Medieval Lesbians

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode Summary: "Medieval Lesbians"

Release Date: January 17, 2025
Host: Kate Lister
Guest: Tess Wingard, Historian

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1. Introduction to Medieval Lesbianism

In the episode titled "Medieval Lesbians," host Kate Lister delves into the elusive history of lesbian relationships during the medieval period. Opening with the striking memorial brass of Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge in a modest church in Sussex, England, Lister sets the stage for exploring how same-sex female relationships might have existed and been perceived in a time dominated by strict societal norms and limited historical records.

Kate Lister [00:28]: "Here in the modest, unassuming medieval church in the south of England is a brass memorial etching... Could this be a glimpse into medieval lesbian life?"

2. The Challenge of Historical Evidence

Lister acknowledges the significant challenges historians face when researching lesbian history before the 20th century, primarily due to societal oppression, homophobia, and the scarcity of records explicitly detailing same-sex female relationships. To navigate these challenges, she introduces guest historian Tess Wingard, whose work focuses on uncovering these hidden narratives.

3. Broadening the Criteria for Identification

Wingard emphasizes the importance of expanding the criteria historians use to identify lesbian relationships, moving beyond the narrow search for explicit sexual acts. Drawing inspiration from Judith Bennett's concept of the "lesbian-like," Wingard advocates for examining a wider range of evidence, such as expressions of emotional intimacy and social bonds that exceed platonic friendships.

Tess Wingard [10:22]: "We need to think more broadly about what kinds of medieval lives and what kinds of evidence might demonstrate the kind of presence of lesbians in the historical record."

4. The Etchingham-Oxenbridge Memorial Plaque

A focal point of the discussion is the memorial brass of Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge. Wingard explains that the depiction of these two unmarried women gazing into each other's eyes—a design typically reserved for married heterosexual couples—suggests a deeper emotional and possibly romantic connection.

Tess Wingard [11:23]: "They're shown with long, uncovered hair, which is a sign that they are both maidens... this design... is almost exclusively used for married straight couples in this period."

5. Medieval Understandings of Sexuality

Lister and Wingard explore how medieval society conceptualized sexuality without the modern labels of "lesbian" or "gay." The term "sodomite" was commonly used, albeit as a broad and often derogatory label rather than a self-identifier. This categorization primarily targeted sexual acts deemed non-reproductive, such as same-sex activities.

Tess Wingard [15:05]: "Sodomy is any kind of sexual act that can't potentially lead to reproduction and pregnancy... it's different from our modern categories."

6. Legal Prosecutions and Sodomy Laws

A significant portion of the episode examines legal cases where women were prosecuted for sodomy, shedding light on societal attitudes and legal repercussions of same-sex female relationships.

a. Case of Bertolina (Gursia)

Wingard recounts the case of Bertolina, nicknamed Gursia, from Bologna in 1295. Accused of sodomy, love magic, and fortune-telling, Gursia openly confessed her romantic interest in another woman and demonstrated the use of a "virilia," likely a dildo, to engage in sexual acts.

Tess Wingard [25:23]: "Gursia is absolutely fearless... she just straight up says, you know, I fancy this woman... and then shows the witness something... probably a dildo."

Despite her brazen confession, Gursia evades prosecution by fleeing the city, highlighting both her courage and the complexities of enforcing sodomy laws.

b. Case of Katharina Hetzeldorfer

Another poignant case discussed is that of Katharina Hetzeldorfer from Speer, Germany, in 1477. Hetzeldorfer was suspected of gender transgression, wearing a "virilia" not just for sexual purposes but as a means to pass as male. This ultimately led to her conviction and execution by drowning—a punishment uniquely harsh and gendered.

Tess Wingard [36:32]: "Hetzeldorfer is clearly wearing this thing on a day-to-day basis... it's a kind of medieval she-wee... helping them to pass as male."

7. Medieval Lesbian Subculture and Convents

Lister inquires about the possibility of an organized lesbian subculture during the medieval era. Wingard suggests that while there wasn't a conscious subculture akin to later periods, convents and nunneries may have served as informal spaces where women could form close, possibly romantic, relationships. She cites historical records and letters, such as those of Hildegard von Bingen, which exhibit deep emotional bonds that could hint at romantic connections.

Tess Wingard [42:03]: "We don't have a very organized or self-conscious lesbian subculture... but convents and nunneries might have been places where medieval lesbians could find each other."

