sainte-Palaye, La Curne, Mémoires 1:230–31 (interpreting the chronicler's phrases to signify that the two were “frères d'armes”), 273 (reporting that in 1372, Du Guesclin referred to Sancerre as “mon frère de Sanxerre”), 280–81 (1826 ed., 1:195, 233, 239–40); Keen utilizes these passages, in “Brotherhood in Arms,” 7, 9. La Curne uses Claude Menard's abridged prose edition of the Life of Bertrand du Guesclin published in 1614 (Mémoires, 1:226, 278–81 [1826 ed., 191–92, 238–40]). Francisque Michel discusses the complex manuscript tradition of the versions of the Life in prose and poetry, in Chronique de Du Guesclin, collationnée sur l'édition originale du XV^e siècle, et sur tous les manuscrits, avec une notice bibliographique et des notes, Bibliothèque choisie par une société de gens de lettres, sous la direction Laurentie, de M., III^e section, Histoire et Mémoires historiques (Paris, 1830), 1–26. Comparison of La Curne's references and citations with similar passages in the original poetic version suggest the need for more systematic analysis and comparison of the surviving texts. See Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin par Cuvelier, trouvère du XIV^ème siècle publiée pour la première fois , ed. Charrière, Ernest, 2 vols., Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de France …, 1st ser., Histoire politique (Paris, 1839).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ “Et sic patria incepit in pulcritudine permanere et requie temporalium opulenta”: Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denis 2:115–16; see the Introduction, n. 22, above. The chronicle reports that when Duke Jean IV went to the French court to marry his son to the king's daughter, he entrusted Clisson with his wife, children, and patria. This incident must have occurred either in December 1396, when the duke betrothed his son and namesake to Charles VI's daughter Jeanne, or seven months later, when the young couple was married: Henneman, , Olivier de Clisson, 190, 303 n. 8 (citing several secondary sources). Later relations between Clisson and Jean IV and (after Jean's death in 1399) Jean's heirs were not quite as tranquil as La Curne de Sainte-Palaye suggests, in Mémoires 1:276–77 (1826 ed., 1:236–37); see Henneman, , Olivier de Clisson, 190–98. It is noteworthy, however, that in 1402 Clisson was chosen to knight Jean's heir and namesake, and his younger son Arthur: ibid., 193.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ McFarlane, , “A Business-partnership,” 304–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Hubert, Jean and Pierre, Joseph, “Lettre familière d'André de Chauvigny, chevalier berrichon, à son frère d'armes Lyonet d'Oreilhe,” Revue du Berry et du Centre: Revue d'archéologie, d'histoire, de science, de littérature et d'art. Organe trimestriel de l'Académie du Centre (Châteauroux) (1930): 66–70.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See the useful observations of Contamine, Guerre, état et société , 481–84 esp. 484 (on the difficulty of determining what sort of ceremonial was used in connection with compacts contracted by men-at-arms for mutual assistance and profit).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See de Sainte-Palaye, La Curne, Mémoires, 1:225, 230, 275, 276 (Lancelot du Lac, Jehan de Saintré, Perceforest) (1826 ed., 1:191, 195, 235); Tamassia, , L'affratellamento, 13, 31–32, 39–40 (sagas, Gesta romanorum, Lancelot du Lac, Nibelungenlied); Flach, , “Le compagnonnage” (Lancelot du Lac, Girard de Viane, Aiol, Daurel et Beton, Ogier, Chanson de Roland, Aye d'Avignon, Garin le Loherain, Amis et Amiles); Keen, , “Brotherhood in Arms,” 1–2, 6, 11 (Perceforest, Amis and Amiloun, Chaucer's Knight's Tale, Tiran lo Blanch); Boswell, , SSU, 258, 264 (Gesta romanorum); Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 18–19 (Chanson de Roland). The Life of Bertrand du Guesclin cited by La Curne (Mémoires, 1:226, 278–81 [1826 ed., 191–92, 238–40]) seems to fall somewhere between history and fiction; see n. 45 above. For sagas and Germanic literature, see above, Introduction, at nn. 31–32. Kretzenbacher's study of 1919 (“Serbisch-orthodoxe ‘Wahlbrüderung’ ”) provides useful bibliography regarding ritual brotherhood and fairy tales.Google Scholar

