Oh Brotherment: Civil Partnerships 1400AD Always

Says so on the Internet so we can take it as gospel. In news that will shock academe Live Science journal has claimed that there were same sex civil unions in Europe six hundred years ago. In France, they say, these contracts were called "affrèrement," translated as brotherment. So there you go. Ground breaking stuff.

Not to be confused with all the indications - including extant orders of service in Greek and Slavonic languages - of same sex unions going back to Plato and beyond. Or of the late John Boswell's 1994 work Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe, also published as The marriage of likeness. This has description of Adelphopoiia, or brother-making and the aforesaid translations, with facsimiles for the Greek ones.


But well done to Yahoo for today's scoop. The not so Orthodox St Sergius and St Bacchus (above) were brotherly lovers in 300 and odd.

NEEDLESS TO SAY: elements of the US cognoscenti really are finding this idea very tough going.

Here's one: 1) Nothing says they were homosexual relationships; 2) It’s still not marriage, which is what the homo lobby wants.

And here's another: In the contract, the "brothers" pledged to live together sharing "un pain, un vin, et une bourse," (French for one bread, one wine and one purse)
Our Founders pledged each other their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" and they weren't poncing nancy boys. Sometimes a pledge is just a pledge.

Which if you think about it is US red necks defending cheese-eating surrender monkeys' honor with the heterosexualness of their founding fathers. They've seen Deliverance and they sure are scared.