Sodomy and sin against nature were the two most commonly used concepts in referring to same-sex sexual activity throughout later medieval Europe, whenever the arguments concerning it were made explicit. Discussion about the subject using either of these concepts always involved a condemnation of the matter. The concepts of sodomy and sin against nature related to associations and connotations pointing towards all things wrong and bad; all the writing and reading and all the talk and shared understandings were framed not only in terms of disapproval and denouncement; they were always also accusations. Making sense of these framings as contexts of these customarily used concepts, especially in a variety of treatises and decrees, is the main task of this chapter. The quotation above reveals the apparently common and well-known medieval approach to same-sex sexual matters; namely, the one relating to “unnatural sin and sodomy” which “Augustine calls all such delight that is not between woman and a man.” This condemnatory argument points towards both the unnatural and the sinful in sexual deeds committed exclusively between people of the same sexes.

I approach conceptualisations of same-sex sexuality through the frames of understanding offered by a variety of later medieval English condemnatory argumentations. These condemnatory approaches included views of same-sex sexual acts and desire as sodomy, sin against nature, and crime, and were contextualised in relation to sin and unnaturality. Some of the frames I utilise here belong to the present of later medieval England; some are also familiar in our times. My focus is on contexts and details of the medieval culture, yet interpretations unavoidably relate also to those of our own time.

The first section is addressed towards questions related to the medieval period's many-dimensional “sodomitical discussions.” The uses of the concept of sodomy have been varied, in medieval culture and also later on. The term does not serve as a synonym for either homosexuality or same-sex sexuality. Medieval uses of the concept are both narrower and wider than this; on the one hand, sodomy involved a condemnation without exception and the use of the concept excluded any other possible approaches towards the subject.