Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe (Paperback)

by John Boswell (Author)
Key Phrases: collateral adoption, heterosexual ceremonies, heterosexual ceremony, Middle Ages, New Testament, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The acceptance and sanctification of homosexual relations in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches during Medieval Europe are examined in this scholarly work.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Not since Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1981) have Christians of all creeds confronted a work that makes them look so closely at their notions of the relationship between the church and its gay and lesbian believers. Diligently researched and documented, this immensely scholarly work covers everything from the "paired" saints of Perpetua and Felicitas and Serge and Bacchus to lesbian transvestites in Albania. Examining evidence that the early church celebrated a same-sex nuptial liturgy, Boswell compares both Christian same-sex unions to Christian heterosexual unions and non-Christian same-sex unions to non-Christian heterosexual unions. Appendixes contain, among other things, translations and transcriptions of cited documents. Whether or not minds are changed on the matter will probably fall along sectarian lines, according to current attitudes on homosexuality. However, the work will provoke dialog. A groundbreaking book for academic, public, and theological libraries.
--Lee Arnold, Historical Society of Pennsylvania., Philadelphia
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (May 30, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679751645
• ISBN-13: 978-0679751649
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #340,503 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful authorship, profound implications, July 9, 2001

By	David Jankowski (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

At the very least, Boswell deserves credit for bringing to light centuries worth of church documents some people would probably prefer to ignore or even deny the existence of. This work is scholarly and includes a huge amount of notes in their original languages. Anyone interested can read for themselves and make their own translations. The reader should fully digest Boswell's careful explanation of the immense differences between ancient and modern conceptions of and formulations of "marriage", "friendship" and "romantic love". Boswell also includes some of the ceremonies themselves. Many are remarkable for their beauty and power. If you are at all religious, this book will help you in your search to reach a humane, compassionate understanding of the beauty of all the rich permutations of love our Creator has given us.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthy of consideration, but..., November 20, 2005

By	John P. Day (Edmonton, AB, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The "but" is well expressed in the last two reviews here. The issue revolves around a specific translation question, and it's a debatable one.

Father Kurt's review comes closest to mine. It takes careful reading,and it has some significant problems, but it does present the issues fairly, and many of the objections made in recent reviews are addressed in the book's text. It may well be arguing a debatable proposition, but it is not "intellectual claptrap". Dr. Boswell makes a game effort to argue that his documents are speaking of something more significant than proerty transfers or normal "friendships". It's quite another thing as to whether he succeeds.

Evaluating this book as a historian, I fond myself at a loss for the lingustic skills to make much of a judgement on most of his texts. His argument, if he could maintsin the linguistic argument in the context in which the documents were produced, otherwise is well put. To repeat, it is not "claptrap".

However, there was one exception where I do have some ability to assess one of his documents: an excerpt in Latin from Giraldus Cambriensis' "History and Topography of Ireland".

Dr. Boswell lays out the Latin text, then gives his translation, and then explains his justification for translating it in the way it does. All of which is quite proper. I had a run at the Latin myself, and while, yes, using some standard definitons, you CAN translate it the way he does, it works equally well as a rite for the formal allaince of families or kinship groups. Since the social structure of Ireland at the time was based almost entirely on kinship groups, that's the way scholars of Irish history would translate it, rather than as a form of personal union between two people. Charitably, one might suppose that 12th century Ireland was not familiar ground for him judging from his other work, it wasn't), so while he seems to have misunderstood the context here, I wouldn't say that he got it wrong elsewhere. I did find a factual error in one of his footnotes (there is another modern translation of which he was apparently unaware), although it was the type of slip which happens fairly easily.

Simply for that reason I've given, I would not take this book as more than advancing an ingenious hypothesis, which remains at best unproven. Still, it is worthy of consideration...and as far as scholarly works go, it's pretty readable. That in itself is a virtue!

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this NOW!!, March 30, 1998

By A Customer

After reading this fine book, I wished that there was some way I could thank Boswell for such a revelation. Knowing that this would be impossible since he passed away, there is no way to thank him, but simply to praise his work, and tell other people about it. This study in same-sex unions performed throughout premodern European history debunks the notiont that marriage was only performed between a male and a female. The book presents astounding facts and information that has been suppressed, or misinterpreted by homophobe bias. In the appendices of the book, there are actual transcriptions of the same-sex marriage ceremonies used, in the vernacular, and translated by Boswell into English. This study was made all the more fascinating by the wealth of footnotes. When Boswell came across an ambiguous word that could mean many things in different languages, he includes that specific word written in its own language in the text. The appearance of these arcane languages in the text were beautiful, and one could call them "eye candy." There was writing from ancient Greece, some Slavic languages, and Hebrew. This novel is a major contribution to European history, and history in general, and being a college student and a future professional historian myself, I am glad to know that Boswell's presence graced the field of history, and has brought the craft of history to new heights.