Columns
Stonehenge to Stonewall
Stonehenge
to Stonewall
Or Gay History In A Nutshell
Unnatural
Law
by
Charles Emond
Looking for signs of gay life in the universe of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one is dazzled by any number of stars. This month, I have picked out three – one from each century – each as gay as any buffed thirtysomething marching down Church Street under a rainbow flag; each brilliant, talented, and ahead of their times; each respected to this day for their contributions to humankind.
Unlucky in love
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), the illegitimate son of an educated priest, was the greatest spirit of the Northern Renaissance: the most famous scholar of his age and a prolific writer. He entered the monastery at age 22, and promptly fell in love with a fellow monk named Servatious Roger, to whom he wrote intimate letters pouring out his very soul. “I have become yours so completely that nothing of myself is left.” To which Roger replied, “What is wrong with you?” and told him to knock it off.
Not surprisingly, Erasmus came to hate the monastery, and finally got out on leave to work with a bishop. In Paris, the 32-year old took on two students, one of them a tall, handsome, golden-haired – and very straight – young man named Thomas Grey, with whom he also fell in love. (Didn’t this guy ever learn?)
He wanted to reform the Church from within, but he is accused of (or credited with, depending on your viewpoint) “laying the egg that Martin Luther hatched.” He held the radical view that Christianity is an attitude of the inner spirit, not a matter of laws and ceremonies. Of Christ, he said, “He commanded us nothing save love for one another.”
Oh, those unmeet practices!
Then there was Francis Bacon (1561-1626), one of two gay sons. Their mother, Lady Bacon, wrote them endless letters of advice on how to live, to avoid “practices unmeet,” and “pernicious and obscene plays and theatres able to poison the very godly.” Both ignored her advice completely. An acquaintance wrote of Bacon that he was “keeping still one Goderick, a very effeminate youth to be his catamite and bedfellow. Nor did he ever forbear his old custom of making his servants his bedfellows.”
Bacon was a brilliant thinker. He brought science to its senses. For example, instead of speculating on the sex lives of rabbits, he suggested that one might actually catch a few, observe them in action, and THEN write about them. (Hey, this is radical stuff to the guys who wrote about a male rabbit growing a new anus each year!)
He also spoke up for religious tolerance, even on behalf of those dreadful Puritans. I mean, this guy didn’t even hate Catholics in a time when everybody – even Catholics – hated Catholics! English Protestants called Rome “a cistern of sodomy.” Then there is the story related by Boccacio of the Jew who visited Rome and converted to Christianity, declaring that any church that could survive the vileness of its representatives MUST be the true church.
One day, following his interest in things scientific, Francis tried to preserve a chicken by packing it in snow. In the process, he caught pneumonia and died. Quentin Crisp would have called Francis Bacon one of the “stately homos of England.”
The High Flying Nun
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695) was born in Mexico, then called New Spain. She asked to enroll in the University of Mexico at the age of seven and learned to read the classics in Latin before she was eight. No Barbie dolls for this kid!
At 15, she joined the court of the Spanish Viceroy and proceeded to astound them with poetry in Latin, Spanish, and Aztec. She was called the “Tenth Muse” by the many courtiers who adored her and vied for her favor.
After a few years as the center of attention at the Vice-regal Court, she joined the convent specifically to avoid marriage. Judging from her passionate poems and letters to women of the court, concludes Andrew Harvey, “it is impossible to doubt that Sor Juana was lesbian.”
She is famous for her mystical poetry, yet she was a true Renaissance woman who could do just about anything from cooking (she baked a mean puff pastry) to moral theology. She learned to play several musical instruments and was a painter of some note.
Yet in the male-dominated world of the church, she was subject to incredible oppression. The church fathers regulated her reading and writing. She was even ordered to cease her studies at one point. To these guys, dealing with a woman of such intellect was rather like finding a singing pig – they just didn’t know quite what to make of her.
Like Bacon, she had a deep interest in scientific experiments. She called herself, “the worst woman in the world” yet she got along remarkably well with the other nuns, rich and poor. She is described as “affable and gracious.”
Erasmus, Francis Bacon and Sor Juana were brilliant, widely acclaimed by their contemporaries and celebrated by those who came after. They were also all ahead of their times and all uniquely gay. If you want bright stars, they form a triangular constellation of the first magnitude.
Next time: A Royal Flush
For More Information:
This gay history column is the 21st in a series that began in prehistory. My research for this column comes mainly from two excellent biographical collections: Gay Men and Women Who Enriched the World by Thomas Cowan, a very readable collection, and Homosexuals in History by A.L.Rowse, a rather more erudite approach. I also used Andrew Harvey’s Gay Mystics for the information on Sor Juana.
Charlie Emond has a bachelor’s degree from Queens College and master’s degrees from both Dartmouth and Keene State. He teaches college history courses in Springfield and White River Junction. He has developed an on line course - Hidden History: Homosexuality in Western Civilization - for the Community College of Vermont.