People with a History: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans* History Sourcebook
Section III Europe to World War I
Editor: Paul Halsall
Contents:
Section III: Europe to World War I
Go to the following pages for other parts of People with a History
Chapter 10: Early Modern Europe
The great distinction between "modern" and "ancient
and medieval" history lies in the quantity of available sources.
In pre-modern culture we rely primarily on literary and legal
sources to understand homosexuality. Both types of source are
highly distorting. Although we can - with care - outline the contours
of some "homosexual" subcultures in pre-modern societies,
such efforts always remain tentative.
From the late fifteenth century in Europe this all changes. Large
amounts of source material begins to survive, and new sorts of
material at that. Most important are court records - especially
when full trial records remain. So great are the survivals in
some Italian cities that statistical surveys of the data are possible
(for which see the work of Michael Rocke and Guido Ruggiero in
the bibliography). The sources are not perfect, but now a social
history is possible.
Real progress has been made for some parts of Europe - especially
Italy. Other areas remain less well investigated. But debates
are now flourishing about what exactly was the social "identity"
of homosexually active men (there is still not enough evidence
to document Lesbian subcultures until much later than for males).
At the same time, the types of "homosexual source" we
have for previous societies continued to be produced. Plays and
poems are less central to our conception of homosexuality in this
period, but they remain important. Especially because we now have
evidence about audience and styles/occasions of performance, socially
significant inferences can be made. This data cannot be disgarded.
Discussions:
16th and 17th Century
18th Century
- WEB The Gay Subculture in Georgian England: Essays by Rictor Norton [At Rictor Norton's website] [Internet Archive version here]
- WEB Lesbian History [At Rictor Norton's website] [Internet Archive version here]
Less extensive than the section on gay male history, but also an essential online resource for the 18th century.
- Homosexual Terms in 18th-century Dictionaries [At Rictor Norton's website] [Internet Archive version here]
- Rictor Norton: Lesbian Pirates: Anne Bonny and Mary Read [At Rictor Norton's website][Internet Archive version here]
- Rictor Norton: Synopsis of Mother Clap's Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England, 1700-1830 [At Rictor Norton's website] [Internet Archive version here]
- Rictor Norton: Paradigms of Same-Sex Marriage in the Long Eighteenth Century (2011) PDF [At Rictor Norton's website][Internet Archive version here]
- The First Public Debate about Homosexuality in England: The Case of Captain Jones 1772
[At Rictor Norton's website][Internet Archive version here]
- Rictor Norton: From Twickenham to Turkey Eighteenth-Century Gay Subcultures in Europe, America and Australia [At Rictor Norton's website][Internet Archive version here]
Some discussion of gay subcultures (or not) in the Netherlands,
Sweden, Prussia, Geneva, Lisbon, and Australia.. The best evidence is from France, Paris, and Versailles.
- Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr: Homosexuality in Modern France. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996 [At Google Books, extensive preview].
- Wikipedia: Monsieur, Philippe I d'Orleans and Philippe, Chevalier de Lorraine
- Wikipedia: Catharina Margaretha Linck (died 1721)
A Prussian who presented as a man in adult life. Linck married a woman and, based on their sexual activity together, was convicted of sodomy and executed by order of King Frederick William I in 1721. The article contains excerpts of the trial record.
- Wikipedia: Leendert Hasenbosch (c. 1695 – probably end of 1725)
A Dutch employee of the Dutch East India Company who was marooned on (at the time uninhabited) Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, as a punishment for sodomy. He wrote a diary until his presumed death.
- Wikipedia: Utrecht Sodomy Trials 1730
A large-scale persecution of homosexuals that took place in the Dutch Republic, starting in the city of Utrecht in 1730. Over the following year, the persecution of "sodomites" spread to the rest of the nation, leading to some 250 to 300 trials, often ending in a death sentence.
- Wikipedia: Frederick II the Great of Prussia and Hans Hermann von Katte
- Wikipedia: Female Sodomy
Listing and bibliography about the numerous trial of "female sodomites) in early modern Europe.
