history 3 Then came a couple of centuries where basically nothing much changed any further. The church still defined the rules and every artist who felt different just kept his mouth shut and his brush and pencils under control. Still, the renaissance had set some standards that every art student just had to follow.

I'm ashamed at the licentiousness you display by showing angels and saints unrobed, utterly depriving the latter of earthly modesty and the former of heavenly splendour. Your kind of painting belongs in a tavern or a bathing establishment of ill repute and not in the greatest chapel of all Christianity. As a consequence one of Michelangelo's pupils was ordered to cover the genitals up soon after.

Luckily the Germans have always had a more tolerant attitude towards the naked body.
On a religious themed work Mr Dürer used a figleaf while he found no need to cover himself: men-baths were the only relatively safe haven for male intimacy across the ages:

maybe this is a good time to point to the special slideshow showing different approaches to "gay" saint Sebastian through the ages Everybody who really counted in art since did go to italy to finalize his education. All making the jokes about what that statue in Florence proved about dicksize of the italians. Still nobody ever did anything about it, afraid as they were to be called faggots with dire consequences . . those who really were hardly ever dared to show they had a mind of their own; only those that were completely unchallenged as masters in their art could do things with male genitals:

I'm not saying Rubens had this unnatural and blasfemous tendency to be attracted to males sexually, as if he would have cared, (he probably would; in those days it was so easy to fall out of grace with your superiors, with dire consequences for your carreer, if not your life) but then again, if you leave the competition so far behind: Rubens was one of the few who could make candid jokes in his work and get away with 'm Ganymedes by Rubens (enlarges with click) the arrows are hanging from his left shoulders, mind you; It only looks to have been stuck between his legs In my humble and totally non consequential opinion Velazques (right) probably did have a gay eye, as nobody straight would ever be able to paint this boy and man

Raphael, above, definitely gay, as we'd say now, tried to keep things purely technical.

unknown

Left we see one of the few works where (modest/prude) nudity is associated with pure enjoyment. Below it an example of the much more common lesson in morals that had to be incorporated in nude images. Rubens too, below, hid the beauty of this hunk behind a lesson in morals from the mythological story about Prometheus Left: Another work that's pretty rare; Rembrandt van Rijn, needed the rich for prestigeous commissions to support his lifestyle, (he certainly was not gay), but had a preference for the ordinary people, he did like sketching their -not so ideal - bodies, as in this little etch depicting a pissing vagabond type of guy, done in 1639. More on him as the most treasured Dutch painter on the Dutch page and stuff about his nightwatch on this Willem Kok page.

just one more Velazques I can't leave out, because it shows such a master eye for the male body:

And so it went on more or less from the renaissance until well past the French revolution.

willem Tetrode, native delftboy cought up in the reformation he fled to Köln

above one of the works of Goltzius, and below another etch of one of his 'Manierists' students, these works were considered far too free & erotic and in 1672 caused the Bildersturm and the reformation around Europe. a whole page of their work is in the masterclass.

although there were periods of relative relaxation in attitude towards male to male sexuality, we should keep in mind that in fact all over Europe it was basically forbidden and punishable with death, mostly at the stake and accompanied by cutting out of the tongue first. This was the case from the end of the Roman empire until the French revolution. there were always excuses needed to depict nude males and crothes were always covered up.

I've just thrown a few images that I had and could find on this page. Lots of others could be considered here. If you know of one that should be included do let me know

just some space left for another image here

what's the one below doing here? you wonder . . .
Well this is the marriage painting of Dutch 'stadhouder' Willem III of Orange with Mary Stuart II, English princess, thus becoming souvereign of both England and the Netherlands. She was only 12 years old so the marriage was no great success, he had an intimate relationship with his Dutch prime minister for most of his life. Also was the starting point of the still continuing religion based troubles in Northern Ireland, Inventor of the 'Orangerie' (luscious, rosebranch-covered garden element), where so much fun could be had in sultry summers.
he kept his wife officially, and produced offspring too, showing the success of the 'don't ask, dont tell' policy.

another era of queer history:

1407 Venice	The "Signori di Notte" (Lords of the Night) are responsible for patrolling and overseeing the city, but in an excess of over-zealousness they arrest 35 men as sodomites, 14 of whom are members of the nobility. The Consiglio dei Dieci (Council of Ten), responsible for the overall security of the city takes charge in order to block the prosecutions. From this time forward almost all sodomy trials are handled by the Consiglio dei Dieci, which is also responsible for passing the decrees concerned with suppressing homosexual behavior. Group trials stretch into the mid-16th Century, but never again on the scale of 1407.
1412 France	Witch trials are held in which those accrued as sorcerers and heretics received light sentences while those accrued of sorcery and sodomy are condemned to death. While the charge of homosexuality was common against Catharist heretics, it was less commonly associated with witches
1414 Germany	The church Council of Constance convened by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund to put an end to the "Great Schism" of the Catholic Church (in which there were three pretenders to the Papal throne), deposes the Pope of Pisa, John XXIII, for various crimes, including piracy, murder, rape, sodomy and incest.
1421 Italy	The city of Siena takes steps to suppress sodomy, signaling the beginning of a persecution that lasts until 1430.
1422 Venice	Beginning of a period of persecution of sodomites.
1425 Italy	St Bernardino of Siena preaches against sodomy, and complains that "you cannot leave Tuscany without being reproached twelve times a day that here we never punish such a vice." In a number of sermons, between 1424-27, St Bernardino details the homosexual underworld of the Siena of his time. Favorite meeting places included taverns and pastry shops.
1429 China	The late-Ming writer Shen Defu believes government officials turned to boys and young men for sex after 1429, when the emperor ordered them to stop cavorting with courtesans. Male prostitutes were known as xiaochang (little singer).
1432 Italy	The Official of the Curfew and the Convents is created in Florence to suppress sodomy.
1440 France	Gilles de Rais ("Bluebeard") is executed after being found guilty of sexually abusing and murdering hundreds of children of both sexes.
1444 Venice	City authorities issue regulations in 1444 and again in 1477 to combat the "abominable vice" of sodomy in schools of music, gymnastics, fencing and mathematics.
1451 Rome	Previously a subject of the secular courts when dealing with laymen, or the ecclesiastical courts if the offender was a cleric, Sodomy becomes a subject of the papal Inquisition as a result of a decree by Pope Nicholas V.
1453 Spain	At the age of six Juan II of Castile is given as his page, and companion, Alvaro de Luna. When the king came of age at 14 he appoints Luna Constable of Castile, who from that point on ruled in the kings name. As one contemporary states "for 35 years he lived happy at his (Luna's) side and submissive to his will" Rumors abound of "lascivious business" between them, but if attracted to men, the king also liked women. While Luna reputedly controlled the king's sexual relations with his first wife, after his second marriage the king no longer tolerates this interference. At the queen's instigation Luna is beheaded in 1453 on charges of high treason.
1459 France	Trials at Artois, allege the witches had an orgy among themselves, followed by ritual intercourse with Satan, who took male or female form as the situation demanded. Sodomy, as well as, other "crimes against nature" were committed. The accused were subsequently exonerated by the Parlement of Paris.
1460 Venice	Persecution of sodomites.
1462 Spain	In his summary of Islamic law the Muslim scholar Ice de Gerbir states the penalty for sodomy is death by stoning. Anyone using the term sodomite as an insult or taunt is to receive 80 lashes.
1464 Venice	Persecution of sodomites.
1464 Spain	Dissident Castilian noblemen circulate a letter expressing shock at King Enrique IV's homosexuality, his consorting with Jews and Muslims, and his halfhearted support for the re-conquest of Granada from the Moors. It also asserts the illegitimacy of his daughter Juana, and supports the succession of his half brother Alfonso. Isabel, Alfonso's sister and Enrique's half-sister, eventually succeeds to the throne to the great detriment of Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, and the peoples of the new world.
1465 Spain	The Coplas de Provincial, a satirical poem about the Castilian royal court describes the men as incestuous, sodomites, cuckolds and Jews, and the women as adulterous and without virtue.
1466 Spain	On August 2 Alfonso issues a manifesto declaring himself king, and promises that "the sins of heresy, sodomy, and blasphemy, which were as prevalent as they were notorious in the reign of my predecessor Enrique, will be uprooted from my kingdoms and destroyed by me."
1474 Florence	A charge of sodomy is brought against the 22 year old Leonardo da Vinci. It is never prosecuted.
1474 Venice	Persecution of sodomites.
