Before the rise of Catholicism in Northern Europe, how frowned upon was homosexuality and sodomy?

by Mackteague

I'm counting northern Europe as the Scandinavian countries, The British Isles, Iceland, The Baltic's, Outer Russia and what is now Normandy.

And I'm counting "Before the rise of Catholicism" as before the reign of Diocletian (284-286), who I'm counting as the Roman emperor when Christianity came to Britannia.

Palmar

I'm going to give a written example that falls outside your parameters, but might be of interest. The passage is from Gísla saga Súrssonar, an Icelandic saga that takes place before the christianization if Iceland, so in pagan times. It's important to note the saga was probably not recorded until the 13th century, so it was first written by christian sources.

Refur hét maður er var smiður Skeggja. Hann bað að Refur skyldi gera mannlíkan eftir Gísla og Kolbirni, "og skal annar standa aftar en annar og skal níð það standa ávallt þeim til háðungar".[1]

This translates to:

Refur was a man who was Skeggi's smith. He asked of Refur to carve a statue of Gísli and Kolbjörn, "and one shall stand behind the other and shall that insult stand for their everlasting mockery".

It is widely agreed, and rather simple to infer, that the humiliation and mockery presented by the statue would be the implication that Gísli and Kolbjörn are homosexual. Important point for consideration here is the situation is related to a duel about to happen. In the very same chapter Gísli chops of Skeggi's foot. Although the duel was not related to this particular "níð" (insult, the statue in this context), it shows that implying homosexuality was a strong insult.

sources: [1] https://www.snerpa.is/net/isl/gisl.htm