What was Medieval Europe's view on homosexuality?

by Young_McDonald_

I assume that it was treated as a disease/perversion due to their dedication to the Bible, but I'd like to be sure.

Yst

One important primary source for medieval opinion of note directly addressing homosexuality is Alain de Lille's Plaint of Nature. This being a late 12th century work.

Alain addresses a number of points which conventionally come together to constitute the pre-modern Christian objection to homosexuality. That homosexuality implies a rejection of the male sexual and gender role. By extension, that homosexuality represents a descent from higher to lower station. Moreover, that the sexual act, in a homosexual context, constitutes onanism, or waste of the seed.

To wit,

The sex of active nature trembles shamefully at the way in which it declines into passive nature. Man is made woman, he blackens the honor of his sex, the craft of magic Venus makes him of double gender. He is both predicate and subject, he becomes likewise of two declensions, he pushes the laws of grammar too far. He, though made by Nature's skill, barbarously denies that he is a man.

Now, obviously, he's also making the argument that homosexuality is unnatural in the broadest possible sense, contending that it is against the nature of even grammar and verse, by which we collect, convey and employ reason and knowledge. As odd as it may seem to us today, that Latin grammar should be the basis for constructing a model of appropriate sexual conduct.

Searocksandtrees