Like sweet honey. The gay love letters of medieval monks

Text taken from the book My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries (1998) edited by Rictor Norton, published on the Gay History and Literature website (Great Britain), freely translated by Giacomo Tessaro

Many medieval monks gave vent to their repressed homoerotic desires through poems and love letters, which expressed themselves in the language of spiritual friendship, in the wake ofFriendship of Cicero and the Epistles of Saint Jerome. Egbert wrote to Saint Boniface (716-720), with a feeling certainly more passionate than caritas: “I recognize the bond of your love; when I tasted it in my innermost being, a fragrance of sweet honey poured into my veins [...] believe me, the storm-tossed sailor does not long for his port, the fields thirst for the rain, the anxious mother does not wait for her son on the shore, as much as I long for the pleasure of seeing you". The last sentence is copied almost exactly from a letter of St. Jerome to Rufinus, which influenced most of the epistles expressing the yearnings offriendship cristiana. Che questi documenti possano fornire prove di un amore gay piuttosto che di un’amicizia appassionata dipende interamente dalle tendenze di chi le interpreta.

La maggior parte degli studiosi del Medioevo ha in partenza un pregiudizio da maschi eterosessuali contro l’omosessualità, il che li rende ciechi all’evidenza. John Boswell, nel suo saggio rivoluzionario Christianity, tolerance, homosexuality. The Church and homosexuals from the origins to the 14th century (Leonardo, 1989) ha documentato molti casi di censura, soppressione e deliberata distorsione di tali passi da parte degli studiosi. I critici si stanno lentamente convincendo del fatto che la sensibilità gay medievale non era una questione di imitazione letteraria, piuttosto l’artificio letterario (l’allusione alle fonti pagane e bibliche) era il veicolo di legittimazione di tale amore.

L’abate Alcuino di York (c. 735-804), a capo della scuola carolingia di Aquisgrana, dava ai suoi alunni dei nomignoli derivati dalle Egloghe di Virgilio e scriveva ad Arnone, vescovo di Salisburgo (c. 750-821), “rapiscimi con le tue preghiere (precibus rape me)”. L’allusione al ratto di Ganimede era solo una goffa convenzione poetica? Difficile ignorare il genuino sentimento omoerotico sottinteso all’inizio dell’epistola ad Arnone: “Ricordo il tuo amore e la tua amicizia in maniera così dolce, reverendo vescovo, che anelo a quell’ora deliziosa in cui potrò stringere il tuo collo così dolce con le dita del mio desiderio. Ahimè, se solo mi fosse concesso, come fu concesso ad Abacuc, di venire trasportato lì da te, come naufragherei nei tuoi abbracci […] come coprirei, con le mie labbra premute strettamente, non solo i tuoi occhi, le tue orecchie e la tua bocca ma anche ogni dito delle mani e dei piedi, e non una sola volta”.

Decine di tali lettere sono ora ben conosciute, soprattutto quelle di Valafrido Strabone (c. 808-849), Notkero il balbuziente (c. 840-912), Salamo (c. 860-920) e Valdo. Alcuino di York (c. 735–804), nato in Inghilterra, studiò alla scuola annessa alla cattedrale di York. Fu a capo della scuola carolingia di Aquisgrana dal 782 al 796, dopo di che fu abate del monastero di Tours, fino alla morte. La lettera che segue pare fosse indirizzata ad Arnone, vescovo di Salisburgo (c. 750–821). Arnone era affezionato al vescovo Paolino di Aquileia (c. 750–802) e Alcuino scrisse un epitaffio congiunto per i due, anche se Arnone morì diciannove anni dopo Paolino, ed espresse il desiderio di essere commemorato come il terzo nella relazione.