8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with reflections on the resilience and presence of lesbian relationships throughout history, despite societal constraints and the paucity of records. Wingard's research underscores the importance of re-examining historical narratives to uncover the nuanced realities of same-sex female relationships in medieval times.

Tess Wingard [45:32]: "It's so sweet... It's got resonance for lesbians today just as much as in the 12th century."

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Notable Quotes:

• Kate Lister [07:10]: "Ooh, is that where the penitentials come from? They're my favourite, the medieval indexes of sin that the early church would use to look up certain sins to see what the punishment is."

• Tess Wingard [27:26]: "It's part of Hetzeldorfer's own confession... they're using this to pee through. So it's a kind of like a medieval she-wee."

• Kate Lister [45:37]: "That's not just maids. Oh, that's lovely. Oh, I love that."

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Further Exploration:

Listeners intrigued by medieval lesbian history are encouraged to explore related episodes, such as those on Tudor lesbians, the origins of sexting, and even "dinosaur sex," offering a wide array of sexual history topics.

Connect with Tess Wingard:

For more insights into Tess Wingard's research on medieval sexuality, visit tesswingard.wordpress.com.

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This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith, with Charlotte Long as the senior producer. Music provided by Epidemic Sound.

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

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[Kate Lister]

Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. And you are you.

And I'm so glad that you are here.

But before we can continue together, I have to tell you this is an.

Adult podcast spoken by adults to other.

Adults about adulty things in an adultery way, covering a range of adult subjects. And you should be an adult too, which basically means that if you are of a sensitive disposition, off, just off. We don't want you around here. Sorry it had to be said. Right on with the show. If you're looking for indisputable evidence of lesbian culture and lesbian lives and, well, almost any kind of queer history before like 1970, you are gonna be in for a tough time. But that's not to say that the clues aren't there, if you know where to look. Here in the modest, unassuming medieval church in the south of England is a brass memorial etching laid into the stone beneath our feet. These weren't uncommon, but they were usually done for married couples. And what's notable about this one is that it features two women, Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge. They're not wearing headscarves either, which typically meant that they were unmarried. And rather than looking out at the viewer, they're gazing into each other's eyes. Could this be a glimpse into medieval lesbian life. And if it is, well, what other examples do we have? Well, in this episode we are going to find out.

Why do you look for any man?

[Tess Wingard]

Oh, money, of course.

[Kate Lister]

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.

I make perfect copies of whatever my.

Boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the button. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

[Tess Wingard]

Goodness.

[Kate Lister]

What beautiful Dan.

[Tess Wingard]

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.

[Kate Lister]

Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. As we well know, we well know, lesbians and same sex attracted people have existed since day dot. Whether the historical records actually capture that or not, due to the nature of, well, oppression, homophobia, sexism, misogyny. I mean, what a list. But all of that means finding examples in history, not just of same sex relationships, but relationships between women is really, really difficult to do. But I love a challenge and so do many other historians, thankfully. Joining me today is one of those amazing historians, Tess Wingard, who is here to tell us about medieval lesbian culture. If this kind of history piques your interest. And why wouldn't it? Why not? Click back to our episode on Tudor lesbians after you've listened to this one. Well, without further ado, let's crack on.

Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Tess Wingard. How are you doing?

[Tess Wingard]

Doing good. It's great to be here.

[Kate Lister]

We're here to talk about, well, many things, but your work. You are the author of. Let me get the title right. Unclean Beasts, Sex, Animality and the invention of heteronormativity, 1200-1550. Tess, what made you want to write this book?

[Tess Wingard]

So it emerged out of my PhD thesis. So I did my first major research project looking at how ideas around sexuality and categories of sex and gender really kind of changed and developed in the 13th century. And I was particularly interested in the role for that new ideas around animals, animal, human difference and the natural world, which also emerged in the same period in the 13th century. How that played a role in shaping these new ideas around sex.

[Kate Lister]

What was happening around 1300 to make all these changes that you identified? That's a huge question. I'm sorry, what are the main influences that you looked at in your work?

[Tess Wingard]

So there's two really, really big key historical changes that's taking place around the year 1200 through to 1300. So on the sex side of things, you have the Fourth Lateran Council, which is this big meeting of the Catholic Church where they decided a lot of stuff. But one of the key things that they were really interested in is making it mandatory for all Christians to receive confession at least once a year.

[Kate Lister]

Right.