Texts: Legal and Historical
- WEB Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook [At Rictor Norton's website] [Internet Archive version here]
The essential online resource for this period. Over two hundred primary sources and some secondary discussion.
- Edward Carpenter (1884-1929): Iolaus: An Anthology of Friendship [chapter on Renaissance] [At this Site]
- The Law in England, 1290-1885 texts
of the major laws. [At this Site]
- Act of 1533 which first made buggery
a crime under English Criminal Law [Was At Knitting Circle, now Internet Archive]
- Homily Against Adultery and Whoredom PDF file. see page 85.[At Rasmusen] [Internet Archive version here]
With some discussion of Sodom!
- Wikipedia: Constitutio Criminalis Carolina
1507
A body of German criminal law, introduced by Emperor Charles V, which first criminalised male and female homosexual acts.
- Constitutio Criminalis Carolina 1507 [At Latein Pagina] [Internet Archive version here]
See article 116 regarding homosexuality.
- Montaigne: A Homosexual Marriage in Rome 1581 [Was at LGBH Catholic Handbook, now Internet Archive]
Account of a gay marriage in 16th-century Rome by Montaigne.
- Gary Ferguson: A same-sex marriage ceremony in… Renaissance Rome? (2017) [At the Conversation] [Internet Archive version here]
- Katherine Harvey: Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome: Interview with Gary Ferguson [At Notches bloge][Internet Archive version here]
- Giles Jacob: Intrigues of Hermaphrodites and Masculine Females 1718 [Wikisource]
A 1718 story appearing in the larger Tractus de Hermaphrodites, which posited that the erect female clitoris was capable of sexual penetration in the manner of a penis.
- The Woman-Hater's Lamentation, 1707 [At Rictor Norton's website][Internet Archive version here]
- Frederick II of Prussia: Abolition of the Death Sentence for Sodomy 1746 [In German] [PDF] [Internet Archive]
- John Cleland: Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure 1749 [Wikisource]
novel featuring ahomosexual scene
- Molly Exalted, 1763 [At Rictor Norton's website][Internet Archive version here]
- WEB Eighteenth-Century French Prosecution Reports on Sodomy [At Sundries] [Internet Archive version here]
These are included in various police blotter reports. Scroll down to locate:
Sundries 49, Sundries 50, Sundries 51, Sundries 52 (Lesbians), Sundries 53.
- Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan: Homosexuality in early modern France: a documentary collection (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) [At Internet Archive borrow facility]
[NB recent collection, but not online, - Jeffrey Merrick, ed., Sodomites, Pederasts, and Tribades in Eighteenth-Century France: A Documentary History (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019), Review here]
Texts: Literary
- Michael Drayton (1563-1631): Piers Gaveston [extracts] [At this Site]
- Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): Edward II full text [Project Gutenberg]
- YouTube: Edward II directed by Derek Jarman (1991) [The entire film is available, but note that links to YouTube can often go bad]
- Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" [At Rjgeib.com] [Internet Archive version here]
Presents it as a heterosexual poem!
-
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): Amorous Neptune [Was At WWU, now Internet Archive]
- Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): Jupiter and Ganymede [At this Site]
- Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): Hero and Leander [At this Site]
-
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnets [Project Gutenberg]
See esp. for homosexual themes Sonnets 20, 29, 35, 36, 53, 55, 57, 60, 67, 87, 94,104,
110, 116, 144.
- Wikipedia: Shakespeare's Sonnets: Fair Youth
- Richard Barnfield (1574-1627): The Affectionate Shepherd [At this Site]
Famous for the line "If it be a sinne to love a lovely
lad/Oh, then sinne I"
- Thomas Heywood (1574?-1641): Jupiter and Ganimede [At this Site]
- Charles Churchill (1731-1764): from The Times [At this Site]
- Poetry of Aphra Behn
selections [Was At Sappho.Com, now Internet Archive]
The first women to earn her living by writing in English.