⁵¹ See de Sainte-Palaye, La Curne, Mémoires, 1:275 (1826 ed., 1:235) (citing Perceforest, for the oath “que l'ung ayderoit l'autre jusqu’à la mort, sauf son honneur; & par vraye amour suis-je venu avec luy en intention de le conforter & ayder de mon corps & de mon avoir, si comme il feroit de moy se mestier en avoye”). Note as well references to “pura affectio et sincera dilectio” found in two southern French fifteenth-century proprietary compacts of fraternitas , ed. in Aubenas, , “Contrat d’ ‘affrairamentum’,” 506 (21 December 1439, at Aix, between a man and his stepson); 508 (31 December 1443, at Aix, between two unrelated laborers).Google Scholar

⁵² “L'amour des rois: structure sociale d'une forme de sensibilité aristocratique,” Annales ESC 463 (1991): 547–71.Google Scholar

⁵³ Ibid., 555.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ SSU, 280–81; see also 259, 263–64. In Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago, 1980), 26 n. 48, Boswell stated that “homosexual marriages were well known in the Roman world.” Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Considering whether the relationship was erotic or sexual, he simply maintained (SSU, 189) that the ceremony “solemnize[d] a personal commitment,” and was “homosexual … in the most obvious sense of this word (‘of one sex’).” He said he found it difficult to determine whether the relationship formalized in the ceremony was sexual (although he thought that it probably was), first because “[m]ost premodern societies drew less rigid distinctions among ‘romance,’ ‘eroticism,’ ‘friendship,’ and ‘sexuality’ than do modern cultures,” and second, “since participants cannot be interrogated.” As to whether the relationship was a marriage, he stated (ibid., 190) that this depends on what “one's conception of marriage” is. Still, he concluded, “according to the modern conception — i.e., a permanent emotional union acknowledged in some way by the community — it was unequivocally a marriage.” Because of the rituals involved, the ceremony, he proposed (ibid., 191), “most likely signified a marriage in the eyes of most ordinary Christians.” Elsewhere he said (ibid., 196) that some Christians might have “[imagined the ‘unions’] to be merely working partnerships, others close personal friendships, and still others Christian same-sex unions (with or without an expressed sexual component),” and, in another place (ibid., 218–19), that “[m]any Christians may have understood such couplings [as that of Sergius and Bacchus] simply as an expression of devoted friendship.” Google Scholar

⁵⁶ SSU, 191; he does not explain why he qualifies “unknown”; in Christianity, 10, he emphasizes this same point, citing the example of Oscar Wilde.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Regarding the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, Richard William Southern remarks that “no one knew anything about, or had any interest in, innate homosexual tendencies”: Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge, 1990), 149; see also McGuire, , Friendship and Community, xviii-xix, 244, 302–4, 331. Alan Bray comments that Elizabethan England lacked “the idea of a distinct homosexual minority, although homosexuality was nonetheless regarded with a readily expressed horror”: “Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England,” in Queering the Renaissance , ed. Goldberg, Jonathan, Series Q (Durham, 1994), 40–61 at 40; see also Bray, , Homosexuality, esp. 16; Goldberg, , Sodometries, 18; and Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley, 1990), 2. Bray believes (Homosexuality, 92, 103–4, 112, 114) that “a separate homosexual culture and a distinctive homosexual identity,” together with “conceptions of homosexuality in a recognisably modern form” first appeared in eighteenth-century England. It is not clear to me, however, that those who ran and frequented molly houses were (and considered themselves to be) exclusively homosexual in orientation, an idea that I do not believe emerged until the twentieth century; it seems to me perfectly possible that they were (and considered themselves to be) bisexual. What sort of ceremony accompanied the mock marriages held in London's molly houses in the eighteenth century seems to be unclear; whether the participants played male and female roles also seems to be unknown: see Bray, , Homosexuality, 81–82, 86, 88; and Boswell, , SSU, 264–65.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ SSU, xxv.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ SSU, 191.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Woods (“Same-Sex Unions,” 329–30) makes the same comment in discussing the story of Ioann and Sergii in the Kievo-Pecherskii Paterik. Google Scholar

⁶¹ Contrast the appraisals of Barlow, Frank, in William Rufus (Berkeley, 1983), 101–9 (concluding that William was probably bisexual), 436–37 (presenting him as a homosexual); and of Boswell, , Christianity, 229–30 (declaring the charges of Ordericus Vitalis untrustworthy). Barlow's belief (William Rufus, 101–9 esp. 108, 436–37) that in the eleventh century the existence of single-sex military and religious communities and the church's advocacy of celibacy and hostility to women favored homosexual practices may in part explain his assumptions about William Rufus.Google Scholar