[Tess Wingard]

So before then, it was the kind of thing where you might only really get confession perhaps once in your lifetime. If you were not very devout, you'd get it before you die. But otherwise it's not really a regular part of people's lives. And so after Lateran 4, they make it so in theory, everyone has to do it at least once a year. And so with that, you have kind of a growing interest in classifying different kinds of sinful behaviour, so different kinds of sexual acts, and in educating laypeople more about that and how to kind of identify when they are doing something immoral.

[Kate Lister]

Ooh, is that where the penitentials come from? They're my favourite, the medieval indexes of sin that the early church would use to look up certain sins to see what the punishment is. And they are mad. They are absolutely bonkers.

[Tess Wingard]

The penitentials are a little bit earlier. We see them more from, I think, really the sort of 6th century through to the 10th and 11th. But they are great fun with how, like you say, how weirdly specific they get. They kind of break down different kind of sexual acts, like, oh, if you masturbate, that's X number of years of penance you have to do. If you have sex with someone who's unmarried, that's so many years of penance. And if you have sex with an animal, that's even more. But by the 13th century, there's a bit of a change in attitudes, really. And you have a lot of writers, people like Thomas of Chobham, later John de Burgh, who, they say, you know, these penitentials, these list of punishments, they're good in theory, but they're too strict to actually really make anyone follow. So we need to have a more kind of common sense approach to what penitents are supposed to do to make up for, or to really express penance and regret for the acts they've done.

[Kate Lister]

We are here to talk very specifically about lesbians in the medieval period. Now, this is a fascinating subject because we know that they were there. They were definitely there. They were definitely there. But finding evidence of this history is notoriously difficult. It's much harder than finding history of gay men. How have you gone about researching something like this? What sources are you using?

[Tess Wingard]

A big part of what's informing my approach there is this idea that a historian of medieval lesbians, Judith Bennet, came up with. So she puts forward this idea of the lesbian like, which is where she basically says it's very hard. If you're looking only for evidence of sexual acts and specifically genital acts as the smoking gun for lesbians in the historical record, you aren't really going to find very much. So when she was writing in the 1990s, historians generally thought there was maybe around a dozen or so legal cases of lesbianism that met that very, very narrow criteria that they could find before 1600, let's say. And what Judith Bennett was saying was we need to think more broadly about what kinds of medieval lives and what kinds of evidence might demonstrate the kind of presence of lesbians in the historical record. So broadening out what we think of as sexual acts and erotic acts. So not just looking for genital contact, strap on side kind of thing, but thinking more about other kinds of maybe physical intimacy, emotional intimacy between women, that kind of thing.

[Kate Lister]

That's fascinating. What kind of evidence would you. I mean, you. On it's dangerous crowd and historians are notorious for going, yes, but they might have just been good friends. That's like an ongoing Internet joke now that we do that. So what would you be looking for as this kind of broadening of evidence where you're like, okay, it's not a strap on, but it is evidence of intimacy. What kind of things would you be looking for?

[Tess Wingard]

So the kinds of things I'd really be focusing on would be be written or recorded expressions of intimacy and closeness that go beyond the norms of platonic friendship in a given period, or that in some way seem to mirror or emulate the kinds of expressions of intimacy that you see between identifiably straight couples in this period. So one of the really classic examples for this is the case of Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, hit me.

[Tess Wingard]

They're these two women in mid 15th century England, specifically in the. In the kind of area of Sussex. And they have a memorial brass plaque to them in the Etchingham Parish church. And you can still see it today. And it's this really, really beautiful kind of design. And it shows the two women, Elizabeth and Agnes, not quite facing directly to each other, but kind of tilted towards each other. And it comes with a little memorial inscription underneath that commends the souls of both women to God. And we don't really know a lot about these two women beyond this memorial plaque. We do know that neither of them ever married. We have no other records of them appearing anywhere else as kind of anyone's wives. What we do know about this plaque is that it's very, very striking. So the way that these two women are depicted facing each other, we can also tell from the design of these two women on the plaque that they are shown with long, uncovered hair.

[Kate Lister]

Look, I'm looking at it right now.

[Tess Wingard]

So they're shown with long, uncovered hair, which is a sign that they are both maidens. So they're both unmarried. And so this design, though, the way that they are both memorialized on this plaque together and the specific way they're shown facing each other in that way, that is a design which is almost exclusively used for married straight couples in this period. So the.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Tess Wingard]

Yeah. The only rare exceptions you see to that are sometimes you might see siblings portrayed like that, or sometimes a parent and child, but almost never do you see two unrelated people of the same gender portrayed like that.

[Kate Lister]

Fascinating.

