The Body Debated

a
The Body Debated: Bodies and

Rights in Seventeenth- and
Eighteenth-Century Germany
Mary Lindemann
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
In 1633 Thophraste Renaudot, founder of the Parisian Bureau daddresse

and erstwhile physician to the king of France, instituted a weekly meeting
or conference devoted to public discussion. Over the course of some nine
years, these conferences treated about five hundred specific topics, ranging
from witchcraft and volcanoes to astrology, amulets, smallpox, and gout.
Conference 10, from October 24, 1633, posed the following question: Were
certain monstrous birthshere conjoined twins were meantalso monsters in the civil sense? Were they able to make a will, inherit, contract,
and do all other civic actions?1 Although the phrase civic actions may
seem ahistorical and the subject of Conference 10 a bit bizarre, nonetheless,
the query raises pertinent issues about the constitution of civic and political
communities in the early modern world.
Every polity defines who isand who is nota member or capable of membership in it. In German cities, the Brger formed the human
building blocks of the community. Still, not every urban inhabitant was a
Brger. Far from it. Each man, woman, and child lived suspended within a
three-dimensional web woven from the strands of social and political hierarchies. Each enjoyed rights and privileges, but these were in no way equivalent, nor was it thought desirable to foster equality. Multiple factors determined ones social, political, and legal position. Economics, religion, and
occupation played vital roles and formed prerequisites for full membership
as a Brger. Only burghers in cities, or other full members of a community,
such as the Vollbauer (full peasant) in a village or Gemeinde, had access to
political positions. Yet, and although the number of such fully enfranchised
persons was always small, legal or civic rights pertained to all inhabitants
in some degree or another. For instance, although women (and most men,
for that matter) never engaged directly in politics (in the narrow sense of
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 38:3, Fall 2008

DOI 10.1215/10829636-2008-005 2008 by Duke University Press
JMEMS383-05_Lindemann.indd 493
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the word), they nonetheless could participate in a wide range of other civic
and legal actions, such as making a will, testifying in court, bringing a civil
case, or receiving an inheritance. Although the rights of women hardly overlapped perfectly with mens (and women, like minors, often required a male
to speak for them), they, too, were unquestioned parts of a civic community
and indispensable to its smooth functioning.
These observations will surprise no one familiar with early modern history. What this article addresses, however, is a less well-studied, yet
equally critical, means of defining membership in a civic community: its biological and medical determinants.2 Placed within this context, Renaudots
querywhich at first may seem merely odd or sensation-seekingbecomes
immediately relevant. While the question of the civic rights of conjoined
twins in the early modern period usually remained a truly academic one (as
few survived), a whole series of other conditionssome highly unusual,
some very commonraised similar issues. Pregnancy, mental retardation,
epilepsy, deformity, disputed or ambiguous sexuality (hermaphroditism,
intersexuality, or castration), deafness, blindness, and even more fleeting
circumstances such as fever, could call into doubt an individuals ability to
perform normal legal actions, such as making a will, inheriting an estate,
serving as a guardian, or giving testimony in court. This article examines
how some such instances worked out in quotidian practice. The academic
debates, theological and legal, as well as medical, provide essential background, although my investigation focuses on daily life, real practices, and
repeated situations. While there existed numerous points where a body
became problematic (in civic and legal terms), this study draws on two situationsbaptism and marriageto probe not only how experts (physicians,
theologians, and jurists) shaped practices but also to explore the influence of
local knowledge on the unfolding of events. Local, traditional, or indigenous knowledge is frequently defined as the longstanding beliefs of regional
or local communities. Often these forms of knowledge are passed down
through generations orally and are only rarely written down.3 While traditional or local knowledge in this sense plays a role in my analysis, I generally equate local knowledge with the opinions and perceptions of relatives,
neighbors, friends, and individuals; it is, therefore, a knowledge which does
not always perfectly align with the more elaborate contemporary definition
given above.
Decisions about capacity and community were always individualized and guidelines, even where they existed, were always mutable. Doubts
about belonging were very often raised at the local or immediate level and
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not by authorities seeking to exert control over their subjects or to discipline

them. Moreover, this article seeks to shift the study of bodies from the metonymic and synecdochic to the physical. Although much fine scholarship
has been devoted to investigating the metaphorical and symbolic meanings
of bodies, as, for instance, surfaces of inscription, loci of control, and transmitters of culture these emphases have tended to obscure an equally significant reality: in early modern Europe, bodies in the strictly physical sense
mattered greatly.4
Is, however, such an investigation ahistorical, generated perhaps by
twentieth-century concerns with, for instance, the disabled?5 I think not.
