[<<] 1200s [>>]
Views on homosexuality
[F]or example, St. Thomas Aquinas held that homosexuality, indeed any sexual act that could not result in pregnancy, was a terrible sexual sin, worse than rape. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_of_homosexuality [2004]Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) was a brutal 20-year military campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate the religion practiced by the Cathars of Languedoc, which the Roman Catholic hierarchy considered heretical. It is historically significant for a number of reasons: the violence inflicted was extreme even by medieval standards; the church offered legally sanctioned dominion over conquered lands to northern French nobles and the King of France, acting as essentially Catholic mercenaries, who then nearly doubled the size of France, acquiring regions which at the time had closer cultural and language ties to Catalonia (see Occitan). Finally, the Albigensian Crusade had a role in the creation and institutionalization of the Medieval Inquisition. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade [Nov 2005]
Inquisition vs the Cathars
The Inquisition was established in 1229 to root out the Cathars. Operating in the south at Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns during the whole of the 13th century and a great part of the 14th, it succeeded in extirpating the movement. From May 1243 to March 1244, the Cathar citadel of Montségur was besieged by the troops of the seneschal of Carcassonne and the archbishop of Narbonne. On March 16, 1244 a large and symbolically important execution took place, where leaders of Catharism together with more than 200 Cathar laity were thrown into an enormous fire at the prat des cramats near the foot of the castle. Moreover, the church decreed severe chastisement against all laymen suspected of sympathy with Cathars (Council of Narbonne, 1235; Bull Ad extirpanda, 1252). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar [Nov 2005]1229
The Inquisition in Toulouse forbids Bible reading by all laymen --CCTLAbout 1260
In Orleans, France, law code punishes men and women who commit same-sex acts with removal of testicles or clitoris for the first offense, removal of penis or breasts for the second offense, and burning at the stake for the third offense. --source and author unkown, found in the queer timeline