BOOK: Jonas ROELENS, Citizens and Sodomites: Persecution and Perception of Sodomy in the Southern Low Countries (1400–1700) [Crime and City in History, eds. Margo DE KOSTER & Manon VAN DER HEIJDEN]; 6] (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2023), ISBN 9789004685956, € 130,38

 

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

The Southern Low Countries were among Europe’s core regions for the repression of sodomy during the late medieval period. As the first comprehensive study on sodomy in the Southern Low Countries, this book charts the prosecution of sodomy in some of the region’s leading cities, such as Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp, from 1400 to 1700 and explains the reasons behind local differences and variations in the intensity of prosecution over time. Through a critical examination of a range of sources, this study also considers how the urban fabric perceived sodomy and provides a broader interpretive framework for its meaning within the local culture.

On the author:

Jonas Roelens, Ph.D. (2018), Ghent University, is postdoctoral researcher at that university, where he teaches gender history. His Ph.D. thesis received the Erik Duverger Award. He is co-author of Verzwegen verlangen. Een geschiedenis van homoseksualiteit in België (2017). 

Table of contents:

List of Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations

PART I: Methodological and Discursive Framework

1 Introduction
 1 Sodomy: a Contested Historiography
 2 Sodomy: an Urban Vice? Geographical and Chronological Demarcation
 3 Sources and Methodology
 4 Structure
 5 Terminology

2 Sodomy in Religion, Law, and Popular Culture
 1 Introduction
 2 Religious Views on Sodomy
 3 Legal Views on Sodomy
 4 Cultural Views on Sodomy
 5 Conclusion

PART II: Urban Prosecutions

3 Cycles in the Urban Prosecution Policy
 1 Introduction
 2 Cycles in Early Modern Europe
 3 Sodomy in the Southern Netherlands: Facts and Figures
 4 The Sodomite as Scapegoat
 5 Bruges: Sodom of the North
 6 Bruges and Its Reputation: Some Possible Explanations
 7 Conclusion

4 Social Profiles
 1 Introduction
 2 The Young Sodomite
 3 The Bourgeois Sodomite
 4 The Noble Sodomite
 5 Conclusion

5 Clerical Sodomy
 1 Introduction
 2 Clerical Sodomy in Context
 3 Clerical Sodomites in the Southern Netherlands
 4 Sodomy and the Reformation
 5 The Sodomy Trials of 1578
 6 Tridentine Reforms and Same-Sex Desires
 7 Conclusion

6 Foreign Sodomy
 1 Introduction
 2 Discursive Constructions of Sodomy
 3 Migration in the Southern Netherlands
 4 Migrant Sodomites in the Southern Netherlands
 5 Conclusion

7 Female Sodomy
 1 Introduction
 2 Female Sodomy in Theological and Legal Traditions
 3 Female Sodomy Prosecution in the Southern Netherlands
 4 Female Visibility as an Explanation?
 5 Conclusion

PART III: Urban Discourses

8 Gossip, Defamation, and Sodomy
 1 Introduction
 2 Rumors and Gossip in the Early Modern City
 3 Gossiping about Sodomy
 4 Suspicious Communities or Severe Authorities?
 5 Conclusion

9 Sodomy, Religious Conflict, and Urban Memory
 1 Introduction
 2 Anti-Monasticism and the Ghent Sodomy Trial of 1578
 3 Catholic Rehabilitation in City-Chronicles
 4 Sodomy and Urban Memory
 5 Conclusion

10 Sodomy, Witchcraft, and Public Discourse
 1 Introduction
 2 The Remarkable Romance of Mayken and Magdaleene
 3 Female Sodomy in Seventeenth-Century Europe
 4 Female Sodomy and Hermaphrodites
 5 Sodomy and Witchcraft
 6 Conclusion

Conclusion

Bibliography
Appendix Chronological Overview per City

Index

 Read more here: DOI 10.1163/9789004686175

ADVANCE ARTICLE: Eric J. SCARFFE, "Justice Kennedy’s Jurisprudence of Dignity: From Sovereign Immunity to Gay Rights" (American Journal of Legal History)

 

(image source: OUP)

Abstract:

Although this article uses Obergefell v Hodges (2015) as its frame, it aims to bring out some distinctive features of Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence of dignity more broadly. There are two reasons why such an investigation is important. The first is important to those interested in the legal case. Indeed, in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health (2022), the Court now argues that the relevant ‘test’ for determining whether a right is protected under the Due Process Clause is whether the right is found to be ‘deeply rooted’ in the nation’s history and tradition. This article aims to critique this decision, as well as originalist approaches to constitutional interpretation more broadly, and seeks to resurrect and reconstruct Kennedy’s jurisprudence of dignity that has undergirded (sometimes quietly) the expansion of civil rights protections to the LGBTQ+ community. The second reason this investigation is important is of interest to philosophers and legal historians. Dignity is a notoriously elusive concept, and much ink has been spilt trying to sort out the precise nature of its content and its boundaries. This article brings together the many (seemingly disparate) uses of dignity found across cases involving gay rights, abortion, and foreign sovereign immunity, and argues Kennedy effectively weaves these uses together in ways that may sharpen our understanding of dignity in both the philosophical and legal literatures.

Read the article here: DOI 10.1093/ajlh/njad026.

