Citizens and Sodomites: Persecution and Perception of Sodomy in the Southern Low Countries (1400–1700)

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).

"This is a landmark study based on exceptional research and essential reading for anyone interested in the history of sexuality and criminal justice in premodern Europe". Tom Hamilton, in TSEG - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, vol. 21 (3), 2024. "Citizens and Sodomites bietet mehr als eine Geschichte von Bürgern und Sodomiten. Auch gleichgeschlechtliches Begehren zwischen Frauen und seine zeitgenössische Thematisierung wird ausführlich gewürdigt und damit ein Desiderat (Unsichtbarkeit der Lesben in der Geschichte) behoben. [...] Die zurückhaltende Argumentation hinsichtlich des Vorhandenseins ausgeprägter sexueller Identitäten und Subkulturen ist offensichtlich dem nachhaltigen Einfluss Michel Foucaults geschuldet. Nichtsdestotrotz ist das Werk von Jonas Roelens ein handwerklich solides, preis- und unbedingt lesenswürdiges Buch." Wolfgang Burgdorf, in H-Soz-Kult, accessible here. "Overall, the book’s strength lies in its attention to local variance and its careful analysis of individual cases, as well as its presentation of evidence across a long chronological span and several towns. (…) The level of detail given on different towns provides rich new material for interested scholars and opens the way to further comparison.” Ruth Mazo Karras, in BMGN/Low Countries Historical Review , vol. 139, 2024, accessible here."Insgesamt hat Jonas Roelens eine materialgesättigte, multiarchivisch angelegte und umfassende Darstellung der Sodomie und ihrer Perzeption in den südlichen Niederlanden über einen langen Zeitraum geliefert. Der Umfang der verwendeten Archivquellen ist stupend. Dies wird auf absehbare Zeit das Standardwerk zur Sodomie in den Niederlanden bleiben, gerade auch weil der Verfasser sich immer wieder auf das schwierige Terrain des europäischen Vergleichs wagt.” Norbert Finzsch, in Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, vol. 52 (1), 2025, accessible here.

• List of Figures and TablesList of AbbreviationsPART I: Methodological and Discursive Framework1 Introduction1 Sodomy: a Contested Historiography2 Sodomy: an Urban Vice? Geographical and Chronological Demarcation3 Sources and Methodology4 Structure5 Terminology2 Sodomy in Religion, Law, and Popular Culture1 Introduction2 Religious Views on Sodomy3 Legal Views on Sodomy4 Cultural Views on Sodomy5 ConclusionPART II: Urban Prosecutions3 Cycles in the Urban Prosecution Policy1 Introduction2 Cycles in Early Modern Europe3 Sodomy in the Southern Netherlands: Facts and Figures4 The Sodomite as Scapegoat5 Bruges: Sodom of the North6 Bruges and Its Reputation: Some Possible Explanations7 Conclusion4 Social Profiles1 Introduction2 The Young Sodomite3 The Bourgeois Sodomite4 The Noble Sodomite5 Conclusion5 Clerical Sodomy1 Introduction2 Clerical Sodomy in Context3 Clerical Sodomites in the Southern Netherlands4 Sodomy and the Reformation5 The Sodomy Trials of 15786 Tridentine Reforms and Same-Sex Desires7 Conclusion6 Foreign Sodomy1 Introduction2 Discursive Constructions of Sodomy3 Migration in the Southern Netherlands4 Migrant Sodomites in the Southern Netherlands5 Conclusion7 Female Sodomy1 Introduction2 Female Sodomy in Theological and Legal Traditions3 Female Sodomy Prosecution in the Southern Netherlands4 Female Visibility as an Explanation?5 ConclusionPART III: Urban Discourses8 Gossip, Defamation, and Sodomy1 Introduction2 Rumors and Gossip in the Early Modern City3 Gossiping about Sodomy4 Suspicious Communities or Severe Authorities?5 Conclusion9 Sodomy, Religious Conflict, and Urban Memory1 Introduction2 Anti-Monasticism and the Ghent Sodomy Trial of 15783 Catholic Rehabilitation in City-Chronicles4 Sodomy and Urban Memory5 Conclusion10 Sodomy, Witchcraft, and Public Discourse1 Introduction2 The Remarkable Romance of Mayken and Magdaleene3 Female Sodomy in Seventeenth-Century Europe4 Female Sodomy and Hermaphrodites5 Sodomy and Witchcraft6 ConclusionConclusionBibliographyAppendix Chronological Overview per CityIndex