Chapter 1 (Introduction)
A discussion of terminology, some of the cross-cultural problems of defining the topic of the book, and a statement of intent.
Chapter 2 (In the Beginning: 40,000-1200 BCE)
15th c
LHMP entry
Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #52 - Rupp 2009 Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women
For sheer soap-opera fascination, the trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer in 1477 in Speier explodes a number of potential myths about lesbian activity in medieval Europe -- whether that there was none, or that it was given no official or legal notice.
The article begins with a 16th century Spanish literary interchange between two women -- ostensibly a matchmaker and her client, but one rife with same-sex expressions of desire and moving into erotic play. After a standard review of a cultural/legal context where concern over male homosexuality did not extend to a similar concern about women unless a direct challenge to male prerogatives was involved, the article examines evidence from the life and memoirs of Leonor López de Córdoba, covering the late 14th and early 15th centuries.
Criticism of a particular tribe as promiscuous, where the women are preoccupied with grinding.
One of the most commonly-cited cases of medieval women openly dressing in male clothing is Joan of Arc, not only because of her prominent place in general history, but because both her practices and her reasoning are unusually well documented, not only by her contemporaries, but in her own words from the trial transcripts. She wore male clothing almost continually from the time of her first attempts to contact the Dauphin throughout most of her trial.
In the context of an increased interest in the cultural role of theatrical cross-dressing in the Renaissance through modern times, these authors extend the analysis backward to look at similar themes in medieval theater.
We have not entirely managed to shed the idea that an individual’s habitual predispositions are reflected in their physical features. The Greek pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomics is one of the foundational treatises that systematized this view. References to female homoeroticism (as opposed to male references) in the context of physiognomy are rare and primarily appear in texts derived from an anonymous Latin treatise of the 4th century.
One of the premises of astrology is that it predetermines various personality traits, as well as aspects of the course of one’s life. As applied to sexual preference, astrology provides at least a vague analog to the notion of an inborn orientation toward certain types of sexual activities and partners, although the ways these activities and partners are categorized don’t necessarily align with modern categories.
Chapter 6: The L-Word in Women’s History
This book as a whole is a “state of the field” analysis of women’s history as an academic discipline, and especially of women’s history (indeed, history in general) covering eras before the 19th century. This summary will cover only the chapter specifically on lesbian history.
There’s a rich amount of data on singlewomen and female-headed households in medieval Germany. Tax records for selected cities in the 14-15th centuries show between 17-25% of tax-paying households headed by women. Widows were often labeled as such in the records but it isn’t alway possible to clearly distinguish never-married women, though estimates suggest they may have been as many as half of these households. This continued in the 16th century with tax records indicating that 20-25% of tax-paying urban households were headed by women.
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