Learning about queer saints is my favorite pastime, and learning about queer monks and nuns is my FAVORITE, favorite pastime. There is quite a bit of historical evidence regarding a not-so-insignificant number of gay/lesbian members fleeing to monestaries/abbeys/etc. to escape heterosexual society and the pressures to marry and have sex. You can't be forced to marry a man if you've taken a vow of chastity! We even have documents mentioning what might be early examples of BDSM happening in the monasteries and abbeys, including a saint who was noted for asking her fellow nuns to tie her up and pour hot wax on her as a form of penance and mortification. Her dedication to mortification has led her to be used as a case study for women's non-conventional sexual preferences in medieval Europe.
BUT BACK TO GAY MONKS AND PRIESTS! Saint Alcuin, English Deacon and Abbot of Tours who lived in York from 735 to 804, spent most of his writing on philosophy, theology, mathematics, and reforming Catholic liturgy. When he wasn't establishing the framework for funeral hymns and the growing memento mori literature movements in the Renaissance, he was writing poetry and letters to fellow bishops that were arguably quite.... interesting. While, like all historical figures, we cannot offically place the 'gay' title on him, we can certainly look at his poetry and letters and go:
Now biographers are almost positive Alcuin was not sexually active-- he took his clerical celibacy vows very seriously. He was known for speaking out against priests who lived lives of secular luxury while depending on church and community funds, even writing the 'collect of purity' that is now used in Anglican Eucharistic liturgy as a way to prepare the heart for the chaste beauty of the Eucharist:
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
BUT! Just because he was not physically intimate with his fellow bishops did not mean he was keeping that chaste beauty in his writing.
'Lament for a Cuckoo' may not seem too out there until we look at the context. Alcuin wrote 'Lament for a Cuckoo' about a very, very close male friend who left his community, and the missing young man is the 'cuckoo' in the poem. It is far too long to post here, but it is a lovely poem and well regarded as an example of early European homoerotic literature, if you would like to read on your own time. Instead, I wanna talk about Alcuin's special bishop friend. Here is one letter written after this friend left court to return to his province, where Alcuin mourned losing his presence:
"I think of your love and friendship with such sweet
memories, reverend bishop, that I long for that lovely
time when I may be able to clutch the neck of your
sweetness with the fingers of my desires. Alas, if only
it were granted to me, as it was to Habakkuk, to be transported to you, how I would sink into your embraces,…how much would I cover, with tightly pressed lips, not only your eyes, ears and mouth, but also your every finger and toe, not once but many a time."
Alcuin also wrote of Arno, Bishop of Salzburg, in similar ways, as seen in this letter. The original phrasing of the line 'Therefore, father, abduct me with your prayers, I beg you;' before translation is very sexual-- aggressively so. In the original wording, when Alcuin asks Arno to 'abduct' him with his prayer, it is more akin to asking to be 'ravished' or even 'forced upon' by Aron, with some translators even saying the most accurate intepreation of the line would be Alcuin asking for Arno to 'rape' Alcuin's heart with prayer so they could never very be spererated, refrencing laws regarding how sexal assult would be handled in York at the time. Alcuin is asking for Arno to force himself into his heart with prayer so they could never, ever be separated.
Love has penetrated my heart with its flame,
And is ever rekindled with new warmth.
Neither sea nor land, hills nor forest, nor even the Alps
Can stand in its way or hinder it
From always licking at your inmost parts, good father,
Or from bathing your heart, my beloved, with tears.
Sweet love, why do you inspire bitter tears,
Why do bitter draughts flow from devotion's honey:
If now your sweetness, world, is mixed with bittrness,
All prosperity will alternate rapidly with misfortune,
All joys be canged to sad lamentation;
Nothing lasts, anything can perish.
Therefore, world, let us flee from you with all our hearts,
As you, ready even now to perish, flee from us.
Let us seek the delights and ever-enduring realms
Of heaven with ur whole heaat, mind, and hand.
The blessed hall of heaven never separtes friends;
A heart warmed by love always has what it loves.
Therefore, father, abduct me with your prayers, I beg you;
Then our love will never be estranged.
Look with joy and with a gladdening heart, I pray,
At these little offerings which great love sends you,
For our gentle Master praised the two copper coins
The needy widow put into the temple's treasury.
Sacred love is better than any gift,
And so is steadfast faithfulness which flourishes and endures.
May divine gifts follow you, dearest father
And at the same time precede you. Always and everywhere farewell.
As alarming as some of the wording may be, coming from a man likely attracted to men as a high-ranking priest in the late 700s who spent much of his time in Charlemagne's court... I wouldn't have the healthiest relationship with my sexuality either.