- Montague Summers, ed.: Memoirs of Mrs. Behn [Project Gutenberg]]
- Der Dichter Friederich Hoelderlin in German [At Sternenfall] [Internet Archive version here]
Websites:
Back to Contents
Chapter 11: Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Europe
Discussions:
Texts:
- WEB Homosexuality in Nineteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook [At Rictor Norton's website] [Internet Archive version here]
The essential online resource for this period. Over two hundred primary sources and some secondary discussion.
- WEB The Life and Writings of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) [At Rictor Norton's website] [Internet Archive version here]
- WEB Deviance, disorder and the self
[Internet Archive version here]
"Deviance, disorder and the self is a teaching resource for undergraduates in the Humanities. It provides a collection of primary source material, as well as biographical information, general commentary and guides to further reading and research materials. It has been designed primarily to accompany courses taught in recent years by Daniel Pick and Matt Cook, at Queen Mary and Birkbeck Colleges, University of London, and Keele University."
- Jeremy Bentham: "Offences Against One's Self" (c. 1785) [Full text] [At Columbia] [Internet Archive version here]
Bentham's work was one of the earliest modern ethical texts in favor of the rights of homosexuals. The treatise examines the question of what, if any, legal sanctions should be applied against homosexuality.
- Matthew Tomlinson: Diary Entry on the Naturalness of Same-Sex Desire 14 Jan 1810 [Eamonn O'Keefe] [Internet Archive version here] See also BBC Report (2020)
A diary entry by a Yorkshire farmer from 1810 discoverd by chance in Wakefield
library. This account inlcudes a transcript of the entry - "Reflecting on news reports of the execution of a naval surgeon for sodomy, Tomlinson suggested that homosexuality is innate and should not be punished by death.".
- Anne Lister: Diaries
[At WY Archives] [Internet Archive version here]
- WikipediaL Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
- John Addington Symonds (1840-1893): A Problem in Modern Ethics: Being an Inquiry into the Phenonmenon of Sexual Inversion (London: 1896) [Wikisource]
- Edward Carpenter (1884-1929): The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women
(London: George Allen & Unwin,1908)
[At this Site]
- Edward Carpenter (1884-1929): Homogenic Love and Its Place in a Free Society 1894 [At Internet Archive]
- Edward Carpenter (1884-1929): Iolaus: An Anthology of Friendship (1909) [Full text]
(1902) [At this Site]
- The Illustrated Police News: The Drag Ball, Temperance Hall, Hulme Manchester24 Sept 1880 [At If these Walls Could Talk] [Internet Archive version here]
- The Backstreet of Hulme home to the Notorious Cross-Dressing Drag Ball of 1880 [At Manchesters Finest] [Internet Archive version here]
- The Cleveland Street Scandal 1889 [At Rictor Norton's website] [Internet Archive version here]
A scandal involving a
male brothel on Cleveland St (in London's Fitzrovia), in which Prince Eddy, eldest son of the later Edward VII was implicated.
Wikipedia: Cleveland Street Scandal
- "Oscar Wilde in Jail" Press report from Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago) from April 6, 1895 [At Queer Music Heritage] [Internet Archive version here]
- Charles Grolleau: The Trial of Oscar Wilde, from the Shorthand Reports 1906 [Project Gutenberg]
- Anonymous: The Trial of Oscar Wilde (Issued for Private Circulation Only and Limited
to 50 Copies)
No 184
1906 [Project Gutenberg]
- Brocard Sewell: In the Dorian mode : a life of John Gray, 1866-1934 [At Internet Archive borrow facility]
On Canon John Gray, a Catholic priest who was the model for Dorian Gray.
Texts: Literary
- Anna Seward (1747-1809): Poems on Female Friends [At this Site]
- Don Leon (Sometimes attrib to Lord (George Gordon) Byron (1784-1824) [At this Site]
The poem is passionate defense of homosexuality, and is sometimes
attributed to Byron.
-
Lord George Byron: Selected Poetry [At U. Toronto]
- Alfred de Musset: Gamiani, or Two Passionate Nights 1833 [Wikisource]
Lesbian erotic novel.
