They spring out of an
element of diffused homosexuality which is at least as marked in
civilization as it is in savagery. It is easy to find illustrations in
every country. Here it may suffice to refer to France, Germany, and
England.
In France in the thirteenth century the Church was so impressed by the
prevalence of homosexuality that it reasserted the death penalty for
sodomy at the Councils of Paris (1212) and Rouen (1214), while we are told
that even by rejecting a woman's advances (as illustrated in Marie de
France's _Lai de Lanval_) a man fell under suspicion as a sodomist, which
was also held to involve heresy.[68] At the end of this century (about
1294) Alain de Lille was impelled to write a book, _De Planctu Naturae_, in
order to call attention to the prevalence of homosexual feeling; he also
associated the neglect of women with sodomy. "Man is made woman," he
writes; "he blackens the honor of his sex, the craft of magic Venus makes
him of double gender"; nobly beautiful youths have "turned their hammers
of love to the office of anvils," and "many kisses lie untouched on maiden
lips.
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