In English law, the term referred to the
crimes of anal intercourse between men, or sex between man and
beast. The practice of buggery was made a capital crime under
Henry VIII and remained so until 1861
when the sentence was reduced to 10 years to life imprisonment.
The term originated at the turn of the
second millennium with a group of heretics who taught that the material
world is irremediably evil. These heretics, many from Bulgaria,
were accused of widespread sodomy by the church in addition to their
deviation from doctrines endorsed by the Pope. The Bulgarian
heresy, or bougrerie in the French of the time, became synonymous
with "unnatural" sexual practices. When the word was
adopted in England, it became "buggery."
