Gay marriages 'were blessed' in past by Church
Monday July 16 2001
Social historian Alan Bray believes a form of wedding service was conducted by priests and the couples involved were sworn or "wedded" brothers.
The custom was prevalent between the 11th and 16th centuries and involved vows made before witnesses that two men would stand by each other until death.
This was felt to give the relationships a standing with some parallels to marriage, according to Mr Bray.
Couples received communion and they were often buried together.
"I'm sure this will create quite a stir both in the Catholic Church and among gay people but what I'm presenting is a way for both sides to come together," said Mr Bray.
"It's part of its history but the Church has forgotten it. No-one will thank me for saying this but the Church could avoid the mess it is getting into if it would listen to its past.
"Some of these wedded brothers had platonic friendships and some had physical ones. The Church was giving its blessing to the friendship, with all the potential good there, rather than to anything else within the relationship.
"But sexual potential wasn't a bar to the blessing."
Mr Bray, who toured Oxford and Cambridge colleges and country churches in England researching his theories, added: "The Church made a distinction between the potential good in the relationship and the possibility of something else developing.
"But it was willing to take the risk. However, in the 16th century the Church became more nervous."
An honorary research fellow at Birkbeck College at the University of London, he said it was not a new development for people who could not be married to ask for Church blessings.
Wedded friendships had their heyday in the 15th century although the tradition continued in some cases until the 19th century.
"There is a kind of submerged continent of evidence of same sex friendships in the churches of the past," said Mr Bray, who visited tombs with "iconography equivalent to married relationships".
Among those visited were Cardinal Newman's near Birmingham, who is buried with his friend Fr Ambrose St John although Mr Bray stressed this was a platonic relationship.
The author of Homosexuality in Renaissance England presents his findings at Newman House in Dublin next Saturday.
- Martina Devlin