[Tess Wingard]

And it's also. When the brass plaque was made in the 1480s, that style of design was also very, very kind of new and trendy. And it's again, one that a lot of art historians have looked at that and they've said this is showing a greater degree of emotional intimacy and warmth between a couple compared with the older styles of memorials for couples that tend to be more. Maybe a bit kind of more rigid, emotionless. They usually portray the couple as they would be buried, so both facing the viewer, and it's a bit less emotionally warm. Whereas this new style is much more intimate and close. So that's kind of interesting that they chose that one.

[Kate Lister]

See lesbians leading the way in interior design for the last thousand years. But that leads me on to my next question, which is a really important one with anybody doing this kind of research, is how would the medieval people have viewed this? Because today our understanding of sexuality is its. It's an identity is you come out, you say, I am gay, I am straight. I am. Actually, no, people don't come out and say that they're straight, do they? That would be a weird one. But maybe they should. But what. What do we talk about in the medieval period? How did they understand sexuality?

[Tess Wingard]

So medieval society, it doesn't have the same kinds of categories of sexual identity that we have today. So there's not really anything like, you know, a straight or a heterosexual identity or a gay or lesbian identity. You do have this category of the sodomite.

[Kate Lister]

Ah, yes.

[Tess Wingard]

So it's a category that basically does what it says on the tin. It's anyone who engages in sodomy. The problem is this is a very Kind of fuzzy, broad category that different clerical authors will describe sodomy as being different kinds of things, but generally a good rule of thumb is it's any kind of sexual act that can't potentially lead to reproduction and pregnancy. So that can be as broadly inclusive as maybe oral or anal sex between, you know, a man and a woman. Or sometimes some authors define it much more narrowly as just involving sex between two people of the same gender. So two men, two women. But the thing is, this category of the sodomite, it's different from our kind of modern categories because as far as we know, it's never really used as a self identifier. So we don't have any record of anyone saying, you know, I'm a sodomite, I associate with other sodomites. It's only ever really used as a way to classify someone else and more usually to kind of insult them or criminalize them.

[Kate Lister]

Is there any records of anybody being prosecuted for other crimes of sodomy contained within that label? Has anyone ever been dragged to court for giving someone a blowjob or giving somebody oral sex or masturbating? Because all of those things could technically be sodomy. Or was this largely and pretty much exclusively used to target the queer community? Although they wouldn't have used those words.

[Tess Wingard]

We do have some very kind of rare evidence of sodomy as a criminal offence being used to target what we might call straight people or people engaged in straight sex. But the kinds of things like oral or anal, we do have some records of that. But in practice it's much more commonly used to target queer people. And overwhelmingly it's usually more applied to men who, who have sex of other men. But we do have some records of it also being applied to women who have sex with other women.

[Kate Lister]

Apparently oral sex is still on the statute books as being illegal in several American states. It's unenforceable because it's no longer the law. But that's because it was part of the sodomy law, that sodomy was illegal. So technically, technically oral sex was as well. And that's quite freaking recent history, isn't it? Let's talk about lesbians. How were they understood in the medieval period? Because there's a wealth of research trying to understand how they. How they would have conceptualized of somebody that we would now say is gay. They wouldn't have identified as a sodomite. There's. I've read an argument that sexuality was something. It wasn't who you were, it was something you did how do you apply this to women who were notoriously difficult to research?

[Tess Wingard]

Anyway, there were some interesting medical ideas in this period about what made some women be attracted towards other women.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, is this the giant clitoris? Is this. Yeah.

[Tess Wingard]

Oh God, it's the giant clitoris.

[Kate Lister]

Completely bonkers. Sorry. I do love this one. Go on, keep going.

[Tess Wingard]

So there's this idea in medieval science which actually derived originally from kind of medieval Islamic writings on sex that got translated and transmitted to the Christian world, which there's this idea that some women just naturally, through how their bodies are made or how they develop, that they are thought to have kind of enlarged clitorises which they use to penetrate other women. These women are called trib aids. And that's where we have this kind of modern, slightly old fashioned term, but tribidism that's used for kind of lesbians.

[Kate Lister]

I wonder about this. This is my theory on how they understood or misunderstood lesbianism throughout much of history. And it goes back to this idea of this large clitoris. And it comes down to the fact that they couldn't conceive of sex without a penis. They couldn't understand. Like they just. Even today people struggle with that. You ask any lesbian at all, and they will have got at least once in their life have heard something along the lines of, but what you do in bed. As if like they're just sat there waiting for the penis to show up. And that's certainly the truth throughout our history. And I have a feeling that this emphasis on, well, they must be growing this massive clitoris which is actually a penis, because then that kind of makes sense to them of like, but that's how they would have sex. So what do you think of that?