1477 Venice	City authorities again issue regulations to safeguard the schools of Venice from the "abominable vice" of sodomy.
1494 Spain	The German physician Hieronymos Munzer writes that on leaving Almeria in l494 he saw the bodies of six men hung from a tall post. They were Italians convicted of sodomy. They had first been hung by the neck, then hung by their feet after "their genitals had been cut off and hung around their necks because in Spain they hate this sin greatly."
1497 Spain	Ferdinand and Isabel decree that the existing penalties for sodomy are "insufficient to eradicate such an abominable crime". A conviction now carries with it guilt of heresy and high treason. The penalty is burning at the stake and the confiscation of property which went to the royal treasury.
1497 Italy	A pamphlet by Domenico Cecchi urges a harsher punishment for Florentine sodomites, that they should lose a testicle for each of the first two offenses, and for the third offense should be sent to a madhouse. Fines were the most common penalty in Florence up to this time.
1498 Italy	Among the charges brought against Savonarola by his enemies is that of being a hermaphrodite and of using one sex or the other according to his desires. He is examined by Giovanni Manetti who "then, taking a lighted candle, he examined him and touched those parts as much as it pleased him, with the right hand. But, then, not much time passed before he became seriously sick. Questioned by his wife and relatives, he did not want to confess, but always shouting 'This hand! This hand!' agitated it very miserably a gesture he repeated until the end of his life." Before his fall from power Savonarola had ordered public exposure for a first sodomy offense, tying to a pillar for the second, and burning for the third.
1506 AD Spain	The Inquisition at Seville makes a special investigation into sodomy, causing many arrests, and the exile of many others. Twelve people are burned at the stake.
1507 Germany	Article 141 of the Constitutio Criminalis Bambergenis, the criminal code of the German city of Bamberg, contained a prohibition of sodomy of a human being with a beast, a man with a man, or a woman with a woman. The inclusion of women within the definition of sodomy in German laws appears to have derived from the Bamberg code. Article 141 reappears without alteration in a 1516 revision of the code. This is the first appearance of sodomy as a crime within German law.
1509 Spain	When the Spanish Inquisition began exercising jurisdiction over sodomy, the Suprema of Castile, on October 18, 1509, orders that no action betaken by the Inquisition against sodomites except where heresy was involved. But after an inflammatory sermon by Fray Luis Castellioli blaming a pestilence in Valencia on God's wrath against sodomites, the people of Seville force the confession of four who are burnt at the stake, a fifth who had received a more lenient sentence is seized by the mob, garroted, and also burnt. The Castile Inquisition never again exercises jurisdiction over sodomy, without the concomitant charge of heresy. The Castilian secular courts prosecuted sodomites more vigorously than the Inquisition in Aragon. Between the 1580's and the 1650's some 100 to 150 sodomites are executed in Madrid alone.
1513 Panama	The Spanish explorer Balboa encounters homosexuality among the chiefs at Quarqua in Panama. A 16th century English account reports that "the most abhominal and unnaturall lechery" was practiced by "the Kynges brother and many other younger men in womens apparell, smoth and effeminately decked, which by the report of such as dwelte aboute hym, he abused with preposterous Venus." To keep "this stynkynge abhomination" from spreading, Balboa turned to the expediency of throwing forty of these men to be torn apart by his dogs.
1514 Italy	Florence. Niccolo Machiavelli, in a letter to a friend, amusingly recounts the nocturnal exploits of another mutual friend in search a young man. Among the haunts mentioned were the Borgo Santo Apostolo, Calimala Francesca, and Il Tetto de'Pisani.
1519 Mexico	Cortes begins the conquest of Mexico. Justifying Spanish atrocities, Cortes often reminds his troops that they were engaged in a holy war against Aztec abominations of human sacrifice, idolatry, cannibalism and sodomy. An anonymous conquistador reports that the people of Panuco on the Gulf of Mexico were great "great sodomists".
1520 Mexico	Upon meeting Montezuma, Cortes is pleased to note that he is not a sodomite, as he seemed to think all Mexican men were. Most Mexican accounts agree that Montezuma was felled by stones thrown by the Aztec side, but believe that his death was caused by strangulation or daggers at the hands of the Spanish. One account claims the final and fatal wound was of a sword thrust up his rectum, likely a metaphor for his weakness in facing the Spanish.
1522 Mexico	Encouraged by Cortes, the town council of Vera Cruz affirms that all Mexico was addicted to sodomy.
