Alan Bray

Alan Bray was a devout Roman Catholic, a convert from his early years. He was an exceptionally able civil servant and a gay activist. He had been interested in history from school days, studied and researched in his spare time and became an authority in his field. He wrote Homosexuality in Renaissance Britain in 1982 published by Columbia University Press, New York. And The Friend edited posthumously by Mark Jordan and published by Chicago Press in 2003.

He was fascinated by the same-sex couples in our Churches recorded in inscriptions, shared tombs and memorials, and argued a complicated but convincing case that there was change in attitudes to homosexuality between medieval and Renaissance times, and why it came about. However, his thesis has been disputed. His later book is very detailed - you really can't follow it if you read it at speed. He seems to understate the case that the same-sex couples were anything more than friends, but is much more interested in the changing social and theological attitudes of the period.

The text of the second Alan Bray memorial lecture (2003) at St Anne's Church, Soho. www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/human-rights/Documents/Alan_Bray_lecture.doc

There is a short summary of Alan Bray's Homosexuality in Renaissance Britain by its publishers Columbia University Press. The summary is illuminating in that it is concise and factual. The value judgements about the work will, of course, be disputed.
www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023110/0231102895.HTM

Chicago Press' press release on Alan Bray's posthumous book, The Friend. www.press.uchicago.edu/News/0309brayprs.html. Click here for a review of The Friend.