[Tess Wingard]

So there is some awareness in some kind of medieval medical writers that the, the clitoris and this can be kind of normal sized clitorises as well as the gigantic ones, that they are kind of the source of sexual pleasure in women. So we see this in the writings of people like Gilbert the Englishman or Peter Rabano, these two very kind of famous 13th century authors. And they kind of identify roughly that the clitoris is a body part that's full of nerves and those nerves can be stimulated to achieve orgasm.

[Kate Lister]

Well done, lad.

[Tess Wingard]

So actually Peter of Urbano writes that women can achieve orgasm through the stimulation of the clitoris alone. So that kind of idea that medieval people can't imagine sex without a penis can be true in many contexts. But there is definitely some awareness of ways of having and doing sex that don't necessarily involve a Penis or penetration of any kind.

[Kate Lister]

This is a big question. I'm not sure that anyone's ever been able to answer it and have everybody go, oh, that makes sense. Why is it, do you think, that gay men have historically been persecuted much more severely than. Than women having sex with women? Not exclusively. And we're going to talk in a bit about some of the women who were prosecuted under sodomy law. So they're certainly not exempt from it. But historically, gay men have drawn much more attention than gay women.

[Tess Wingard]

There's been a lot of theories about it, and I don't think anyone's ever really had a very definitive answer on it. But one argument that's very commonly been put forward is, is that the law tends to be more concerned about kinds of queer sex that involve penetration of some kind. So the handful of legal cases that we do have that involve women almost always involve the women fashioning some kind of dildo or some kind of strap that they use in order to penetrate other women. And so what we perhaps might be seeing a pattern of there is that women who don't engage in that may just simply not be considered transgressive enough or really doing something serious enough to merit prosecution. And it's only when they are known to be doing that kind of penetration, which is acting as a kind of gender subversion. So in that case, the women who are penetrating other women, they are, in a sense becoming men or kind of fulfilling a male role. And so it's specifically that kind of gender transgression that's the real issue there, rather than necessarily inherently the fact that it's two women having sex.

[Kate Lister]

And we're kind of back again to that idea that, well, that's what counts as sex. Like, the rest is just like kind of jolly japes almost. I read there was one case, they all seem to be called Catherine, but there was one in, I think it was Germany. And most of the transcripts taken up with people on the jury philosophizing about whether or not two women could even have sex. And they almost got off, but they didn't. But, like, they almost. Because they're just going, well, they can't be sodomite. They can't be, because they don't have penises. They just can't get their heads around it at all. It's a really. I don't know if I'm glad to hear, but it's good to hear that you found some space for. There is an understanding that sexual pleasure doesn't just involve a penis. That Seems very progressive for them. Let's talk about some of the cases, because I think that these are important, because unfortunately, all the records that are left to us are kind of skewed because the way we find a lot of examples of women that we would call lesbians or queer or I think is in court records. So what kind of cases have you found?

[Tess Wingard]

I'm still kind of at the early stages of my current project, which is going to be surveying the. The kind of legal records of the English church in the 14th century. So these are the courts where we would hope to find cases of sodomy involving women. But some of the kind of most interesting cases that we already have that historians are kind of already aware of. One of my favorites is from Bologna. So in Italy, and it's from the very end of the 13th century in 1295, and it's before the civic courts, so it's the secular city courts rather than the church courts. And this is a woman called Bertolina, who is nicknamed Gursia. And usually in the court record, she's called by this nickname Gursia. So she's basically brought before the court on several charges. So she's accused of the act of sodomy, but also of love magic. So trying to cast spells to make people fall in love with her, and fortune telling, which at this time is also a crime.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Tess after the.

Short Lesbianism and fortune telling. Right, okay. That's two quite disparate crimes being brought together.

[Tess Wingard]

Yeah, she's very much a prototypical astrology girly. I love her so much. But her story is brilliant. The narrative that we get in court, once the witnesses start being interrogated about what she's actually done. So they say that this Gursier had fallen in love with a widow, and she had actually basically hired some singers to come and serenade this widow outside her home.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, you've got to admire the chutzpah of that.