1524 Spain	The Spanish Ambassador to Rome arguing that sodomy had been introduced to Spain by the Moors, convinces Pope Clement VII to grant the Inquisition of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, jurisdiction over sodomy, irrespective of the presence or absence of a charge of heresy. This power is granted over opposition from local bishops who view it as an usurpation of their authority. Punishment for adults over 25 is burning at the stake, while minors are whipped and sent to the galleys. Actual penalties were usually not as severe as in the secular courts, and the Inquisition was especially lenient towards the clergy. By 1530 the Pope had extended this same authority to the Inquisitions of Saragosa, and Barcelona.
1532 Germany	Section 116 of the Constitution of Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, states that "if anyone commits impurity with a beast, or a man with a man , or a woman with a woman, they have forfeited their lives and shall, after the common custom, be sentenced to death by burning." The Constitution represents a culmination of the work to codify the penal code of the Holy Roman Empire begun at the Diet of Freiberg in 1498, and formally adopted by the Diet in Regensburg in 1532. The Carolinian constitution has a great impact on future European penal law, not only in the German states, but in France and Russia as well, bringing sodomy under secular jurisdiction for the first time in much of the Germanic and Slovak portions of the empire.
1533 Spain	A memorial from the Aragon Cortes to Emperor Charles V protests that the Inquisition had arrested people for private offenses having nothing to do with heresy, extending their jurisdiction to cases of sodomy, usury, and bigamy. Inquisitional jurisdiction over moral offenses was considered then and later as illegitimate, but with papal and royal favor it grew to overwhelm all opposition and criticism. The Aragon Inquisition continues to exercise control over sodomy cases.
1533 England	Sodomy statute of Henry VIII, the first English law to mention homosexuality, becomes the basis of American as well as British law. Like a later Elizabethan law of 1562, the prohibition has more to do with the struggle for power between the church and expanding secular power, than any moral outcry against homosexuality. There are few sodomy convictions at the time. The English law is unique in its use of the term Buggery, in that it called for death by hanging rather than burning at the stake, and finally, and most importantly the frequent commutation of the death sentence to exposure in the pillory. The statute remains essentially the same until 1861, when the death penalty was abolished for this offense. No more than an average of three people a year are executed under the statute between 1561 - 1861 within the entire British Empire.
1537 Venice	Persecution of sodomites.
1540 Spain	Theologian Francisco points out that if the sin of sodomy can be used to justify Spanish depredations in the Indies, it could be equally used to justify a war by France on Italy.
1547 Venice	Persecution of sodomites.
1552 Spanish West Indies	Lopez de Gómara speculates that every native of the West Indies is touched by homosexuality.
1555 Geneva	In the period between 1555-70 there are an unusually high number of trials for sodomy. The trials coincide with the greatest activity of the Calvinist moral tribunal, the Consistory, as well as with a large immigration of French refugees, many of them young males. All those charged are French refugees.
1561 Spain	Inquisitor General Valdes obtains authority from Pope Pius IV to exercise control of cases of solicitation for sex by priests during confession, in part, to keep such incidents from public scrutiny.
1563 Sweden	The Protestant King Erik XIV proclaims a number of crimes that must be punished with death, in order to escape the wrath of God: among these is "bestiality with dumb animals and other such vices." Whether because of the vagueness of the law, or the fact that sodomy is of little concern to the Swedes, there are no cases of sodomy brought to trial, in Stockholm, before the seventeenth century.
1568 Spain	Felipe II orders the death of all sodomites in his realms. His reign which lasts until 1598 and is extremely oppressive. Just before his death, he reaffirms the death penalty for sodomy. Among those charged are Antonio Perez, Felipe's secretary, and the Count of Villamediana. In Sicily, under Felipe's control, there is a tradition of tolerance for male-male sexuality. The local authorities resist, and succeed in handing down lesser sentences in a great many cases. The Papal Inquisition in Sicily refused jurisdiction over sodomy.
1569 Mexico	López Medel refers to the "nefarious & widespread customs" of homosexuality among the Mexicans and Guatemalans.
1570 Italy	Church trials in Loreto reveal that a choir boy was passed around among the older monks, canons and musicians of the church.
1572 Spain	The first sodomite is burned by the Inquisition of Valencia, beginning the first of two prolonged periods of persecution from 1571-90, and again in 1621-30.
