Medievalists know that if they claim to have found 'homosexuals' in the Middle Ages they will provoke cries of outrage, and nothing else they say will be heard. So they avoid the term. Thus Allen Frantzen, on the very first page of Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from Beowulf to Angels in America, declares categorically: “I call this a book about ‘same-sex love’ because the obvious choice, ‘homosexuality,’ is, for periods before the modern era, inaccurate. ‘Homosexuality’ and ‘homosexuals’ were not recognized concepts in the Middle Ages.” Apparently, the same is not true of 'heterosexuality' and 'heterosexuals.' Frantzen does not hesitate, throughout his volume, to oppose 'same-sex relations' to 'heterosexual relations.' The result is a Middle Ages that would make Pat Buchanan jump for joy, one from which all the homosexuals have been banished and only heterosexuals remain. This should give one pause. If homosexuality was not a 'recognized concept' in the Middle Ages, then heterosexuality wasn’t either.
Heterosexuality as a Threat to Medieval Studies, James A. Schultz