[Tess Wingard]

Okay. Exactly. And the thing is, she's absolutely fearless. She's so great because she basically says to one of her neighbours, who ends up being a witness in the trial against her, she just straight up says, you know, I fancy this woman. I would like to have sex with her. And the witness says to her, you know, you can't really do that. That's not okay. And Gircia just replies, doesn't care, and then shows the witness something that in the document is called a virilia. And it's not exactly certain what that means. It's not Really a word that we have a lot of other examples of it being used in court records. But it's probably a dildo that she's using because it's included as one of these things that she's using to have sex with other women. So despite the fact that this is, you know, a crime, she's completely brazen about it and I just love her for it.

[Kate Lister]

Why do you think she wasn't worried about that? I mean, because this stuff, it's not like they were holed up in front of the court and they went, right, don't do that again, please. Desist. Some of these women were burnt to death.

Why do you think that?

Bertie was so. No, fuck it, I'm off to I fancy you. I'm gonna sing your songs. That's so brave, to the point of bonkers.

[Tess Wingard]

I think the key thing in her case is that it really seems like, even though, you know, sex between women is a crime on the books, it just seems to be something that in her community, people just don't really care about. They might disapprove of it, they might think there's something weird or wrong with her for doing it, but it's not really something that motivates them to take action. So it's very notable, actually, that at this trial, all the witnesses say that these events involving Gircia and the widow, all of this takes place months and months ago and no one has really taken it to court until now, when this. This man in particular decides to get her prosecuted. And there's a suggestion, but we don't necessarily. We don't necessarily have the full evidence for it, but it seems likely that maybe this was a witness bringing a charge of sodomy against her as a kind of pretext for some other kind of fight or dispute that they're having.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I love the fact that they interviewed the neighbours and they were just going, yeah, it's just the lesbians being mad again. What do you want from us? Just some. Some horrible, horrible man. But I've noticed. But then I'm not, as. This isn't my specialist area, like it is with you, but it seems to me that prosecutions like this come in waves. It's almost like the witchcraft trials is like they. In certain areas, they pop up and there's like, oh, my God, we've got to prosecute people. And then they kind of die away. And when they're dying away, I'm often wondering, like, is there a kind of an uneasy understanding of what's happening in these Communities like, is it just that the people knew and they just kind of tutted and rolled their eyes or what happens to make it suddenly become an issue with the courts, do you think?

[Tess Wingard]

In these places, it's very often connected with other kind of bigger social or political factors. So a lot of the times when you're seeing these sudden big spikes in prosecution for sodomy, it's taking place at times of other kind of bigger social change. So perhaps when some of the most well known examples are a little bit later, sort of towards the end of the Middle Ages, but during the Reformation, at times when certain regions are starting to go through the process of reforming, converting to Protestantism, you see this kind of spike in prosecutions. And there's a lot of. There's a lot of theories around this that suggests that maybe it's kind of a way of channeling all this anxiety around moral decay and the state of society into targeting this kind of sexual behaviour. That before, people weren't so interested in.

[Kate Lister]

What happened to Bertie. Was she okay?

[Tess Wingard]

So the good news with Bertie is that the end of the court record says that officers of the court were summoned to try and find her, but she had already fled the city by the conclusion of the case. Yeah. So as far as we know, she had a happy end.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, she might still be on the run. A lot of them didn't. My producer Stuart has just messaged me to go hurrah. So, yeah, hurrah for everybody.

Hurrah for Bertie.

Everyone listening? Yes. But a lot of them didn't get that ending where they. They ran away. Who. I'm gonna butcher this now, and I'm so sorry. Katharina hurt Zelda Fora that. Spoken like a German native. What was her case?

[Tess Wingard]

So Katharine Hetzeldorfer, she was someone who was appeared before the court in Speer. So that's a German town in the year 1477. So right at the end of the Middle Ages. And Hetzeldorfer's case is kind of a quite a difficult one to look at, or there's a lot of different layers to it, because the only name we have for Hetzeldorfer is the one given in the record, Katerina Hetzeldorfer. But there seems to be some suggestion in the court records that they might have been someone we might think of as transgender today.

[Kate Lister]

I have wondered that, looking at this stuff. No, I'm getting ahead of myself. But I'm going to ask you next, how, as a historian, do you go about navigating that? But tell us her story or their story first.

[Tess Wingard]

Hetzeldorfer's story is quite a complicated one. It's hard to kind of trace through because all we have are the witness statements and Hetzeldorfer's own confession, and a lot of them seem to almost contradict each other. So, as best as we can tell, Hetzeldorfer is someone who has traveled to Speer from elsewhere in Germany, along with a younger woman who at times, Hetzeldorfer. There's a suggestion that this is their sister. At other times, there's a suggestion that maybe it's just another random woman that they're trying to pass off as a woman. And they come to Speer, and it seems like at least some of the time they are dressing and presenting themselves as a man. So some of the witnesses say that, and I quote here, she who stands in the dock and who is supposed to be a man. So this idea that they literally think that Hetzeldorfer is a man and is trying to pass themselves off as one. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Tess after the short break.