Alcuino ad Arnone di Salisburgo

L’amore è penetrato nel mio cuore con la sua fiamma,
e sempre nuovo calore lo attizza.
Né il mare, né alcuna terra, né le colline, né le foreste, nemmeno le Alpi
possono ostacolarlo o rallentarlo.
I will always lick your most hidden parts, good father,
and I will wash your heart with tears, my beloved.
Sweet love, how come you inspire bitter tears,
why these bitter sips from the honey of devotion?
If now your sweetness, O world, is mixed with bitterness,
prosperity will quickly alternate with misfortune,
joy will change into sad lament;
nothing is lasting, everything can perish.
Therefore, O world, let us flee from you with all our hearts,
like you, always ready to perish, flee from us.
Let us seek the delights and those eternal realms
of heaven with all our hearts, our minds and our hands.
The blessed halls of heaven never separate friends;
a heart warmed by love always has what it loves.
Therefore, father, kidnap me with your prayers [precibus rape me], I beg you,
so our love will never break.
Look with joy and with a glad heart, I pray you,
these small offerings that a great love sends you,
for our kind Master praised the two copper coins
which the needy widow placed in the Temple treasury.
Sacred love is better than any gift,
tenacious loyalty flourishes and lasts.
May divine gifts follow you, dearest father,
and at the same time precede you. Goodbye always and everywhere.

Valafrido (c. 808–849) was born into a poor Swabian family and studied in Reichenau, then in Fulda, under Rabano Mauro, a pupil of Alcuin. He later became abbot of Reichenau.

Valafrido Strabo to the cleric Liutgero

My dear, suddenly you come, and suddenly you go;
I hear, but I don't see. Yet I see what is hidden, and hidden
I embrace you, even as you move away from me, with my body, not with fidelity.
Because before I was sure, now I am sure and always will be,
that I am kept in your heart and you in my mind.
Never time passes
will persuade me or you of something else.
If you can visit me, seeing my dear will be enough for me;
otherwise, write to me, write to me anything; I knew your pain
and I reflected on it in sorrow; affliction is the province of the world.
The things you consider cheerful and happy very quickly turn into clouds
and sad shadows. Like a bird soaring over the world,
now ascending, now descending, thus turns the wheel of the world.

Marbodius of Rennes (c. 1035-1123) was born in Angers, France, where he was first a student, then a teacher and finally, in about 1067, master of the cathedral school. In 1096 he became bishop of Rennes, Brittany.

Marbodio of Rennes to a young lover

Horace composed an ode about a certain boy
who could very well have been a beautiful girl.
Hair fell from her ivory neck
brighter than gold, as I always liked them.
His forehead was as white as snow, his bright eyes were black as pitch,
her featherless cheeks full of pleasant sweetness
when they were white and red, brilliant.
Straight nose, shiny lips, pretty teeth,
Shaped and perfectly proportioned chin.
Who asks questions about the body that is hidden under the clothes
he will be gratified, because the boy's body matches his face.
The sight of her face, radiant and full of beauty,
kindle the heart of the observer with the torch of love.
But this boy, so beautiful, so extraordinary,
a temptation for anyone who sets their eyes on it,
nature has shaped it wild and austere:
rather than consent to love, he would rather die.
Rough, unkind, like a tiger cub,
laughs only at the most polite words of a suitor,
laughs in the face of tears and sobs of love,
he mocks those who die for him.
Wicked indeed, this man, and more than wicked, cruel,
he, who with this character vice prevents his body from being his glory.
A beautiful face requires a good mind, a surrendering spirit,
not haughty, but ready for anything.
The little flower of youth is fragile and too short;
it soon withers, falls and does not know how to live again.
This flesh is now so smooth, so milky, so uncorrupted,
so exquisite, so beautiful, so soft, so tender;
yet the time will come when it will become ugly and decaying,
when this flesh, this dear child's flesh, becomes worthless.
Therefore, now that you are in bloom, adopt these customs as a mature person;
now that you are desired by many and fresh, do not linger on the requests of a kidnapped lover.
For this you will be appreciated and you will not lose anything.
These desires of mine, beloved,
I send them to you alone; Don't show them to too many people.

Original text: Take up Riper Practices. The Gay Love Letters of Some Medieval Clerics