Other Sheep - Multicultural Ministries with Sexual Minorities

Annotated
Bibliography

on this page...

Historical
Books
from Ancient to
Contemporary

Historical Books: From Ancient to Contemporary

D. Sherwin Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, London, Longmans, Green &
Co., 1955.
A classic study of the biblical texts and their effects on the western Christian tradition.

John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1980.
Important classic history of homosexual practice and Christianity. Boswell's analysis of Romans 1
and his translation of malakoi and arsenokoitoi ignited a storm of response from biblical scholars.

John Boswell, Rediscovering Gay History: Archetypes of Gay Love in Christian History, Lesbian Gay
Christian Movement, London, 1982.
Boswell provides interesting information on marriage ceremonies that were celebrated between
medieval monastics.

John Boswell, Same-sex Unions in Pre-modern Europe, New York, Villard Press, 1994.
Controversial work that discovered early Christian rituals blessing same-sex unions.

Judith P. Brown, Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy, New York, Oxford
University Pres, 1986.
Story about the lesbian nun, Benedetta Carlini. Prototype for lesbian nuns.

Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity,
New York, Columbia University Press, 1988.
An important book on the emergence of early Christian construction of sexual practices and thought
about the body.

James Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, (Chicago & London:
University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Classic on the Christian construction of sexuality.

Vern Bullough, Sexual Variance in Society and History, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1976.
A wonderful history of sexual variance across history and culture.

Vern L. Bullough & James Brundage, Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, Prometheus Books,
1982.
Good resource on the construction and constriction of sexual practice by medieval Christianity.

Jean Delumeau, Jean, Sin and Fear: The Emergence of Western Guilt Culture in the 13th-18th
Centuries, trans. by Eric Nicholson, New York, St. Martins Press, 1990.
Delumeau's monumental study traces the use of fear and guilt used by Roman Catholic clergy to
control the sex lives of the laity.

Kenneth J.Dover, Greek Homosexuality, (revised edition), Cambridge, Harvard University Press,
1989.
Classic work on ancient Athenian homosexuality. Lots of good material on Greek pederasty.

Linda Dowling, Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford, Ithaca, Cornell University Press,
1994.
Dowling discusses homosexuality in the Anglo-Catholic lives of Gerard Manly Hopkins, William Faber,
and John Henry Newman.

Christine Downing, Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love, New York, Continuum, 1989.
Downing analyzes Freud and Jung on homosexuality and Greek myths and culture where same-sex
eroticism was very natural.

Page DuBois, Sappho is Burning, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995.
DuBois perceives Sappho as a subversive figure at the beginnings of western civilization.

R. Dynes & Stephen Donaldson (ed), Homosexuality and the Ancient World, New York, Garland,
1992.
Good collection of articles on homosexuality in the ancient world.

Adele M. Fiske, Friends and Friendship in the Monastic Tradition, Cuernavaca, Mexico: Centro
Internaciónal de Documentación, 1970.
Covers homoerotic friendships in the middle ages.

Anne Gilmour-Bryson, The Trial of the Templars in the Papal States and the Abruzzi, Vatican:
Biblioteco Apostolica Vaticana, 1982.
Gilmoour-Bryson examines the accusations of sodomy leveled at the templars.

Michael Goodich, The Unmentionable Vice: Homosexuality in the Later Medieval Period, Santa
Barbara, Ross-Erikson, 1979.
A historical work on medieval Christian responses to homoerotic practices. Extensive bibliography.

David E. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,1988.
This is a magisterial sociological history of same-sex desire and practice. Its comparative scope is
invaluable to the theologian and historian.

David M. Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: And Other Essays on Greek Love, New
York, Routledge Chapman & Hall, 1989.
Important work on the social construction of homoerotic desire in the ancient world.

David Halperin, Froma I. Zeitler, & John J. Winkler, Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic
Experience in the Ancient Greek World, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991.
These essays explore the iconography, politics, ethics, literature, and medical practices of the
ancient Greeks to demonstrate the variability of cultural constructs of sexuality.

Peter Hebblethwaite, Peter, Paul VI, New York, 1992.
Hebbelthwaite does address the issue of Paul VI's homosexuality.

Arthur Frederick Ide, Sex, Women and Religion, Dallas, Monument Press, 1984.
Ide discusses lesbianism in Byzantine convents.

Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1996.
Jordan explores the invention of sodomy by medieval Christianity and its foundational impact on
Christian theology and ethics.

Samuel Laeuchli, Samuel, Power and Sexuality: The Emergence of Canon Law at the Synod of
Elvira, Philadelphia, 1972.
The covers the first legislative canons of sexuality and the first homophobic canons.

Eva C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985.
Keuls explores patriarchal ideology in ancient Athens and female resistance to Athenian war
ideology.

S. Lilja, Homosexuality in Republican and Augustan Rome, Helsinki, Commentationes Humanorum
Litteratum, Societas Scientarum Fennica, vol. 74, 1983.
Important monograph on homoeroticism in Rome.

Mary Elizabeth Perry, Crime and Society in Early Modern Seville, Hanover, University Presses of New
England, 1980.
Perry chronicles the obscenity of over 300 sodomites burned at the stake.

William Armstrong Percy, Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece, Chicago University of Illinois
Press, 1996.
Percy believes that the male population of Attica for two centuries produced through pederastic
relationships an outstanding number of great men who laid the foundations of western civilization.

R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society, Oxford, Blackwell, 1987.
Moore briefly covers homosexuality in the wider context of the persecution of Jews, lepers, heretics,
and others.

Michael D. Quinn, Same-sex Dynamics among Nineteenth Century Americans: A Mormon Example,
Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1996.
Quinn deconstructs a monolithic view of Mormon opposition. There was a lot more same-sex
eroticism than the modern Mormon leadership would readily admit.

Ute Ranke-Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of God: Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic
Church, trans Peter Heinegg, New York, Doubleday, 1990.
A decent overview of the history of Catholic attitudes on women and sexuality.

Brian Reade (ed), Sexual Heretics: Male Homosexuality in English Literature from 1850-1900,
London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970.
This anthology discusses the homosexuality in Anglo-Catholicism and Catholicism. Some traditions
never change.

Jeffrey Richards, Sex, Dissidence, and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages, New York,
Routledge, 1990.
Richards presents a grim presentation of coercive medieval Christian society in its persecution of
minorities including those attracted to the same-sex. Very applicable to understanding dynamics of
the religious right.

Guido Ruggierio, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex, Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice, New
York, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Good example of the social regulation of sexuality, especially sodomy and transvestitism.

James M. Saslow, Ganymede in the Renaissance: Homosexuality in Art and Society, New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1986.
A very important work on homoeroticism in Renaissance art.

Bernard Sergent, Homosexuality in Greek Myth, Boston, Beacon Press, 1986.
Good background book on homoerotic Greek myths.

W. J. Shiels (ed), Persecution and Tolerance. Studies in Church History, vol. 21, 1984.
Collected articles on religious intolerance.

Colin Spencer, Homosexuality in History, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1995.
Good general history for the lay person.

Thomas Stehling (trans), Medieval Latin Poems of Male Love and Friendship, New York, Garland,
1984.
Homoerotic medieval literature from the Roman Empire to 1300.

Reay Tannahill, Sex in History, New York, Scarborough Books, 1982.
A readable history of sexuality.

Thomas Tentler, Sex and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation, New York, 1979.
Tentler looks at penitential texts to understand the Catholic construction of sexuality and its
variance.