Christianity Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century

About this book

"Truly groundbreaking work. Boswell reveals unexplored phenomena with an unfailing erudition."Michel Foucault John Boswells National Book Award-winning study of the history of attitudes toward homosexuality in the early Christian West was a groundbreaking work that challenged preconceptions about the Churchs past relationship to its gay membersamong them priests bishops and even saintswhen it was first published twenty-five years ago. The historical breadth of Boswells research (from the Greeks to Aquinas) and the variety of sources consulted make this one of the most extensive treatments of any single aspect of Western social history. Christianity Social Tolerance and Homosexuality still fiercely relevant today helped form the disciplines of gay and gender studies and it continues to illuminate the origins and operations of intolerance as a social force.