[Artemisia] Picking Nits Over King Richard's bedplay

[Catherine Helm-Clark]

***SIGH***

Rant, Part 1

Silly silly people, it doesn't matter what modern or semi-modern  
bible translations say.  The only bible that matters in this case is  
the Vulgate, which was the bible in common use in Western Europe up  
until the time of Luther.  And the only interpretations that matter  
here are the ones that medieval people would have used based on the  
Latin Vulgate.

So here is Leviticus 20:13 from the Vulgate:

qui dormierit cum masculo coitu femineo uterque operati sunt nefas  
morte moriantur sit sanguis eorum super eos

I will opine here that the English translation of the Vulgate does  
not translate the Latin at all well.  (Side note: The English  
translation of the Vulgate is the Douay Bible, named after the 16th  
century seminary at Douay, France, where English priests were trained  
for underground ministry in protestant England.)  The Douay version is:

If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an  
abomination: let them be put to death. Their blood be upon them.

Now the important word here from the Vulgate is the intransitive verb  
coire (3rd pers. sing coitu).  It means to copulate according to my  
Latin dictionary.  So the meaning of having a roll in bed for the  
purpose of sex would have been loud and clear to the folks who could  
read and understand the Vulgate.  The next interesting word is nefas,  
which had a whole spectrum of usage.  The best known is declaring a  
day to be "nefas" because of bad omens.  It is a cursed day.  Acts  
that were nefas were forbidden, sacrilegious, sinful, ritually  
unpure.  The word hardly translates into modern English, it's so  
loaded with religious and ritualistic overtones that don't really  
exist in the "post-modern" secular world.

And since I'm having fun here splitting hairs, might I point out that  
the whole concept of being a homosexual is not even germane here.  As  
St. Paul stated just a little further on in 1 Corinthians, it's not  
the temptation that's at issue because temptation can be overcome.   
It is the act itself that is the sin.  Being straight or gay is not  
part of that equation; having sex with someone of your own gender is  
all that matters, regardless of your sexual orieintation.

So, the Vulgate version of Leviticus 20:13 is clear that it's hanky- 
panky in bed with someone of your own gender for males, and that the  
act is a big whopping sin.  Sexual orientation is not at issue, just  
the sin.

Let's move on to the next point.  1 Corinthians 6:9-10

9 an nescitis quia iniqui regnum Dei non possidebunt nolite errare  
neque fornicarii neque idolis servientes neque adulteri
10 neque molles neque masculorum concubitores neque fures neque avari  
neque ebriosi neque maledici neque rapaces regnum Dei possidebunt

Let's take the nouns apart, shall we?  Without reaching for my Douay,  
here are my own translations:

fornicarii  = fornificators
idolis servientes = idolators (lit. followers of idols)
adulteri = adulterors
molles = the effeminent (pl.)  (transliteration: girly-boys?)
masculorum concubitores = male prostitutes
fures = thieves
avari = the greedy
ebriosi = drunkards
maledici = liars (lit. people who say bad/false things, maligners?)
rapaces = con men

Now let's look at the Douay:

9 Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God?  
Do not err: Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers:
10 Nor the effeminate nor liers with mankind nor thieves nor covetous  
nor drunkards nor railers nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom  
of God.

Now isn't that interesting?  Moral of story: translation is a  
slippery slope - but first, make sure you're using the right primary  
source to begin with, which is this case is the Vulgate, the bible  
that Richard I grew up with.  By the way, he was quite fluent in  
Latin...

I'm not going to bother with doing Romans.  I think I've made my point.

Rant, Part 2

Given that at least Leviticus (and maybe Roman) condemn the act of  
male-with-male sex, how did this get carried over into 12th C. Anglo- 
Norman society?  My opinion is that people perceived same-gender sex  
as not a good thing.  Why do I say this?  Because a common slander  
was to accuse a man of doing it with little boys or other men.   For  
example: Richard's Chancellor, William Longshanks, Bishop of Ely, a  
man hated throughout England, was variously accused of hating women,  
sleeping with little boys, being effeminant, and having a preference  
for dressing up in women's clothing (sources: Roger Hoveden's annals,  
Bishop of Coventry's chronicle).  He was accused of many other things  
too (e.g. Gerald of Cambridge's chronicle) - but that's not the  
point.  The point of the example is to merely show that behaviors  
associated with homosexual acts were not culturally acceptable in  
England or France during Richard's time.

Rant, Part 3

It is Hoveden's annals that have led to the modern interpretation  
that Richard was gay.  You can read the pertinent passages at: http:// 
www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/hoveden1.html

The theory that he was gay is more popular with non-historians than  
with historians.  Regardless, there is not historical a consensus as  
to  Richard's sexual orientation.  I think it's instructive to list  
the arguments for and against Richard's being gay.

Pro:
Richard and Beregaria has no children
Con 1:
Richard had at least one illegitimate son
Con 2:
Not every childless couple lacks children because one partner is  
gay.  Infertility is just as good a reason.

