Speaking of Utrecht and public executions, this reminds me.
I found a good essay on sodomy as a crime in Prussia (see here via google, almost completely available), whose author is fully aware of the terminology pitfalls and wrote his whole dissertation on the subject, i.e. sodomy as a crime in the 18th century. He even refers to and quotes original documents from the state archive, which includes multiple court files as well as discussions for the new law code (the 1794 one) which took place in 1786/87. (For example: While the commission agreed that there shouldn't be a death penalty and that it hadn't been in use for half a century anyway, some people wanted to keep a mention of it in for deterrence. Carmer, one of the guys in charge, thought it was ridiculous to threaten punishment that would never happen anyway and so they abolished it.)
The author of the essay says that the vast majority of "sodomy" cases in Prussia were indeed bestiality, very different from places like Hamburg apparently (which he investigated as a second case study). He mentions a few of the exceptions: Two nobles who got convicted of sex with male servants in 1715/16 for example (one of them this guy, a cousin of Countess Cosel, who never married and might have been killed by his brother after his return from five years in prison), but only got Spandau prison sentences with the possibility of paying money to free themselves. And on the more chilling and very unusual side of things - not least because lesbian sex was a lot more complicated to judge - a case from 1721, where FW insisted on the death penalty for a woman who had lived as a man, even been a soldier in the War of the Spanish Succession, and had married her partner (see her wiki entry).
(Speaking of FW insisting on death penalties - regarding bestiality, FW in 1725 issued an edict which closed what he saw as a loophole, i.e. no ejaculation = crime not completed = no death penalty. FW gave the order that this shouldn't matter, death penalty was possible regardless of ejaculation, and mercy should only depend on his decision. Unsurprisingly, he didn't often have mercy, even if "mercy" only meant that people got beheaded before burning, and even though those executions were kind of expensive. He even reimbursed the town Potsdam for the money spent on the execution of Lepsch in 1731.)
The author also mentions (and criticises as full of mistakes) a 1930 source I'd come across myself (Hans Haustein: Strafrecht und Sodomie vor 2 Jahrhunderten) - which is based on state archive documents as well and which is a source for a lot of other publications apparently (including English ones), especially concerning a 1728/29 court case that did indeed involve m/m sex and did end with a death penalty. Thing is, though, the guy, Ephraim Ostermann, who got convicted? Had oral sex with multiple guys, yes, but also with horses. Plus, one guy he had sex with, Martin Köhler, got sick - which is how the whole thing got on the radar in the first place - and then died and people thought the repeated oral sex he'd received might have been the reason for that. See also this fascinating write-up in a medical journal from 1735, by the doctor who both conducted the Köhler autopsy and met Ostermann to determine his mental state, reporting a conversation with him that is about the bestiality only. (Warning: unholy font, autopsy with 18th century medical jargon.) Also, even this medically focused write-up contains this line: The accused was arrested, especially because he was found guilty of criminal sodomy with horses, which is why he was killed with a sword and burned afterwards. So it's not quite the clear-cut "death penalty for gay sex" case it's mentioned as in several publications I found.
That said, here is a 1889 article that has some biographical background on Ostermann and quotes the verdict (death by sword) and FW's confirmation (adding the subsequent burning). It omits anything graphic or detailed ("entzieht sich dem öffentlichen Berichte"), so there is no way to tell what he was convicted of exactly, but it does say that the court apparently thought he was responsible for Köhler's death. Also, lots of details on the execution here, from the fact that FW insisted on the date despite Lent, over the detailed costs, to the exact sequence of events, which included all the school kids taking part and singing eight hymns.
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Sodomy and Death Penalty. (Again.)
Date: 2021-08-14 11:34 am (UTC)I found a good essay on sodomy as a crime in Prussia (see here via google, almost completely available), whose author is fully aware of the terminology pitfalls and wrote his whole dissertation on the subject, i.e. sodomy as a crime in the 18th century. He even refers to and quotes original documents from the state archive, which includes multiple court files as well as discussions for the new law code (the 1794 one) which took place in 1786/87. (For example: While the commission agreed that there shouldn't be a death penalty and that it hadn't been in use for half a century anyway, some people wanted to keep a mention of it in for deterrence. Carmer, one of the guys in charge, thought it was ridiculous to threaten punishment that would never happen anyway and so they abolished it.)
The author of the essay says that the vast majority of "sodomy" cases in Prussia were indeed bestiality, very different from places like Hamburg apparently (which he investigated as a second case study). He mentions a few of the exceptions: Two nobles who got convicted of sex with male servants in 1715/16 for example (one of them this guy, a cousin of Countess Cosel, who never married and might have been killed by his brother after his return from five years in prison), but only got Spandau prison sentences with the possibility of paying money to free themselves.
And on the more chilling and very unusual side of things - not least because lesbian sex was a lot more complicated to judge - a case from 1721, where FW insisted on the death penalty for a woman who had lived as a man, even been a soldier in the War of the Spanish Succession, and had married her partner (see her wiki entry).
(Speaking of FW insisting on death penalties - regarding bestiality, FW in 1725 issued an edict which closed what he saw as a loophole, i.e. no ejaculation = crime not completed = no death penalty. FW gave the order that this shouldn't matter, death penalty was possible regardless of ejaculation, and mercy should only depend on his decision. Unsurprisingly, he didn't often have mercy, even if "mercy" only meant that people got beheaded before burning, and even though those executions were kind of expensive. He even reimbursed the town Potsdam for the money spent on the execution of Lepsch in 1731.)
The author also mentions (and criticises as full of mistakes) a 1930 source I'd come across myself (Hans Haustein: Strafrecht und Sodomie vor 2 Jahrhunderten) - which is based on state archive documents as well and which is a source for a lot of other publications apparently (including English ones), especially concerning a 1728/29 court case that did indeed involve m/m sex and did end with a death penalty.
Thing is, though, the guy, Ephraim Ostermann, who got convicted? Had oral sex with multiple guys, yes, but also with horses. Plus, one guy he had sex with, Martin Köhler, got sick - which is how the whole thing got on the radar in the first place - and then died and people thought the repeated oral sex he'd received might have been the reason for that. See also this fascinating write-up in a medical journal from 1735, by the doctor who both conducted the Köhler autopsy and met Ostermann to determine his mental state, reporting a conversation with him that is about the bestiality only. (Warning: unholy font, autopsy with 18th century medical jargon.) Also, even this medically focused write-up contains this line: The accused was arrested, especially because he was found guilty of criminal sodomy with horses, which is why he was killed with a sword and burned afterwards.
So it's not quite the clear-cut "death penalty for gay sex" case it's mentioned as in several publications I found.
That said, here is a 1889 article that has some biographical background on Ostermann and quotes the verdict (death by sword) and FW's confirmation (adding the subsequent burning). It omits anything graphic or detailed ("entzieht sich dem öffentlichen Berichte"), so there is no way to tell what he was convicted of exactly, but it does say that the court apparently thought he was responsible for Köhler's death. Also, lots of details on the execution here, from the fact that FW insisted on the date despite Lent, over the detailed costs, to the exact sequence of events, which included all the school kids taking part and singing eight hymns.