1578 Belgium	The issue of homosexuality becomes caught up in the struggle for power between Protestants and Catholics in the Low Countries. A number of Franciscan friars are executed in Bruges on charges of sodomy, while in Ghent, eight Franciscans and six Augustinians are burned at the stake by the Protestants. There are few trials after 1579, when the Low Countries are divided into the largely Calvinist Northern Provinces, that would become the Netherlands, and the Catholic Southern Provinces, now Belgium.
1578 Rome	Several "marriages" between Portuguese men are reportedly celebrated in a Roman church. They lived together for some time before they were arrested and burned at the stake.
1585 Spain	In Seville the authorities make an example of a black man accused of sodomy and procuring young boys. His face painted, and dressed in a lace ruff and curly wig, he is marched through the streets to be burned at the stake.
1590 Netherlands	The military law, Articul-Brief, covering the conduct of soldiers and sailors, calls for the death penalty for sodomy.
1590 Geneva	During a war with the Duke of Savoy, a fortress is captured where Turkish prisoners work as galley slaves. Three of them confess to homosexual acts and are burned at the stake, along with two French soldiers who they implicate.
1590 England	David Baker alleges that homosexuality among students is common at his school, Broadgate Hall, as well as at Oxford.
1601 AD Belgium	Antwerp. A Jesuit is burned at the stake for sodomy.
1605 China	The Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci includes an engraving of the destruction of Sodom in his essay in Chinese on "Depraved Sexuality", thus introducing Western attitudes towards homosexuality to China.
1605 France	A parody of the court of Henri II, Island of the Hermaphrodites, is published by Thomas Artus.
1607 Virginia	Before the departure of the ships that left the first settlers (all male) in Virginia, one settler reports that "allowance was somewhat bettered, by a daily proportion of biscuits which the sailors would pilfer to sell, give or exchange with us, for money, sassafras, furs or love."
1608 Sweden	King Charles IX adds an "appendix" to the penal code listing crimes "abstracted from the Holy Scriptures." Section IV states, "Thou shalt not sleep with a boy as with a woman, for this is abomination. And they both shall die, their blood is upon them." This is the first specific mention of sodomy in Swedish law.
1610 Geneva	Prominent Geneva official Pierre Canal arrested for high treason and attempted homicide, confesses under torture to being a homosexual and implicates more than twenty other men. Canal is broken on the wheel for treason, and burned for sodomy. Eleven other men are tried that year. Of the four who confess, three are drown, and one escapes. Six do not confess and are banished, while the most prominent of the accused receives a heavy fine and loss of political privileges.
1618 Belgium	Two women are tried for sodomy in Bruges.
1620 Portugal	As in Aragon, the persecution of sodomites reaches its greatest intensity in the period between 1620-34. In the 18th century sodomy trials are uncommon. In the period from 1567 to 1794, there are 4,419 accusations and confessions of sodomy Fewer than ten percent are arrested or tried, and only 30 sodomites are burned at the stake by the Portuguese Inquisition.
1621 Spain	Beginning of a period of intense persecution of homosexuals by the various Spanish Inquisitions, that lasts till the mid-1630's.
1624 Virginia	The Virginia Council and General Court meeting from November 30, 1624 through February 6, 1625 finds Richard Cornish, a ships captain, guilty of a sexual attack on William Cowse, his indentured servant and steward. He is found guilty of buggery and executed.
1629 Massachusetts	"This day we examined 5 beastly sodomitical boys, which confessed their wickedness not to be named. The fact was so foul we reserved them to be punished by the governor when we came to new England." From the Journal of the Rev. Francis Higgeson. On September 29, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony requests the Massachusetts Bay Company "...advise what punishment may be inflicted upon them". Their fate is unknown.
1631 England	In a trial before the House of Lords, Lord Audley, the Earl of Castlehaven, is found guilty of promoting a rape on his wife, and of sodomizing his pages while they raped her.
1635 New Hampshire	"Capt. Wiggin, Governor of Pascutaquack, under Lords Say and Brook wrote to our governor, desiring to have two men tried here, who had committed sodomy with each other and that on the Lord's day in time of public exercise. The governor and divers of the assistants met and conferred about it but did not think fit to try them here."
1637 Plymouth Colony	John Alexander and Thomas Roberts are examined and found guilty of "lewd behavior and unclean carriage one with another, by often spending their seed one upon another, which was proved both by witness & their own confession: the said Alexander found to have been formerly notoriously guilty that way, and seeking to allure others there unto. The said John Alexander was therefore censured by the Court to be severely whipped, and burnt in the shoulder with a hot iron, and to be perpetually banished the government of New Plymouth, and if he be at anytime found within the same, to be whipped out again..." Thomas Roberts was "censured to be severely whipped, and to return to his master, Mr. Atwood and serve out his time with him, but to be disabled hereby to enjoy any lands within this government except he manifest better desert."
