Homosexual Panic in Tenth-Century Hagiography
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2026
Three fictionalized saints’ lives composed in Constantinople in the tenth century warn readers against the dangers of andromania, a male desire to have sex with other men, and paidophthoria, the corruption, or rape, of boys. The Life of Basil the Younger and the Life of Andrew the Fool condemn “andromaniacs” even while they linger over the beauty of angels and of young men. Young men risk encounters on the streets of the city, while all people should expect to have problems paying off demons for their earthly sins as their souls progress past tollhouses after death. The Life of Gregentios imagines a homophobic utopia where the death penalty renders a Christian society entirely free of “sodomites.” These texts offer some our richest narrative accounts of queer life in the Byzantine capital even as they condemn men attracted to men.
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