Early modern academic opinion considered such situations quite seriously
and produced numerous legal, theological, and medical texts on the subject.
Renaudots curiosity about the civil status of monsters proved, therefore,
neither unusual, nor morbid, nor even peculiar. He was hardly alone in musing on whether physical monsters were also civil ones. Could they make
a will? Be an heir? Accept a fief? Function as a guardian (Vormund)? Or
participate in a contractual relationship? All major early modern legal and
medico-legal commentatorsPaolo Zacchia, Benedict Carpzov, Michael
Valentin, and Michael Albertihad something to say on the subject.6
Besides these great compilers, others isolated and discussed specifics. Samuel
Stryk and Hieronymous Bruckner reviewed at length the situations in which
physical circumstances nullified marriage. In 1729, Johann Paul Kress produced a Short Legal Treatise on the Rights of Those Born Deaf-Mutes.
Other works presented advice to the legal laity. Theologians and physicians,
too, found here grist for their mills. Medical and legal consilia and responsa
from university faculties or other institutions, such as collegia medica, exist
in profusion (admittedly, they more frequently address criminal than civic
instances).7 As one might anticipate, quotidian civic actions, such as getting
married, making a will, or participating in a contract, could generate lively
debates and even bitter battles over the rights of an individual to engage in
any of these.
Everyday instances resonated with concerns over bodily wholeness
and about what impaired integrity implied. Parents agonized over their childrens bodily flaws and imperfections. Anxieties about ambiguous or malformed genitalia sent parents hunting for medical aid or legal assistance,
as in the case of the unnaturally constructed genitals of a cobblers son in
the village of Ost-Haringen (in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbttel)
or a cleft palate that prevented a two-year-old child from eating and drinking comfortably but which also evoked laughter and expressions of horror
Lindemann / The Body Debated 495
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from fellow villagers. Just as worried about their daughters future were the
parents of an eight-year-old blinded in one eye by the negligent behavior
of a lodger. To be born deaf could result in abandonment. Deaf children
were also often regarded as retarded and many lived out their lives as charity cases.8 Adults, too, feared to lose their occupations or be prevented from
fulfilling desirable social roles because of a certain lameness, multiple fistulas, less particularized chronic afflictions, or even persistently itchy or
blemishing skin diseases.9
Whole bodies
The civic and legal significance of bodily impairment or ambiguity ultimately derived from the high value early modern societies placed on bodily
integrity and physical strength. Each constituted a great good (ein hohes
Gut). Only the fit could carry out the ordinary routines of life that made
them worthwhile members of the community: tilling fields, clearing land,
protecting homes, managing households, bearing children, and nourishing families. A thirteenth-century German law code, the Sachsenspiegel,
excluded those missing limbs or otherwise disabled (deaf, mute, or blind)
from accepting a fief (Lehnrecht), although not from holding property
entirely. Emphasis on physical capacity underlay the old Germanic custom
of exposing misshapen infants and those incapable of living (lebensunfhig) as well as the killing of the aged. Likewise a kingor his heircould
assert no claim to the throne if lame or leprous (ausstzig). Men became full
members of their societies (Gemeinschaft) if and when they could bear arms.
One could make a will only if able to mount a horse unaided, and a legacy
granted on the sickbed lacked validity. Canon law forbade the admittance
of the malformed to the priesthood or monasteries and nunneries. Some of
these rules became antiquated during the course of the Middle Ages. And
if it seems that the lot of the impaired in the Middle Ages was a hard one,
we need to recognize such beliefs (and those that interpreted afflictions as
punishment for sin) as stereotypes that often rest on little solid archival
research. Carole Cusack and Irina Metzler have offered more subtle views
of how the impaired or disabled fared in medieval society.10 Yet the importance placed on bodily integrity and physical strength as prerequisites for
full participation in the community was neither illusory nor antiquated, as
the vigor of debate about comparable questions of the bodily determinants
of civic competency in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries testifies.
