Gary Ferguson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. In the late 16th century, the famous French essayist Michel de Montaigne wrote about two marriages between people of the same sex.
The first involved women in eastern France, the second a group of men in Rome. At the time, same-sex marriages were not recognized by religious or civil law, and sodomy β a term that included a wide range of sexual acts β was a crime. As a result, when those involved were discovered they were usually brought to trial and punished, sometimes by death.
These episodes, along with many others, reveal that even in Renaissance Europe, marriage was a highly contested issue. Marriage between two men or two women might seem like a concept that has emerged only in recent decades. For centuries, however, same-sex couples have appropriated marriage in their own ways. Throughout the Middle Ages, marriage involved not only two individuals but also their relatives, local communities, and secular and religious authorities.
Each of these had different β sometimes conflicting β ideas, priorities and goals. From the 12th century on, the Catholic Church considered matrimony a sacrament that required only the free consent of the spouses, in the form of an exchange of vows.
The 16th century was a watershed period that saw sweeping changes and the introduction of stringent new requirements designed to prevent clandestine or secret unions that heads of families opposed. Changes in legislation did not always translate immediately into changes in practice, however. Situations of doubt or dispute were common and frequently ended up in court. After piecing together information from several sources β diplomatic dispatches, newsletters, fragments of a trial transcript and brief wills β a much fuller, if incomplete, picture of what took place emerges.
