At the one end we find people of the highest
intellectual distinction, such as Alexander von Humboldt, whom Naecke, a
cautious investigator, stated that he had good ground for regarding as an
invert.[78] At the other end we find prosperous commercial and
manufacturing people who leave Germany to find solace in the free and
congenial homosexual atmosphere of Capri; of these F.A. Krupp, the head of
the famous Essen factory, may be regarded as the type.[79]
In England (and the same is true today of the United States), although
homosexuality has been less openly manifest and less thoroughly explored,
it is doubtful whether it has been less prevalent than in Germany. At an
early period, indeed, the evidence may even seem to show that it was more
prevalent. In the Penitentials of the ninth and tenth centuries "natural
fornication and sodomy" were frequently put together and the same penance
assigned to both; it was recognized that priests and bishops, as well as
laymen, might fall into this sin, though to the bishop nearly three times
as much penance was assigned as to the layman. Among the Normans,
everywhere, homosexuality was markedly prevalent; the spread of sodomy in
France about the eleventh century is attributed to the Normans, and their
coming seems to have rendered it at times almost fashionable, at all
events at court.
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