Richard the Lionheart

[KnightShade]

So this is largely based on a lecture I just had for LGBT history month, it was a public lecture by the same tutor I have for my social history course (which I could go on about for hours but I thought this one was particularly interesting so I decided to post.) Around this point you might stop reading because you think you know what's coming, that Richard the Lionheart was homosexual or bisexual, you're wrong we have little to no evidence to indicate this but it has for years been taken as historical fact. Some of you may also think this is coming out of the same bias that often portrays history as a solely heterosexual domain, it really isn't. For one this lecture was held at the request of the history and LGBT societies by Proffesor Crouch who is an openly gay social historian and did the research himself. And another point is that of Britain's 19 medieval kings 6 have well established theories of their homosexuality which is improbably high even by modern estimates on rates of male homosexuality thus some are likely to be wrong.

So where did the idea first come from? It was first suggested by the architectural historian John Hooper Harvey. Was he biased? Without a doubt. Harvey was an extreme fascist and anti-semite who in the very same book, The Plantagenets, alledged that medieval Jews would kidnap and crucify Christian children at Easter in revenge for the death of Christ. He was a member of the Imperial Fascist League, and later the early BNP, for which he was investigated by MI5 during WW2 and was eventually imprisoned on the technicality of failing to attend a medical examination. He made public claims that the German invasion of Norway was a Jewish fabrication and that Britain was run by a Jewish elite which he used to justify his view that Britain would be better off if Hitler conquered it. How this effects this case is that he believed the hero of British royalty should be Edward the first who expelled the Jews from England, his book attempts to glorify Edward and dethrone Richard. Outing was a natural method as he published at a time when outing and arresting public figures for their sexuality was commonplace.

Of course outlining the motives behind the myth is not enough so onto the evidence. The original evidence was that Richard married late, at 34, and had no children, that he once shared his bed with his cousin King Phillip II of France and that a hermit once accosted him for the sin of sodomy. The first one is easy to dispel, Richard marrying late was not at all unusual for royalty as they would often wait until it was politically oportune, furthermore he had a bastard child from an affair in late adolesence. Royal bedchambers were not private affairs either, they played a role similar to a throne and it wasn't uncommon for King's to hold court from them, at night servants slept by the bed and the night in question was no exception. As for the final account the meaning of sodomy at the time could be used as a generic term for sin, but in the context of other slurs it was a sexual sin (which included anything other than missionary for purely reproductive purposes between a married couple which was seen as a neccesary sin by the church, the reality was quite different to the standards) which is justified in that writers at the time (mainly clergymen) loved to chastise Richard for his philandering which included allegations that he had seduced even nuns. Later historians have jumped upon the factoid that women were banned from the coronation banquet, which they were, they were banned from all coronation banquets because it was a heavily misogynistic society. Ultimate there is currently no reliable evidence for or against his homosexuality.

Thanks for reading anyway, hope you enjoyed it and if you didn't that you learned something.

[MelonHead]

The most interesting thing about Richard the Lionheart in my opinion is that (this is from the two sources I've read, and I can't say I'm much of a medieval historian) he was shot by a French cook with a crossbow and died because he was mocking him, taking too long to shield himself.

Somewhat amusing.

[KnightShade]

The most interesting thing about Richard the Lionheart in my opinion is that (this is from the two sources I've read, and I can't say I'm much of a medieval historian) he was shot by a French cook with a crossbow and died because he was mocking him, taking too long to shield himself.

Somewhat amusing.

Mocking the French is just that much fun obviously

[Clirkus]

Interesting.

[The Australian]

Richard the Lionheart was a fucking tool. Doesn't matter if he took it up the arse or not.

[Jannah]

Salahuddin > Richard

Just saying.

[The Australian]

Salahuddin > Richard

Just saying.

Saladin*

And, yeah. I concur.

[Azarthes]

Liondick