ABSTRACT
The charges against the Count of Ampurias were exceedingly serious. No category of sexual offense was treated more harshly by medieval law than sodomy, which was a general term used to describe any and all varieties of male homosexual activity. The canonists did not treat sodomy as a capital crime, since canon law in principle altogether rejected capital punishment, but the canonists applied to sodomy the most severe penalties available to them. The sodomy prosecution against Pons Hugh commenced in the midst of all this controversy over the Venetian ship. If Pons Hugh could be convicted on the sodomy charge, the king would have more than adequate basis for claiming that the Count had forfeited his rights to the County of Ampurias, as well as to any lands that he held in fee, or as allodial property, or by any other title.