Pro:
The Hoveden annals show Richard and Phillip Augustus sharing the same  
bowl, goblet, activities and bed.
Con 1:
Such behavior was not uncommon between very good but straight friends  
at the time
Con 2:
Richard was a shrewd politician.  His behavior with Phillip of France  
may have had more to do with keeping up his alliance with the King of  
France in opposition to his father, Henry II, than his affections for  
the Dauphin.  He did not have the backing at the time to face down  
his father on his own.

Pro 1:
Richard made a public confession of sin right before he married  
Berengaria and again in 1195.  In the second, he was admonished to  
avoid the fate of Sodom and to avoid "unlawful" acts.
Con 1:
It's a fine distinction, but a distinction none the less, that there  
is a difference between the sins of Sodom and the fate of Sodom for  
its sins.
Con 2:
Given that Richard did have a son, it is possible that Richard's  
activities were infidelity and playing fast and loose sexually before  
marriage.
Pro 2:
If the charge of sodomy was actually voiced (and that might not have  
been - Hoveden is not an unbiased source), then it is damning.  The  
important question here is how did people of Richard's day interpret  
the sin of sodomy?  It's that interpretation we need to consider  
since it is the only one that Richard and his contemporaries would  
have known.  There is no better source than Aquinas, and it is clear  
that he equated the sins of Sodom with homosexual acts.

Con:
When the men of Sodom demand that Lot release his three visitors so  
that the crowd may "come to know them," the verb used in the Vulgate  
is cognoscere, to meet, to be acquainted, to investigate.
Pro:
This verb is repeated in the next verse where Lot offers the crowd  
his daughters instead of his visitors, which makes it possible that  
cognoscere probably means rape in this context.

Con:
Richard was very unpopular in some quarters.  He wasn't nice to  
scribes and he behaved horribly on occasion.  The chronicle which  
actually uses "Sodom" in it was by Roger of Hoveden (or Howden).  He  
worked for Henry II and was partial to him during the revolt of  
Henry's sons (including Richard).  He went on the third crusade in  
the entourage of Phillip Augustus, King of France who was Richard's  
adversary after the end of the crusade.  Hoveden didn't pull his  
punches in his assessment of the Bishop of Ely, especially for  
wearing a dress in his attempt to escape England for France, and  
Hoveden made all sorts of nasty inferences thereby over the Bishop's  
sexual orientation.  Hoveden was not really a fan of Richard's.  The  
charge of sodomy on Hoveden's part could easily be a case of slander  
using the pretext of Richard's confessions so make a plausible  
exaggeration of Richard's sins.  Just remember who was writing  
Hoveden's paycheck...

Con: Hoveden mentioned sodomy but the folk traditions of other  
countries paint Richard in a different light.  In Austria, where I  
once resided, there is a folk tradition that the daughter of Leopold,  
Margrave of Osterreich, fell in love with Richard during his  
imprisonment in Durnstein Castle (whose ruins I once spent a happy  
day climbing).

Rant, Part 4

Why was Richard so popular?  The legend of the man started during his  
lifetime.  He was a figure larger than life and he was easily the  
best general of his day.  In the age of the Church Militant, where  
soldiering for Christ was an admired calling, Richard was a superstar  
war hero.  And Richard was followed by the incredibly unpopular reign  
of his brother John; the comparison between the two didn't hurt  
Richard's reputation and growing legend one bit.

If you look at the kings that medieval Englishmen admired the most,  
all of them were successful war leaders.

Rant, Part 5

To say that Gibbon attributed the fall of Rome to the rise of  
Christianity is not an accurate reading of Gibbon's work.  Gibbon  
listed a constellation of progressive causes for the fall of Rome  
(Chapter 71), which included: "the disorders of military despotism;  
the rise, establishment and sects of Christianity....the division of  
the monarchy; the invasion and settlements of the barbarians of  
Germany and Scythia" among others.  Of all the causes that  
contributed to the fall of the western Roman empire, Gibbon argued  
that the most important cause of all was the internal civil strife of  
the Romans themselves which weakened them from within.

Gibbon's most elegant conclusion on the fall of the western empire is  
worth quoting in its entirety (Chapter 38):

"The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as a  
singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind.  But the  
decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate  
greatness.  Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of  
destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as  
time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous  
fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.  The story of its  
ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman  
empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that is had  
subsisted so long."

If you have never read Gibbon, you should.  His sources were limited  
compared to now but there is still no work quite like it.  He was the  
first and only historian to encompass the fall of both roman empires  
based on primary sources which he translated himself.  His command of  
written english is surpassed perhaps only be Churchill.  The Decline  
and Fall of the Roman Empire was a virtuoso effort that has never  
been repeated in scope or depth.

I'll stop now before we all fall asleep...

ttfn
Therasia