⁶² See Gillingham, John, “Richard I and Berengaria of Navarre,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 53 (1980): 157–73 at 169–71 (discounting the evidence of homosexual behavior that has been cited), and Boswell, , Christianity, 25, 46 (assuming that Richard was gay).Google Scholar

⁶³ Gillingham, , “Richard I,” 170. See also Boswell, , Christianity, 229–30 (commenting on styles of dress and grooming); Southern, , Saint Anselm, 150 (discussing Saint Anselm's passionate language [cf. Boswell, , Christianity, 218–20], and late-eleventh- and twelfth-century monastic life; on which see also McGuire, , Friendship, esp. 211–21, 232, 244–48); Bray, , “Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship,” 42 (treating analogous practices in Elizabethan England), and also 46–49 (on Marlowe's presentation of the relationship between Edward II and Piers Gaveston); and idem, Homosexuality, 26 (on John Taylor's ambiguous treatment of the relationship between Edward and Gaveston, and his stress on the immoderateness of Edward's love for the favorite as the cause of subsequent disasters). See also Bray, and Rey, , “The Body of the Friend”; and Stevens, Forrest Tyler, “Erasmus's ‘Tigress’: The Language of Friendship, Pleasure, and the Renaissance Letter,” in Queering the Renaissance , ed. Goldberg, , 124–40. 40. In “ ‘Two Names of Friendship, But One Starre’: Memorials to Single-Sex Couples in the Early Modern Period,” Church Monuments: Journal of the Church Monuments Society 10 (1995): 70–83, Jean Wilson seems to me overly inclined to perceive homosexual relationships between couples male and female; see esp. ibid., 71 (“an emotion which cannot be simply dismissed as friendship”), 73 (interpreting the words “Animorum Connubium,” “Sodalitium,” and “Consortium,” found on the tomb inscription of a man in Constantinople, as “explicit” evidence that his relationship with a friend was a “marriage”; note two references in the inscription to the couple's amicitia and [ibid., 76] a reference in the epitaph of one of them to the pair as amicissimi), 78–79 (on “[h]omosexual relationships and passionate friendships between women,” which Wilson judges “have never been perceived as presenting the same threat to society as such relationships between men”), 79 (noting the danger involved in “generalis[ing] about past human relationships,” but nonetheless concluding that the relationship between the two men whose funerary inscriptions have survived was “clear[ly] … homosexual,” by which she seems to mean that the couple engaged in homosexual intercourse). See the incisive comments of Bray and Rey, in “The Body of the Friend.” Google Scholar

