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One Hundred Years of Sodomy: Courtliness and the Deployment of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century Histories of Britain

One Hundred Years of Sodomy: Courtliness and the Deployment of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century Histories of Britain

By William Christopher Brown

Hortulus: The Online Community for Graduate Students in Medieval Studies, vol. 3 (2007)

Abstract: This article analyzes the affect of time and the rise of courtly culture on the representation of “sodomy” in three twelfth-century histories of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniæ (c. 1136), Wace’sRoman De Brut (c. 1155), and Lawman’s Brut (c. 1185-1216). The author’s analysis offers insights into how ideological representations of courtliness, masculinity, and sexuality in texts exert an influence on medieval men’s bodies.

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