I’m including this summary really just for the sake of completeness and because a colleague happened to be reading the book and was willing to scan me the brief relevant section. The book as a whole (as might be determined from the title) looks at the ways that marriage relationships are represented and symbolized in medieval tomb sculpture. In the chapter on “The Double Tomb” there is a section entitled “Queer Tombs” that specifically looks at commemorations of same-sex pairs.
co-burial
In many cultures, it is standard practice for spouses to be buried together after death and to share a memorial marker. In this context, the occasional practice of same-sex pairs being buried together accompanied by symbols or text usually associated with marriage may indicate social acceptance of a marriage-like bond between them.
LHMP entry
Most of the articles on burial monuments commemorating same-sex pairs reference this article, so I had high hopes that it might include further leads and details. Alas, not so, at least with respect to women’s memorials. The article focuses primarily on the symbolism of structural and artistic details of a couple of major monuments commemorating pairs of men. (This focus is not entirely surprising given that the article appears in a journal about English church monuments.)
Introduction
Bray’s book was inspired by trying to understand the meaning behind various joint funeral memorials of pairs of non-related men. The study expanded to “the distinctive place friendship occupied in traditional society” in Europe from the 11th to the 18th centuries. The focus is on friendship as a public rather than a private phenomenon. He also touches on the relationship of homosexuality to same-sex friendship.
[I’ve also covered a more extensive article by Bennett on this monument that focuses more on the details of the artifact, its manufacture, and untangling the genealogy and relationships of the two families. This present article goes into more detail of the social interpretation.]
Chapter 1 - Thinking Sex: Knowledge, Opacity, History
The parish church in Etchingham (East Sussex) has a memorial brass jointly commemorating two never-married women: Elizabeth Etchingham who died in 1452, and Agnes Oxenbridge who died in 1480. This article considers both the specific life circumstances of these two women and the general context of funeral monuments dedicated to same-sex pairs.
Introduction
As with most general works on same-sex sexuality (and especially ones authored by men) this book is overwhelmingly focused on male sexuality. There is also the tendency usual in this context to suggest that texts, situations, and commentaries that don’t specifically include women can be extrapolated to them.
The chapter begins with a survey of the types of published materials that led Lanser to identify the late 16th century as a shifting point in the discourse around sapphic topics. In 1566 a Swiss writer provides an account of a French woman who disguised herself as a man, worked as a stable groom and then a wine grower, married another woman, was eventually unmasked, and was executed. He notes “how our century can boast that beyond all the evils of the preceding ones” and explicitly disclaims any connection between events such as this and the “tribades in ancient times”.