How do. Because it's so complicated, this. And you are into. You're into a minefield with this stuff, aren't you? Because unfortunately, Katharina is not here to say I identify as this. And as you rightly point out, all we've got are biased records speaking about this person. And there have been many cases of women just dressing as men because life was a bit fucking easier to do that. How do you go about. When you're writing about somebody like Katharina, how do you go about writing about them?

[Tess Wingard]

This is something where, actually, I think there's a lot of value in taking that original idea of the lesbian like and adapting it to thinking about the transgender like. So, again, the perfect or the best form of smoking gun for trying to explore a trans life in the medieval record would be to find some clear evidence where someone says, yeah, a diary or some kind of statement that, you know, I experience gender dysphoria, or I want to be seen as this gender. And there is some evidence for that in some sources, but most of the time, you have to look more indirectly for other signs or evidence that might point to someone, you know, living in ways that mirror the modern transgender experience. And so in Hetzeldorfer's case, one of the most kind of compelling bits of evidence that suggests that they are best understood perhaps as a trans person is returning back to the theme of dildos.

[Kate Lister]

It's the dildo. In every case, it's there.

[Tess Wingard]

It's Here in this one. And actually it's part of Hetzeldorfer's own confession. They admit that they have crafted this thing, but what's different about this one is that it's, it's not just something that Herzeldorfer is using as a sex toy basically, but it's fashioned out of red leather, stuffed with cotton and with a kind of hole in the middle of it. And then they kind of tie it around themselves. And what's significant is that actually the other witnesses in the case say that Hetzeldorfer uses this to, well, to pee through. So it's, it's kind of like a medieval she wee, essentially.

[Kate Lister]

That's smart. That is a smart cookie. Because that would give you away, wouldn't it, straight away if you, if you couldn't pee standing up back then, that'd do it.

[Tess Wingard]

But that's, that's the kind of really, the possibly trans side of this is that Hesseldorfer is clearly wearing this thing on a day to day basis, not just when they're having sex, but that it's actually, it's in some way perhaps kind of gender affirming or helping them to pass as male in the way that perhaps a trans man or other kind of trans masculine people today might have a packer or other kind of prosthetic penis. Wow.

[Kate Lister]

Before we get to other cases, what happens to Herzldorfer?

[Tess Wingard]

So unfortunately, Hetzeldorfer does not have as happy an end as Gursja. So they are convicted and they are executed by being drowned in a river, which is, it's a punishment that is very, very exclusively reserved usually for women in, particularly in medieval German courts. So it's really a kind of final kind of insult to injury that, you know, if we are to think of Hetzeldorfer as trans, and certainly that's what I think they are, it's kind of a final indignity that they are killed in a very kind of female way as kind of a final like negation of their gender identity.

[Kate Lister]

How did that case even end up at court? Because this stuff it in order to kind of catch people out. What we're talking about here is basically sex acts. That's. And for the medieval mindset, they kind of were looking for smoking guns. So the evidence that they need is as blunt as you have a penis, you have a vagina, you were trying to put that penis into that, blah, blah, blah. It's like that. How did this case end up in court? How does any of it end up in court?

[Tess Wingard]

So we unfortunately don't really know for Hetzeldorfer, okay, how it came to the attention of the courts. But generally there's kind of different legal systems in Europe at this time, and there's different ways for cases to end up in the courts. So for the church courts, which is where a lot of sodomy cases end up, because sodomy is across all of Europe at this period, it's a, what we call an ecclesiastical crime. So it's something that can be tried by the church. So those cases will be brought to the attention of the courts if they're already kind of public knowledge in a community. So we have this concept of the. It's the Latin phrase publica fama. So public knowledge or kind of public reputation. So if, let's say everyone in a town knows that one person or one woman is a lesbian and is having sex with other women, when the church courts come round, so they tend to come round in a kind of cycle. So every few months or every year or so, they'll come back to the region, the church court officials will say, you know what's happening in this region, who kind of has a bad reputation at the moment.

[Kate Lister]

Show me the end.

