Introduction

Jeffrey Masten's 2016 book Queer Philologies called our attention to the fact that ‘the study of sex and gender in historically distant cultures is necessarily a philological investigation’. The evidence for the nature of Edward II's sexual reputation in any period is, necessarily, refracted through language – and, in the case of evidence in Latin or Anglo-Norman texts, doubly refracted through translation. It is important, then, to begin by addressing this language directly. The work of scholars including Madhavi Menon and Valerie Traub has successfully moved the study of the language of early modern sex beyond the pioneering work on the term ‘sodomy’ carried out by Alan Bray and others to illuminate the messy, multiplicitous and often opaque nature of the early modern sexual lexicon; and in this chapter, I want to emphasise the specific importance of words whose ambiguity could be tactically embraced by medieval and early modern writers. Through this, I aim to underline the implications of Edward II's reputation as a case study for the history of sexuality.

This chapter, in particular, makes the case for incorporating the term ‘minion’ into our discussions of early modern sexual discourse. This ambiguous term had both sexual and political connotations, as well as pointed contemporary political resonance in England and France during the 1580s and 1590s. Attention to the significations of ‘minion’ allows for new appreciation of its function in Marlowe's Edward II; and when combined with the other terms discussed here, ‘riot’ and ‘sodomy’, it illuminates the value to medieval and early modern writers of ambiguous sexual discourse.