1638 Sicily	Dr. Marti Real observes that throughout Italy sodomy is treated with far greater leniency than the enormity of the offense deserves.
1640 Ireland	John Attherton, Anglican bishop of Waterford and Lismore is hanged for a combination of adultery, incest and sodomy. An illustrated pamphlet of the case includes an engraving of Atherton and his male lover.
1642 Plymouth Colony	"Edward Mitchell, for his lewd & sodomitical practices tending to sodomy with Edward Preston, and other lewd carriages with Lydia Hatch, is censured to be presently whipped at Plymouth, at the public, and once more at Barnestable, in convenient time, in the presence of Mr Freeman and the committee of the said town." "Edward Preston, for his lewd practices tending to Sodomy with Edward Mitchell, and pressing John Keene there unto, is also censured to be forthwith whipped at Plymouth, and once more at Barnestable, etc. John Keene, because he resisted the temptation & used means to discover it, is appointed to stand by whilst Mitchell and Preston are whipped, though in some things he was faulty."
1644 England	In his authoritative commentary, Laws of England, Edward Coke opines that "If any person shall commit buggery with mankind or beast...(they are guilty) of a felony without benefit of clergy." Buggery is defined as "a detestable and abominable sin, amongst Christians not to be named...our ancient Authors do conclude that it deserveth death...though they differ in the manner of punishment."
1644 Italy	Some Franciscans take the unusual step of praising the practice of sodomy.
1646 New Haven Colony	The New Haven court executes William Plaine, though married he is found to have committed sodomy with two persons in England and has "corrupted a great part of the youth of Guilford by masturbations...above a hundred times."
1646 New Netherlands Colony	Jan Creoli, a Negro is sentenced for a second sodomy offense, "to be conveyed to the place of public execution, and there choked to death, and then burnt to ashes. Manuel Congo a ten year old, "...on whom the above abominable crime was committed", is sentenced, "to be carried to the place where Creoli is to be executed, tied to a stake, and faggots piled around him, for justice sake, and to be flogged."
1652 Venice	Antonio Rocco's anonymous defense of pederasty, Alcibiade Fanciullo a Scola, is published.
1653 New Haven Colony	A complaint is made to the Governor of "sundrie youths in the Town that had committed much wickedness in a filthy corrupting way one with another, they were called before the Governor and Magistrates" Upon confessing several youths are sentenced to be publicly whipped.
1654 Belgium	The sculptor Jerome Duquesnoy is strangled and burnt at the stake for seducing two boys 8 and 11.
1658 Mexico	Fourteen men convicted of sodomy are burned at the stake in Mexico City.
1660 England	Dildoes, imported from Italy, and condoms first become available in London. Sold at the Sign of the Cross in St. James' Street. A century later they are still being imported. Neither listed as dutiable nor prohibited goods, a consignment is none-the-less ordered destroyed by embarrassed customs officials.
1660 New Netherlands Colony	Having plead guilty to sodomy, Jan Quisthout van dar Linde, a soldier, is sentenced "to be taken to the place of execution and there stripped of his arms, his sword to be broken at his feet, and he to be then tied in a sack and cast into the river and drowned until dead." Hendrick Harmensen, on whom the crime was committed is sentenced to be privately whipped.
1663 New Hampshire	A wife falsely accuses her husband of sodomy and hires their servant to testify against him. She is sentenced to be whipped 20 times and the servant 10 times.
1666 England	Anthony Wood alleges that the electors to a Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, had chosen a handsome young man with a view to "kissing and slobbering" him.
1669 England	Drawing a parallel between flogging and homosexuality in public schools, an anonymous pamphlet argues from the point of view of school boys that "our sufferings are of that nature as makes our schools to be not merely houses of correction, but of prostitution, in this vile way of castigation in use, wherein our secret parts...must be the anvil exposed to the immoralist and filthy blows of the smiter." A late 16th Century Dutch writer widely read in England, believed that God in his wisdom had formed the buttocks so that they could be severely beaten without causing serious bodily harm. The late 16th and early 17th centuries are, in England, the great age of flogging. Every village and town sported a whipping post. Dr. Busby of Westminister School and Dr. Gill of St. Paul's are notorious for their savagery. Ben Johnson described a schoolmaster as a man accustomed to "sweeping his living from the posteriors of little children."
