LHMP #448 Roelens 2015 Visible Women: Female Sodomy in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Southern Netherlands (1400-1550)

It is generally agreed on by historians that evidence for prosecutions of women for “sodomy” (however defined) are both rare (in absolute terms and compared to those for men) and often more lightly punished. Roelens explores a context that runs counter to this pattern: the Southern Netherlands in the 15th and early 16th century.

Roelens has identified 13 trials, involving 25 women, from court records  in Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Antwerp, Brussels, Louvain, and Malines in which women were tried for “crimes against nature” or “sodomy.” The article begins with a review of how the term “sodomy” in this era and the context for why it typically was not applied to women. Definitions typically centered around inappropriate penetrative sex, and often were worded in ways that assumed it was necessarily performed by a man. Law codes that addressed sodomy rarely included references to women, and sex between women was generally absent as a topic for secular law. Citing Murray 1996 and others, the following exceptions are noted: Orléans (France) in 1270, Treviso (Italy) in 1574, Portugal in 1499, Bamberg (Holy Roman Empire) in 1507. The Constitution Criminalis Carolina established by Emperor Charles V in 1532 called for the death penalty for sex between women but appears to have had little influence on local law codes. England’s “Buggery Act” of 1533 makes no reference to women.

Even in places where laws addressing sex between women existed, in theory, records of prosecutions were extremely rare.  There were none in early modern Seville, none in 15th c Venice, none in two centuries of sodomy prosecutions in Florence, none in 15-16th c England and the Northern Netherlands. Elsewhere, records of prosecutions that might be due to f/f sex include France 1405, Rottweil 1444, Speyer 1477, Basque country 1503, Freiburg 1547, Geneva 1568, Portugal 1570, Valencia 1597, Gutenstein 1514, Spain 1409 & 1502, France 1533 & 1535, Grenzach 1537, and Italy 1580. (Looking beyond the period covered by the present article, there are a handful of Spanish cases in the 17th century of which only one was punished.) Outcomes ranged from acquittal to exile to execution. There is no indication of any systematic campaign of prosecution, though it must be taken into account that the “crime” is often referred to obliquely and may lie concealed behind ambiguous language. [Note: It was a common theme to refer to sodomy as an “unspeakable crime” with authorities treating that label literally by refusing to describe it explicitly.]

The preceding is the context in which the set of cases from the Southern Low Countries in the 15-16th centuries stands out. Women represented over 8% of the sodomy accusations there, and were punished with a severity parallel to male defendants. The cases are identified clearly, using terms like “buggery,” “unnatural sin,” “sin against nature,” and “sodomy.” The specific acts covered by this term can be identified from the records.

Some specific examples include:

• Two women who confessed to “a certain great kind of the unnatural sin of sodomy with several young girls” evidently acting together
• A woman and her daughter accused of committing sodomy with a servant girl

Punishments varied, and to some extent appear to have taken into account the agency of the accused. Corporal punishment (whipping) and/or exile were for participants seen as less culpable, either due to age, ignorance, or lacking power to refuse. Those viewed as having agency and intention received harsher penalties including execution. Out of the 25 individuals in the study, 60% were executed (usually by burning, similarly for male sodomites), 28% received either corporal punishment or banishment or both, and 12% were released with no penalty. This degree of severity was a new development in the 15th century, as seen by comparison with a 14th century case in Ghent where the women were allowed to pay a fine instead.

Most of these trials involved multiple defendants, and it’s possible that the trials of individuals involved solo acts under the sodomy umbrella, which could include masturbation and bestiality. (Sex with non-Christians could also be classified as sodomy because, as one 16th c legal scholar opined, Turks, Saracens, and Jews were the equivalent of animals, therefore sex with them was equivalent to bestiality.) Other types of transgressive sexual behavior were also treated more severely in the Southern Low Countries than elsewhere, including cross-dressing, which was not directly connected with sex between women. [Note: the one cited case of a woman committing “buggery” while dressed as a man doesn’t clearly indicate that her partner was female. See for example Bennett & McSheffrey 2014 where female cross-dressing is associated with sexual offenses involving male partners.] In contrast, women who committed (or were subject to) sodomy within marriage were not similarly prosecuted, lending support to the idea that the primary concern was behavior that contradicted traditional expectations of female behavior. (Married women who committed sodomy with female partners were treated the same as unmarried ones.)

Roelens concludes by exploring possible explanations for this localized preoccupation with female sodomy and its harsh penalties, particularly given that there was no actual legal basis for the prosecutions. Roelens posits that the unusual freedom, agency, and social power possessed by women in this era in the Southern Netherlands resulted in increased female visibility and scrutiny. As women’s freedoms and power decreased in the 17th century, prosecutions for female sodomy greatly declined (or rather, shifted to the Northern Netherlands, where the shipping economy that removed men for long periods of time resulted in greater female agency and power.) [Note: I’m not entirely convinced that this correlation indicates causation, but there is a general pattern across history of backlash against female empowerment.]

For reference, here is a catalog of the women and offenses mentioned in the article:

• Maertyne van Keyschote, daughter of Adriaen (Bruges) committed sodomy with several young girls (Grietkin van Bomele & Grietkin van Assenede) with her accomplice Jeanne vanden Steene—the two perpetrators were flogged and exiled while their younger partners were only flogged
• Marie de Valmerbeke and her daughter Belle Wasbiers (Ghent) accused by their servant Margarete Scoucx under torture of the “crime against nature”. Marie and Belle were burnt and Margarete was exiled.
• Amele sMoors and her sister (Ghent) in 1375 paid a fine to escape prosecution for “that filthy work”.
• Jozyne Quetieborne commited “the sin of sodomy” while in prison in Bruges for an unrelated crime. No partner is mentioned, so this may have been masturbation. Sentence not given.
• Kathelyne Dominicle (Brussels) was executed for committing buggery with her dog. (The dog was also executed.)
• Lysken Jans & Johanne Silversmeets (Brussels) whipped for sodomy having had “carnal conversation” with Turks.
• Jehanne Seraes (Ghent) confessed to committing buggery “while in the clothing of a man” and was executed. (No partner is mentioned so the partner’s gender is not known, but it would be unusual for a woman to be described that way if a man were involved.)

This is, of course, not the full catalog of 25 women described in the article.