At the very least, bodily impairment generated a moment of tension and
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conflict across a broad range of legal, social, and civil contexts. Bodies still
mattered in their very physicality.11
Legal guidelines regarding wills demonstrate how physical expectations continue to play a role well into the eighteenth century. The ability to
bequeath first depended on reaching the age of maturity (usually sixteen or
eighteen). Physical health was equally critical. Older legal codes required
that a testator be in full possession of his or her bodily strength (krperliche
Kraft). Often, one had to substantiate capability by passing a physical test,
by walking a certain distance unaided or mounting a horse, for instance. By
the seventeenth century, such proofs had long since fallen into desuetude,
but the linkage of bodily strength with mental capacity had by no means
vanished. Legal strictures likewise prohibited the blind, the deaf, and the
speechless from making wills of certain types; a blind man, for instance,
could not sign a written testament. While this may appear nothing more
than a sensible precaution, testaments of any kind given by the impaired
were always likely to engender disputes. Restrictions preventing the deaf,
blind, and mute (as well as women, minors, and the unfree) from testifying
in court or filing a civil suit also persisted.12
In short, physical capacity and physical integrity often determined
ones right to participate in civic activities of many kinds. Curiously, however, and although such legal issues lay at the heart of early modern discussions of bodies, whether defective, ambiguous, or whole, little modern
scholarly attention has been devoted to them, despite the recognition, for
instance, that [t]he question of how to deal legally with monstrous births . . .
played a large role in the eighteenth century.13
When historians have addressed such concerns, they have often
situated answers to their questions within the framework of medicalization
or normalization theories, suggesting that by the eighteenth century (and
especially its closing decades), an effective, if neither well articulated nor
fully coordinated, system worked at all levels of society to forge and impose
norms that regulated behavior and molded concepts of the body. Maren
Lorenz has vigorously argued that the forensic medicine of the eighteenth
century formed a part (Teilbereich) of the broad process of legalization,
bureaucratization and increasingly effective controls, through which new
norms and newly-legitimated old norms slowly trickled into the minds of
the upper and lower levels of society.14 Accordingly, one should be able to
trace over the course of time a clear trend in which medical expertise and
forensic opinions shaped ever more strongly legal and governmental policies,
but alsoif more graduallyhow people thought about bodies, their own
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and others. Likewise, one should be able to document a growing division

between concepts of normal and not normal and observe medical opinions (whether pronounced by physicians or professors of medicine, or taken
up and applied by others) assuming ever greater importance.
It is unclear, however, to what extent such a standardizing program
of medicalization, or a comparable one of legalization, actually occurred.
Debates over the civic and social position of hermaphrodites, castrati, and
bodies more generally continued to be highly individualized throughout
this period. I would like to suggest, hardly originally, that the bases for
truth and the understanding of what constituted evidence remained
unstandardized, and local knowledge endured as a relevant factor in decision-making. Legal and medical expertise achieved no dominance, or, if
they did, only slowly and incompletely. Moreover, those who proffered it (or
whose evaluations others solicited) expressed doubts about the bases of their
opinions and were often reluctant to phrase their findings in categorical or
binding terms.