1677 Connecticut	Nicholas Sessions, a relatively wealthy resident of Windsor, is brought to trial for sodomy. (In 1640 Sessions had refused to testify against Aaron Starke, accused and convicted of buggery with a heifer). Testimony reveals that Sessions had propositioned numerous men in the community over a thirty year period, suggesting a greater tolerance than is usually assumed. Session's property is to be held in bond to guarantee his good behavior for his lifetime. He lived another 12 years, without further incident.
1678 France	The homosexual members of the court of Louis XIV organize a secret society. When the Count de Vermandois, a son of the king, non too discretely requests admission in 1681, the king learns of its existence, and suppresses it the following year.
1683 Denmark	The Danish Law Book, Danske Lov, of King Christian V proscribed burning at the stake for sodomy.
1684 Spain	The conviction for sodomy of the distinguished cleric, Fray Manuel Sanchez del Castellar y Arbustan, leads to his exile and silencing, It also signals a growing mildness in sentencing by the Spanish Inquisition.
1698 England	During the trial of the foppish Captain Rigby for attempted seduction of a boy he met in a park, the following testimony is preserved. When the young man protests that he should go after women, Rigby is said to have replied, "D-mn 'em, they are all pox'd, I'll have nothing to do with them." A then current theory explaining the seeming increase in homosexuality was that men turned to boys in order to avoid rampant venereal disease. The argument is problematic.
1699 England	Groups of sodomites are arrested in London and at Windsor.
1702 AD Netherlands	The trial of Gabriel de Berger reveals special signs that homosexuals used to recognize each other, and where they cruised in the Hague. Two men are executed for sodomy in Rotterdam
1706 Russia	Peter the Great issues a new military legal code based on Sweden's military code. It is the first Russian law to penalize consensual male homosexuality. Prescribing burning at the stake for sodomy, it is not known to have been enforced. A 1716 revision prescribes corporal punishment, reserves the death penalty for rape, or use of violence. The code applies only to the military. Peter reputedly dabbled in bisexuality.
1707 England	A number of men are convicted for sodomy after being entrapped by agents of the Societies of the Reformation of Manners. The Societies sent agents into known homosexual hangouts on London Bridge, and around the arcades of the Royal Exchange.
1708 New York	Infamous transvestite Edward Hyde is withdrawn as Governor of New York and New Jersey. He is not believed to have been homosexual.
1709 England - London. Entrapment of homosexuals at the arcades of Covent Gardens, and at the public latrines in the Savoy and Temple. Three of the accused commit suicide in jail. Edward Ward publishes The Secret History of Clubs, an exposé of homosexual hangouts in London.
1710 England	John Dunton reports that prostitutes had "burnt so many beaus, that now he-whores are coming into use...a new society...call'd s-d--ites; men worse than goats, who dressed themselves in petticoats."
1715 England	Dudley Ryder reports that "among the chief men in some of the colleges, sodomy is very usual. It is dangerous sending a young man who is beautiful to Oxford."
1716 Denmark	Professor Ludvig Holberg, in his Introduction to Natural International Law, while stating that "we must condemn the evil vice", he goes on to argue that "the authorities cannot punish vices which are practiced by so many, and which are so firmly embedded that to eradicate the evil would be to cause the disintegration of the whole state. And if they are but works of darkness and are not generally noticed and of little consequence, why trouble the authorities by calling their attention to them?"
1716 Netherlands	Dutch military law mandates capital punishment for "unnatural misuses."
1717 Netherlands	Rotterdam. A network of sodomites is discovered. Several are banished.
1718 North Carolina	John Clark sues William and Edward Winn for libeling him by accusing him of attempting to bugger them. There is no record of the outcome of the trial.
1720 England	Jonathan Wild reports that William Hitchen, the Under-Marshall of London, offered to introduce him to a company of homosexual prostitutes, and that in revenge for having been rejected, Hitchen had a group of homosexuals in drag arrested while returning from a ball in Holburn.
1725 France	The Paris police maintain a list of known pederasts, reputed to contain 20,000 names
1726 England	Trial of homosexuals, and expose of homosexual resorts, among them Mother Clap's house in Field Lane, Holburn.
