Sedom’s Subjects: Sodomy and Urban Politics in the Late Medieval Kingdom of Castile

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the significance of the legal discourses and the urban practices against female and male sodomy for the governance in the Late Medieval Kingdom of Castile. The motivation for the persecution of sodomy was not solely to judge and punish persons engaging in same sex acts or relations according to moral values, as it might be inferred from a superficial reading of the trials, but rather, the persecution of sodomites, both men and women, took part in the everyday life and political arena in Castilian cities. Firstly, the medieval Castilian laws regarding the crime of sodomy, which entailed the social and political exclusion are analysed. Penal legislation composed a fertile territory to know closely the existing relations between politics and the values of the Castilian medieval society. Secondly, urban rulers deployed the prosecution of sodomy in the Castilian courts of justice to justify their good government and to assert their authority. In conclusion, the changes in the legal and cultural interpretation of sodomy, emphasising the communitarian shame, revealed how the accusation of having committed the crime of sodomy worked as a political instrument of urban governance in Late Medieval Castile.