History of LGBT Pride
Post Roman Britain

An interesting time for the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans) community. Though the church continued to proclaim homosexuality in all its form a sin, many in society continued to ignore this view. In the 9th Century Alcuin of York, an abbot, wrote love poems to other monks in spite of numerous Church laws condemning homosexuality.

By the 12th Century governing bodies where taking measures to ensure that the public body knew that homosexuality was not just illegal, but also a sin. John Boswell, a leading historian claims that "Between 1250 and 1300, homosexual activity passed from being completely legal in most of Europe to incurring the death penalty in all but a few contemporary legal compilations." and in 1327 AD the deposed King Edward II of England was killed, allegedly by forcing a red-hot poker through his rectum. Edward II had a history of conflict with the nobility, who had repeatedly banished his former lover Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall.

This transition from acceptance to outrage at homosexual acts is marked by the execution of two gay men in Antwerp in the 1370's. This case stands out in history as it is one of the first surviving record of names being held within the records. Jan van Aersdone and Willem Case were charged with gay sex and executed for their 'crimes'. One other couple still known by name from the 14th century were Giovanni Braganza and Nicoleto Marmagna of Venice.

In 1649 the first known conviction for lesbian activity in North America occurred when Sarah White Norman was charged with "Lewd behaviour each with other upon a bed" with Mary Vincent Hammon in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Hammon was under 16 and not prosecuted

In 1726 Mother Clap's molly house in London is raided by police, resulting in Clap's death and the execution at Tyburn of all the men arrested. Between 1730 and 1811, a widespread panic in the Dutch Republic leads to a spectacular series of trials for sodomy, with persecutions at their most severe from 1730 to 1737, 1764, 1776, and from 1795 to 1798. Even Thomas Jefferson (America's 3rd President) condemned the act of 'sodomy'.In 1779 he prepared a draft of Virginia’s criminal statute stating that the punishment for sodomy should be castration. The bill read: “Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least.”

As it happened the first Western European country to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults was Revolutionary France (1791), adopting a new penal code which no longer criminalizes sodomy. Four years later, Luxembourg, and Tuscany also decriminalized homosexual acts.

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