1730 Netherlands	Mass persecution of homosexuals in Holland and Utrecht. 60 men are executed. After prosecutions begin in Utrecht in the Spring of 1730 the towns of Groningen and the state of Holland pass special statutes against sodomy, allowing the courts to try suspects who fled in absentia so that their property could be confiscated. The discovery of a nationwide network of sodomites leads to over 300 trials throughout the Netherlands, about half of them by default after the accused had fled. The most notorious persecutions are led by the country squire Rudolph do Mepsche, in Groningen province. On September 24, 1731, 22 men and boys from Faan and other nearby villages are executed. Others are kept in prison, without a trial, until 1747. DeMepsche is accused of attempting to get rid of political rivals. Capital punishment applies only in cases of ejaculation in ano with another man. It is imposed in about 10% of the cases. Prison terms of up to 50 years, banishment, confiscation of property, and corporal punishment are more common. Sentences handed down: 1730, 8 in Frisia, 12 in Holland, 21 in Leiden, and 12 in Amsterdam; in 1731 there are 40 sentences handed down in Holland. There are another 33 trials of unknown sentences.
1731 England	William Pulteney publicly accuses Lord Hervey of homosexuality.
1732 Mexico	Jose Manuel Garcia del Valle y Araujo, chaplain of a hospital in Mexico City, founded by Cortes for the treatment of syphilis, publishes a novena, or prayer addressed to St Boniface to intercede with God to rid the homosexual of his "dishonorable vice". The novena is reprinted well into the 19th century.
1734 Sweden	The penal code contains no reference to sodomy, although bestiality is retained as a capital offense. The law commission believed it was "not advisable to mention more sodomitical sins; it is instead better to keep silent as if they were not known, and if such a bad thing happens that they occur, let them be punished anyway."
1734 Georgia	Savannah. A man convicted of inciting others to sodomy, receives three hundred lashes under the gallows.
1739 England	The Warden of Wadham College is accused of attempted rape of a student. There are also rumors of other homosexual activities between dons and students. The Warden left the country hurriedly for France, and the episode is hushed up by the heads of the college.
1740 England	Condoms made of sheep gut and secured with a red ribbon tied around the scrotum are sold by a Mrs Lewis in a shop in St Martin's Lane in London. They are used primarily as a prophylactic against disease and secondarily for birth control. Only in London and Paris are condoms openly manufactured, advertised and sold.
1740 China	The Manchu Qing government enacts a male rape law and for the first time in Chinese history outlaws sodomy between consenting males.
1744 Denmark	A married weaver is sentenced to two years hard labor, followed by his banishment from the province of Jutland, for having a sexual relation with a boy.
1764 Italy	On Crimes and Punishment by Cesare Beccaia, calls for an end to torture and the inhuman punishment of convicts, as well as the abolition of the death penalty for sodomy. This book has an important influence on European legal reform.
1764 Netherlands	Amsterdam trials reveal that the arcades of the town hall, dark parts of churches and public urinals, as well as parks and theaters were favored as homosexual meeting places. There are by mid-century taverns where homosexuals from a broad range of rank and social status meet. There are ten convictions for sodomy, and another 61 cases in which no sentences are recorded.
1772 England	A Captain Robert James is executed for sodomy. The more usual penalty by this time is the pillory.
1776 Netherlands	In the wake of a new wave of persecutions, an anonymous tract attributed to Abraham Perrenot, legal advisor to William V of Orange, defends homosexuals as doing little harm to society and argues that it should only be considered a crime when committed with under age boys. There are 4 convictions for sodomy in Amsterdam, and another 16 without recorded sentences.
1781 Belgium	Jan Stockaert is tried for sodomy, after having confessed to having sex with hundreds of boys. The court in Antwerp did not sentence Stockaert to death, but sought advise on sentencing from the Secret Council in Brussels. As a result, the court executed Stockaert secretly within the prison, a departure from the usual more public nature of executions for sodomy.
1783 France	The list of known or suspected pederasts maintained by the Paris police has reputedly grown to 40,000 names.
1786 Pennsylvania	Reduces the penalty for Sodomy from death to hard labor.
1787 Austria	Emperor Joseph II's penal code revision eliminates torture, and cruel punishment, reduced the number of capital offenses, and reduces the penalty for homosexuality from death at the stake to life imprisonment.
1791 France	The Code Penal, growing out of the French Revolution, treats homosexual behavior the same as heterosexual behavior, requiring only that they take place in private, between consenting adults.
1795 Belgium	With the French invasion of Belgium, and the adoption of the Code Penal, homosexual behavior is decriminalized.
1796 Netherlands	Beginning of a new wave of persecution of sodomites in Amsterdam. There are 12 sentences handed down in 1796, 5 in 1797, and 19 in 1798. Judicial torture is abolished in 1798.
1797 Australia	Francis Wilkenson is the first man to be charged with Buggery in Australia. Wilkenson is acquitted.
1797 England	Homosexual scandal involving the Rev. John Fenwick.

go on

to the 19th century, the lobby, masterclass overview or links