⁶⁴ In Christianity, 10, 298–301, Boswell referred to Edward as a “gay monarch” and said that he and Gaveston were lovers for thirteen years. Hamilton similarly declares that “there is no question that the king and his favorite were lovers”: Piers Gaveston, 16–17; cf. ibid., 109–10.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 3, 5, 7–13, 20–22, and esp. 113–14 (where the phrase I quote appears on 113). I do not find completely convincing Chaplais's theory that Philip the Fair's permitting Isabelle to marry Edward is evidence that Edward's “ethics in love [conformed] to the high standard which [Philip] expected of a son-in-law,” or that Edward and Gaveston were not sexually involved: Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 9–10. The parsimonious, calculating French monarch gained many advantages from the marriage, and apparently avoided providing a traditional marriage portion for his daughter. Thus, he may have been less attentive than he should have been to any rumors regarding Edward's personal unsuitability for his daughter: Elizabeth Brown, A. R., Customary Aids and Royal Finances in Capetian France: The Marriage Aid of Philip the Fair, Medieval Academy Books 100 (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 15–25. Philip seems to have been openly hostile to Gaveston by May 1308, four months after the marriage of Edward and Isabelle in Boulogne-sur-Mer on 24 January (when, according to the contemporary Annales Paulini, Philip received Edward “with the greatest rejoicing and honor,” since “for a long time he had been wanting to see him”) and their coronation at Westminster on 25 February: Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 10; Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II , ed. Stubbs, William, 2 vols., Rolls Series 76 (London, 1882–83), 1:258. Philip's brother, Charles of Valois, and his half-brother, Louis of Évreux, attended the coronation, and they were reportedly scandalized by Edward's preference for Gaveston's triclinium (either “eating couch” or “dining room”) over his wife's — although their “indignation” could well have been prompted by the prominence accorded to Gaveston at the coronation (where his role eclipsed that accorded to Edward's two half-brothers [Philip the Fair's half-nephews], sons of Edward I and Marguerite of France, Philip's half-sister), as well as by the English barons’ hostility to him: Annales Paulini, in Chronicles , ed. Stubbs, , 1:261–62; Hamilton, , Piers Gaveston, 46–48; Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 42–45; Fawtier, Robert, “Un parlement franco-anglais en 1308” (orig. pub. 1955), in idem, Autour de la France capétienne. Personnages et institutions , ed. Fawtier Stone, Jeanne C. (London, 1987), XV at 423 (where Fawtier renders triclinium as “salle à manger”). The temper of relations between Edward and Philip (and between France and England) improved noticeably after Isabelle became pregnant in the early spring of 1312 with her first child (the future Edward III, born on 24 November 1312), and after Gaveston was murdered the following June: Brown, Elizabeth A. R., “The Prince Is Father of the King: The Character and Childhood of Philip IV of France,” Mediaeval Studies 49 (1987): 282–334 at 306–7 (repr. in eadem, The Monarchy of Capetian France and Royal Ceremonial [Aldershot, 1991], II); see also eadem, “The Political Repercussions of Family Ties in Early Fourteenth-Century France and England: The Marriage of Edward II and Isabelle of France,” Speculum 63 (1988): 573–95 esp. 583 at n. 24, and 582 n. 19 (where I assumed that Edward's sending Gaveston wedding gifts he had received from Philip the Fair implied a particularly close relationship between Edward and Gaveston; Chaplais [Piers Gaveston, 101–6 esp. 104], hypothesizes that Gaveston was Edward II's chamberlain, in which case the presents were probably dispatched to him for deposit in the royal chamber).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Chaplais (Piers Gaveston, 8–10) discusses Edward's relations with his wife Isabelle and with other women, and his children, legitimate and illegitimate; see also Hamilton, , Piers Gaveston, 110.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Keen, , “Brotherhood in Arms,” 8, 16; Chaplais, , Piers Gaveston, 19–20; Pitt-Rivers, , “The Kith and the Kin,” 97–98; Evans-Pritchard, , “Zande Blood-Brotherhood,” 387, 391, 398; Fortes, , Kinship and the Social Order, 237–41.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Rivière, P. O., “Marriage: A Reassessment,” in Rethinking Kinship and Marriage, ed. Needham, Rodney (London, 1971), 57–74 at 66, suggests that the fundamental significance of marriage is a “socially approved and recognized [relationship] between the conceptual roles of male and female,” whether or not it involved romantic attachment; see also 68–69 (manman and woman-woman marriages). Recent changes in conceptions of relationships between males and females makes this definition seem hopelessly outdated. For views that are similar to Rivière's, see Needham, Rodney, in “Remarks on the Analysis of Kinship and Marriage,” ibid., 1–34 at 5–8. In a recent letter, Alfred Soman commented that in sixteenth-century France the idea that marriage should involve “romantic” love “was regarded as dangerous and highly undesirable. To be ‘in love’ with one's wife was considered foolish and potentially disastrous.” Bray and Rey (“The Body of the Friend”), following Lawrence Stone and Randolph Turnbach, note the apparent increase in “companionate” ties between husbands and wives in eighteenth-century England and suggest that this change may be connected with altered views of male friendship and sodomy that appear to them to have emerged at this time.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ See the Introduction, above, at and following nn. 46 and 49.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ See Diane Purkiss, review of Hutson, Lorna, The Usurer's Daughter: Male Friendship and Fictions of Women in Sixteenth-Century England (London, 1994), in The Times Literary Supplement 4768 (19 August 1994): 23 (discussing Hutson's ideas concerning changes in representations of male friendship in the sixteenth century); David, , “Sur les traces,” 121. Bray (Homosexuality, 8, and also 104) notes the impossibility of treating homosexuality as “an essentially unchanging entity, itself above history.” Google Scholar

⁷¹ Cf. Alan Bray's comments on “the apparently inexhaustible capacity of the human mind to classify and categorise the world about it and then to live out those definitions and distinctions in a seemingly endless variety of ways”: “History, Homosexuality and God,” New Blackfriars 67 no. 800 (December 1986): 538–44, at 543.Google Scholar