ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I will analyse the way in which focusing on same-sex attraction can shed new light on how we conceive love and desire in the late medieval and early modern period. Firstly, I will re-examine the extensive historiographical debate on the social and cultural history of homoeroticism in late medieval and early modern Europe through the lens of emotions. This perspective allows us to go beyond some of the conundrums in which historians of homosexuality working ‘from below’ have sometimes found themselves tangled. I will then analyse the diverse and often overlooked emotional lexicon contained in the judicial reports of trials against sodomites. From this vantage point, we can have a glimpse not only into what people felt for each other, but also into the way in which unconventional desires affected their self-perception and their positioning within society.
