In 1886 Lois Schwich was tried and sentenced in London for stealing expensive clothing from her employer. But the bare facts of the crime were not what attracted extensive media attention. Schwich had done this while passing herself off as a fifteen-year-old boy, and had done so for several years. Her case illustrates the various narratives around crossdressing in Victorian England as well as the intersections of gender, criminality, sex work, and competing images of masculinity.
court case
This tag identifies court records of legal cases involving either the suspicion or reality of lesbian sex.
LHMP entry
I’m going to start this summary by noting that the more articles I read from Randolph Trumbach, the grumpier I get. When the highlights on my pdfs are augmented by scribbled red pen notes saying “No! Wrong!”, it’s not a good sign. So I don’t exactly come into this summary with an unbiased mind.
When Kempe was required to defend herself against charge that included Lollardy, one of the questions thrown at her by the Mayor of Leicester was that she “went in white clothes ... to lure away our wives from us and lead them off with you.” What did that mean? Why did accusations of heresy and sexual deviance get associated with white clothing? Why would wearing white signal that she had intentions of leading women away from their homes? And what was she leading them away for?
The chapter begins with a summary of the legal records concerning John/Eleanor Rykener who was arrested for prostitution and who confessed to having sex with men as a woman, and with women as a man. [Note: The primary publication concerning this historic record is Karras & Boyd 1996] Of particular relevance to Dinshaw’s theme, Rykener specified having sex with both clerics and nuns.
This is not fundamentally a book about queer sex in history, it’s a book about the place of sex in the construction of certain historic communities in 14-15th century England, and specifically the place of sexuality in community-identification in relation to Lollard ideas. [Note: it may be useful for the reader to get a brief background in Lollardy from Wikipedia.
This article looks at the legal case brought in 1613 by Frances Harding for annulment of her marriage, based on the claim that her husband was unable to have sexual intercourse with her. Her argument was that, as she desired to become a mother, she needed the marriage annulled so that she could marry a more capable husband. The testimony and questioning in the case largely centered around physical “proof” of her virginity, as her husband was known to be sexually active with other women.
As can be expected from the reference to priests in the title of this article, it focuses mostly on relations between men. But there is some information on women within the more general context of “sodomy” involving clerical personnel.
[Content note: This article deals with overlapping uses of the word “hermaphrodite” in medieval contexts. In some cases, it indicates a person of ambiguous genitalia, that is, an intersex person. In other cases, it indicates a person who combines aspects of performative gender assigned to men and women or who performs aspects of a gender not matching the one assigned to their physiology. Medieval theory did not clearly distinguish these concepts.
Amer begins by tackling the Whorfian-tinged assertion that the lack of a specific terminology for lesbianism in medieval Europe contributed to a lack of modern scholarship about same-sex desire between women in that era, by noting that the existence of a diverse and specific vocabulary for the topic in medieval Arabic (sahq, sihaqa, musahaqat, al-nisa’, sahiqa) hasn’t resulted in a vibrant field of study. This is particularly disappointing given the significant surviving literature on the topic.
This is a data-heavy examination of cases under the Spanish Inquisition for sexual-related offenses during a critical period from the mid 16th century to the end of the 17th century. There is very little in the article that speaks directly to sexual activity between women, but it provides a context for attitudes and risks during that period.
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