page_title: Sodomy
section_title: Medieval Christendom
hierarchical_section_title: Sodomy / History / Medieval Christendom
context_page_description: Sodomy or buggery is generally anal or oral sex between people or sexual activity between a person and a non-human animal, but it may also mean any non-procreative sexual activity. Originally, the term sodomy, which is derived from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Book of Genesis, was commonly restricted to anal sex. Sodomy laws in many countries criminalized the behavior. In the Western world, many of these laws have been overturned or are not routinely enforced.
context_section_description: The primarily sexual meaning of the word sodomia for Christians did not evolve before the 6th century AD. Roman Emperor Justinian I, in his novels no. 77 (dating 538) and no. 141 (dating 559) amended to his Corpus iuris civilis, and declared that Sodom's sin had been specifically same-sex activities and desire for them. He also linked "famines, earthquakes, and pestilences"  upon cities as being due to "such crimes", during a time of recent earthquakes and other disasters (see Extreme weather events of 535–536). While adhering to the death penalty by beheading as punishment for homosexuality or adultery, Justinian's legal novels heralded a change in Roman legal paradigm in that he introduced a concept of not only secular but also divine punishment for homosexual behavior.
  Christians earlier than Justinian are also seen to denounce same-sex relations. St. John Chrysostom in the 4th century regarded such as worse than murder in his fourth homily on Romans 1:26-27 , while Paul the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans referred to same sex relations as "shameful lust" and which acts were contrary to nature,  with men suffering a "due penalty" in their bodies. Just like the Jews, early Christians prior to Justinian I are not known to have used the word sodomia for the carnal sin they abhorred, though Philo of Alexandria (20 BC - 50 AD) and Methodius of Olympus (AD 260-312) attributed homosexual relations to Sodom, as may have Josephus, (AD 37 – c. 100) Augustine of Hippo, (AD 354-430) and certain pseudepigraphacal texts.
  Justinian's interpretation of the story of Sodom may have been forgotten today (as some hold it had been, along with his law novelizations regarding homosexual behavior immediately after his death) had it not been made use of in fake Charlemagnian capitularies, fabricated by a Frankish monk using the pseudonym Benedictus Levita ("Benedict the Levite") around 850 AD, as part of the Pseudo-Isidore. Benedict's three capitularies particularly dealing with Justinian's interpretation of the story of Sodom were:
  XXI. De diversis malorum flagitiis. ("No. 21: On manifold disgraceful wrongs")
  CXLIII. De sceleribus nefandis ob quae regna percussa sunt, ut penitus caveantur. ("No. 143: On sinful vices due to which empires have crumbled, so that we shall do our best to beware of them")
  CLX. De patratoribus diversorum malorum. ("No. 160: On the perpetrators of manifold evil deeds")
  Burning had been part of the standard penalty for homosexual behavior particularly common in Germanic protohistory (as according to Germanic folklore, sexual deviance and especially same-sex desire were caused by a form of malevolence or spiritual evil called nith, rendering those people characterized by it as non-human fiends, as nithings), and Benedictus most probably was of the Germanic tribe of the Franks. Benedict broadened the meaning for sodomy to all sexual acts not related to procreation that were therefore deemed counter nature (so for instance, even solitary masturbation and anal intercourse between a male and a female were covered), while among these he still emphasized all interpersonal acts not taking place between human men and women, especially homosexuality.
  Benedict's rationale was that the punishment of such acts was in order to protect all Christianity from divine punishments such as natural disasters for carnal sins committed by individuals, but also for heresy, superstition and heathenry. Because his crucial demands for capital punishment had been so unheard of in ecclesiastical history priorly based upon the humane Christian concept of forgiveness and mercy, it took several centuries before Benedict's demands for legal reform began to take tangible shape within larger ecclesiastical initiatives.
  This came about with the Medieval Inquisition in 1184. The sects of Cathars and Waldensians were a common target, and these heretics were not only persecuted for alleged satanism but were increasingly accused of fornication and sodomy.  In 1307, accusations of sodomy and homosexuality were major charges levelled during the Trial of 
caption: Dante and Virgil interview the sodomites, from Guido da Pisa [it]'s commentary on the Commedia, c. 1345
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