[Tess Wingard]

Exactly. So at that point, the person's community might essentially dob them in and bring it to the attention of the courts and then that starts the trial process. But in other regions, so in a lot of Europe, we have kind of secular courts which also prosecute sodomy as a kind of secular crime. So this is particularly anywhere that adopted Roman law. England very famously never adopts Roman law. It has its own legal system. But in a lot of places like Germany and Italy, they do have the civil law. And the civil law, which is the law of the kind of late antique Roman Empire, so way back into the kind of 4th and 5th centuries that specifically has a, you know, it registers sex between men or sex between women as a crime that's punishable by death. So in these places that have this kind of civil court system, you might sometimes have kind of special courts that specifically investigate moral offense or sexual offences. And there might be officers of this court kind of going out into communities investigating these cases and bringing people to the attention of the courts. Maybe a kind of parallel might be the idea of how in, at least in the modern British criminal system, for instance, you can have, you know, the police, or I think it's the Crown Prosecution Service, will bring charges against a person if it's for an offense that not necessarily individually press charges against them for.

[Kate Lister]

So as A final question then. Although I could talk to you about this forever and ever, I'm always interested in what kind of lesbian subculture could have existed at this time, because it seems that you can find remnant shadows, hints of a gay subculture. And I think that's. That's enabled by the fact that men are allowed into public spaces in a way that women are not. But do you think that there was a lesbian subculture at this time? What do you think?

[Tess Wingard]

I don't think there was ever a very organized or self conscious lesbian subculture in the way that we might see much later, really, from the 19th century onwards. But I think where you do perhaps see some suggestion of places where medieval lesbians might congregate or might kind of find each other, it's in the convents and in the nunneries. Of course it is, but it's an interesting one because we kind of have evidence from really both sides of the fence there. So even in the Middle Ages themselves, we have a lot of writers and a lot of groups who are very concerned about what they see as rampant, you know, rampant queerness in both for men monasteries and also for women in nunneries. So in the 1390s in England, you have this group of. Some people call them heretics, some people would call them religious reformers, but the Lollards, who want, you know, a lot of reforms of the Church and its practices. But one of the things that they are particularly concerned about is basically in convents, they're worried that all these women who are taking vows of chastity and are swearing off sex with men, that this is leading them to basically engage in all kinds of everything from masturbation to sex of other women. So you have this kind of anxiety on the one side that people outside the convents think there's loads of lesbian sex going on in there. But actually, if you also look at some of the records of nuns in these institutions, you do see some interesting suggestions of what might be evidence of maybe kind of lesbian intimacy or very close lesbian friendships.

[Kate Lister]

Hildegard Bingen. Hildegard. There was a sneaky hint that one of my favourites, Hildegard, might have been a bit close to some nuns here and there.

[Tess Wingard]

Yeah. If you look at Hildegard's letters, she has this one particular nun who's a real favorite of hers, this is Richardis, and she writes all these letters to Rashadis about how disappointed she is in her quote unquote friend when she moves abbeys and moves far away from her. But one of my Other really, really favourite examples, because it's just quite sweet, is we have the records of this one letter that was written in the 12th century and it was written between two nuns, so it's one nun sending it to the other. And it's just hard to read it as anything other than very, very deep romantic love. Some people have said it's friendship. I'm not convinced. So this letter says in the kind of modern translation to C. So just the initial C, sweeter than honey or honeycomb. So again, initial B sends all the love there is to her. Love you, who are unique and special. Why do you make me delay so long, so far away? You are the only woman I have chosen according to my heart.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, come on. That's two seconds away from adopting a pug together. That's.

[Tess Wingard]

Yep.

[Kate Lister]

That's not just maids. Oh, that's lovely. Oh, I love that.

[Tess Wingard]

It's so sweet. Actually, two friends of mine chose that letter for a reading at their wedding. So it's got resonance for lesbians today just as much as in the 12th century.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, that's amazing. Tess, you have been fascinating to speak to. You really have. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[Tess Wingard]

So I have a website, it's very straightforwardly just Tess Wingard. I think it's tesswingard.WordPress.com, but if you Google my name, it's one of the first things that comes up and that's got all my publications and everything and tells you a little bit more about my work.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you so much for coming to talk to me today. You've been marvelous.

[Tess Wingard]

Oh, thank you. It's lovely to be here.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Tess for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to, like, review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject, or maybe you just fancied saying hi, then you can email us at Betwixtory Hit. Coming up, we've got episodes on the origins of sexting and dinosaur sex.

Yes, you did hear that correctly.

This podcast was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again. Betwixt the Sheets, the history of Sex Scandal in Society, A podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

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