BOOK: Caroline DERRY, Lesbianism and the Criminal Law - Three Centuries of Legal Regulation in England and Wales (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). ISBN 978-3-030-35300-1, 92,64 €

(Source: Routledge)

Routledge is publishing a new book on lesbianism and criminal law in English and Welsh legal history.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the ways in which the criminal justice system of England and Wales has regulated, and failed or refused to regulate, lesbianism. It identifies the overarching approach as one of silencing: lesbianism has not only been ignored or regarded as unimaginable, but was deliberately excluded from legal discourses. A series of case studies ranging from 1746 to 2013 from parliamentary debates to individual prosecutions shed light on the complex process of regulation through silencing. They illuminate its evolution over three centuries and explore when and why it has been breached. The answers Derry uncovers can be fully understood only in the context of surrounding social and legal developments which are also considered. Lesbianism and the Criminal Law makes an important contribution to the growing bodies of literature on feminism, sexuality and the law and the legal history of sexual offences.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline Derry is Lecturer in Law at the Open University, UK. She taught for fifteen years at London Metropolitan University where she was a senior lecturer in Criminal and Evidence Law and Gender and Law, and LLB course leader. She has been a visiting lecturer in Criminal Law at SOAS and at Paris Descartes. She is a co-author of Complete Criminal Law (OUP, 2018) and Gender and Law (Routledge, 2018).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Mary/Charles Hamilton: Eighteenth-Century Female Husband Prosecutions

Louise Mourey and the ‘Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’

‘Gross Indecency Between Females’: The 1921 Parliamentary Debates

Victor/Valerie Barker: Sexology and Challenges to Silencing

The Wolfenden Report: A Shift in Silencing

Allen: Sexual Offences Prosecutions in the Late Twentieth Century

McNally: After the Sexual Offences Act 2003

Conclusion

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BOOK: Sean BRADY and Mark SEYMOUR, eds., From Sodomy Laws to Same-Sex Marriage International Perspectives since 1789 (London: Bloomsbury, 2019). ISBN 9781350023925, $102.60

(Source: Bloomsbury)

Bloomsbury is publishing a new book  which provides international perspectives on the legal and social history of same-sex relationships from the early 19th century to the present.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Inspired by recent adoptions of same-sex marriage, From Sodomy Laws to Same-Sex Marriage provides international perspectives on the legal and social history of same-sex relationships from the early 19th century to the present. Its emphasis is on areas where the impetus for change has been most noticeable: Europe, the Americas, and Australasia.

From Sodom and Gomorrah to Britain's sodomy laws and continental Europe's abhorrence of sexual acts 'against nature', the history of same-sex love traditionally ranged from fire and brimstone maledictions to secrecy and scandal. Until recently, legal positions across the western world reflected the legacies of the British and French empires, as well as Christianity, particularly Catholicism. In recent years, however, there has been a revolution in attitudes towards same-sex relationships. This poses hitherto unanswered questions: what historical complexities lie behind the revolutionary shift from punitive attitudes to legal endorsement of same-sex relationships? Given the cultural variety of historical attitudes to same-sex relationships, why has their legal acceptance been so international? The essays in this volume provide answers to these questions, offering the first international overview of the topic.

While other studies have attempted to explain the change in legal and social treatment of same-sex relationships in a national context, or within a shorter time frame, this is the first volume to examine the topic from the French Revolution to the present day, bringing together a diverse array of perspectives over a range of countries. It is an important volume for students and scholars of queer history, the history of sexuality, law and sociology.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Foreword, The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG, (Retired Judge, Australia)
1. 'From Sodomy Laws to Same-Sex Marriage: Historical Transformations', Sean Brady (Birkbeck, University of London, UK) and Mark Seymour (Otago University, New Zealand)
2. 'Homosexuality and the French Revolution', Bryant Ragan (Colorado College, USA)
3. 'Arguing Against Intolerance: Louisiana and Britain in the Early Nineteenth Century', Charles Upchurch (Florida State University, USA)
4. 'Regarding Pratt and Smith, the last couple of sodomites to be hanged in Britain', Dominic Janes (Keele University UK)
5. 'Defining “unnatural crime”: sex and the English convict system, 1850-1900', Ben Bethell (Birkbeck, University of London UK)
6. '“It is my husband who has such weaknesses”: A mid nineteenth-century Peruvian divorce case', Mallagy Allegre Henderson (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Peru)
7. 'Flappers and Felons: Rethinking the criminal law and homosex in interwar Australia, 1920-1939', Yorick Smaal (Griffith University, Australia) and Mark Finnane (Griffith University, Australia)
8. 'Spain from Franco's Repressive Regime to Same-Sex Marriage', Geoffroy Huard (Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France)
9. 'Affecting legal change: Law and Same-Sex Feelings in West Germany since the 1950s', Benno Gammerl (Max Plank Institute, Berlin, Germany and Goldsmiths University, UK)
10. 'The Sexual (Geo)Politics of Loyalty: Homosexuality and Emotion in Cold War Security Policy', Kate Davison (University of Melbourne, Australia)
11. Homosexual Politics in the British World: Towards a Transnational Understanding', Graham Willett (University of Melbourne, Australia)
12. 'Gender and the politics of marriage in post-war Australia and Britain', Rebecca Jennings (Macquarie University, Australia)
13. 'From Giarre to Civil Unions: The 'Long March' for Same-Sex Relationships in Italy', Yuri Guaiana (ILGA (Universita degli Studi di Milano, Italy) and Mark Seymour (University of Otago, New Zealand)
14. '“It's Poppycock to say homosexuals can be excused”: Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement in the Republic of Ireland 1970s-1990s', Patrick McDonagh (European University Institute, Florence, Italy)
15. '“…Do You Want More?” A Brief History of Same-Sex Partnerships, Family Formations, and Marriage in Twentieth-Century U.S.A.', Marcia Gallo (University of Nevada, USA)
16. 'Gay Marriage in England: After the Party', Daniel Monk (Birkbeck, University of London, UK)
17. 'Same-Sex Unions: In Retrospect and Prospect', Robert Aldrich (University of Sydney, Australia)
Index

More information here