- Honoré de Balzac: The Girl with the Golden Eyes 1835 [Wikisource]
- Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892): Selected Poetry [At U. Toronto]
- Walter Pater (1839-1894): Selected Poetry [At U. Toronto]
- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889): Select Poetry [At U. Toronto]
A gay Jesuit priest and poet. See "Felix Randell" and
"The Bugler Boy's First Communion".
- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889): Poems [Wikisource]
- Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla 1872 [Wikisource]
Lesbian vampire fiction novel.
- Alfred J. Cohen: A Marriage Below Zero 1889 [Wikisource]
- Oscar Wilde (attrib): Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal 1893 [Wikisource]
- Bertram Lawrence (pseud. of J. F. Bloxam): Poem: "A Summer Hour" 1894 [At this Site]
- John Francis Bloxam: Story: The Priest and the Acolyte 1894 [At this Site]
An extraordinary short story which combines high ritualism, saccharin
melodrama, and a quite specific plea for acceptance of difference.
- Robert Smythe Hichens: The Green Carnation 1894 [Wikisource]
- Oscar Wilde (attrib): Des Grieux, the Prelude to Teleny 1899 [Wikisource]
- Georges Eekhoud: Escal Vigor 1899 [Wikisource]
- George Collins: A Strange Railroad Wreck 1904 [Wikisource]
lesbian female-to-male crossdressing story
- Xavier Mayne: Imre: A Memorandum 1906 [Wikisource]
Widely considered to be the first one with a happy ending.
-
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): Ballad of Reading Gaol [At Project Gutenberg]
-
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): The Complete Shorter Fiction & Poems in Prose [At Bibliomania.com]
-
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): Poems [At Bartleby]
-
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): Selected Works [At Oscar Wilde Collection]
-
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): The Picture of Dorian Gray [Project Gutenberg]
- Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945): Two Poems 1894 [At this Site]
-
A.E. Houseman (1859-1936): A Shropshire Lad [Project Gutenberg]
- Pierre Louys (1870-1925): from Chansons de Bilitis [in English] [At this Site]
- Alec Waugh: The Loom of Youth (1917) [Project Gutenberg]
A scandal in its time for its discussion of a crush in a public school environment. Waugh was excluded from his school, Sherborne, and his famous brother Evelyn Waugh had to attend the much more minor public school of Lancing.
- Paul Verlaine (1844-1896): Romances sans paroles 1874 [Was At Geneva, now Internet Archive][In French]
- Arthur Rimbaud (1854 - 1891): Une saison en enfers 1873 [Was At Geneva, now Internet Archive][In French]
- Arthur Rimbaud (1854 - 1891): A Season in Hell 1873 [At Poets] [Internet Archive version here]
- Arthur Rimbaud (1854 - 1891): Poésies Ophélia 1870 [Was At Geneva, now Internet Archive][In French]
Links
- WEB Walter Pater Page [At subir.com] [Internet Archive version here]
- WEB Simeon Solomon Research Archive [Internet Archive version here]
A repository of information about the nineteenth-century Anglo-Jewish artist Simeon Solomon (1840-1905), of interest in the Pre-Raphaelites studies, Jewish studies, and gender/gay/queer studies
Back to Contents
NOTES
People with a History: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans* History Sourcebook is part of the Internet History Sourcebooks Project. Date of inception was 1997. People with a History is a www site presenting
history relevant to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people, through primary
sources, secondary discussions, and images. Links to files at other site are indicated by [At some indication of the site name or location]. WEB indicates a link to one of small number of high quality web sites which provide either more texts or an especially valuable overview.
The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the History Department of Fordham University, New York. The Internet
Medieval Sourcebook, and other medieval components of the project, are located at
the Fordham University Center
for Medieval Studies.The IHSP recognizes the contribution of Fordham University, the
Fordham University History Department, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies in
providing web space and server support for the project. The IHSP is a project independent of Fordham University. Although the IHSP seeks to follow all applicable copyright law, Fordham University is not
the institutional owner, and is not liable as the result of any legal action.
© Site Concept and Design: Paul Halsall created 26 Jan 1996: latest revision 4 October 2024 [CV]
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