Becoming human
Legal and civic rights pertained, of course, only to humans. In early modern Christian societies, baptism determined entry into the community of
humanity. Indeed, in German territories, the full enjoyment of civic and
political rights belonged . . . only to the baptized members of the three recognized Christian confessions (Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed).15 Hotly
disputed as admissible to baptism were defective, deformed, or equivocal
bodies. Should infants misshapen at birthMigeburtenbe baptized and
thus admitted to human and civic society? Almost every major medico-legal
authority took up the subject and offered varied opinions as to which deformities or ambiguities barred one from the sacrament of baptism.16
In the early seventeenth century, the Jena theological faculty
addressed the issue of half human, half animal births. It is, the faculty
opined, critical to determine if such monsters resulted from intercourse
with beasts (ex concubitu cum bestiis) or from the effect of mere imagination and strong impressions on a pregnant woman. In the latter case, the
faculty concurred that one should not lightly deny baptism because a
rational human soul may well be present [even] in such a monstrous body
[monstroso corpore]. Suspicions of bestiality complicated matters. In general, if the head of the birth resembled a human one, then one baptized
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without reservation. If, however, merely the netherparts were human and the
head like that of an animal, then no baptism should take place.17
By the mid-eighteenth century, questions about whether deformed
births were human or had resulted from congress with beasts, had generally disappeared, at least from learned texts. Most writers now agreed that,
despite often extreme deviations from expected human forms, Migeburten
were creatures conceived by humans and born from them because [f]rom
a human can be born nothing other than another human.18 Increasingly,
the range of bodily builds construed as monstrous narrowed. Authors
differentiated more carefully between extreme deviations and lesser ones
(geringe Abweichungen), such as six fingers, webbed toes, or supernumerary nipples. They assigned these slight malformities to the same category as
capillary hemangioma (strawberry marks) or nervus simplex (salmon patch,
angel kiss, or stork bite), that is, birth-marks. Likewise, by the end of the
eighteenth century, medical and legal experts dismissed ideas of animalheaded humans. In the 1790s, for instance, the physician Johann Valentin
Mller observed that even a head that most resembled that of an animal
(usually a dog or a goat) proved on careful examination to be nothing more
than a very deformed human head. Without doubt, it contained a human
soul and possessed human rights [menschliche Rechte].19
In his own experience, Mller had also observed that Migeburten
possessing a pair too many limbs, for instance, often attained a considerable age and had all the [other] characteristics proper to humanity. Some
infants were more seriously deformed being, perhaps, a torso with two heads
and two feet. Yet even in these cases one cannot deny them humanity but
only to the point that one must nourish them. In other words, such Migeburten could neither be killed outright nor neglected to the point of death.
Still, omphalopagus or thoracopagus twins (infants conjoined anteriorly at
the lower or upper trunk) or other such children, should be concealed from
the public eye and quietly fed until they die. In other words, they were
humans but ones lacking all public and civic rights.20 Although the birth
of such children caused consternation among their parents, they seldom
remained unbaptized. When a woman in Neuhaus (Duchy of BraunschweigWolfenbttel) bore a daughter with pronounced mole-like fingers and
an elongated head, the discussion revolved not around her humanity but
rather about the cause of the deformity and the future prospects of the child.
No one suggested that she should not enjoy baptism. Likewise, even two
other Monstri born in that same state in 1747 and 1785 apparently received
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emergency baptisms before they died (see StAWf, 111 Neu 2846, fols. 14;
111 Neu 2815; 2 Alt 11187).
Debates over the right of baptism also involved hermaphrodites and
natural or born eunuchs. Here, too, one can discern a similar progression from a reluctance to admit hermaphrodites to Christian and human
communities to a more differentiated position. By the eighteenth century,
Zwitter (hermaphrodites) were rarely classified as monsters. According to
Michael Alberti, in his Systema jurisprudentiae medicae, the question was
not whether to baptize hermaphrodites but which sex they should receive.
Baptism was a politically and civically charged moment for hermaphrodites,
of course, because male and female rights, privileges, and duties varied.21
Ancient societies often exposed hermaphrodites, as they did other monsters.
By the mid-eighteenth century, no doubt existed that hermaphrodites were
human and thus worthy of a place in human society, although the assignment of sex needed careful attention because of just these legal and political
implications.
Hermann Friedrich Teichmeyer, an early writer on medico-legalism,
described how to determine maleness and femaleness. Size mattered, because
the more obvious member necessarily demonstrates the dominant sex.
Shape, too, was critical, and the organ that more approached nature also
more accurately indicated proper sexual attribution (see figs. 1 and 2).22 This
frequently cited legal solution (based on the third-century Roman Lex repetundarum) allowed hermaphrodites to be treated as either men or women
depending on which sex predominated. It failed to solve a whole range of
social and legal problems and left open the issue of what to do with a hermaphrodite when neither sex seemed ascendant.23
Thus, these and similar cases illustrate how birth formed the first
legal threshold for entry into the human community. Admittance at this
point, or its denial, either opened or closed the door to being a person.
Marriage in civic society
Marriage, too, functioned as a determinant of full membership in a community and as a way to fulfill social and cultural expectations. Guild masters,
for instance, were supposed to be married (while apprentices and journeymen were not). The right to marry forms by no means the sole, or perhaps
even the most obvious civil instance in which bodily, physical, or medical
conditions played determinant roles, but it was an important one and marital
situations are especially well documented. Particularly here, the fluidity and
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Figure 1. Female
hermaphrodite. From
Garcon et fille hermaphrodites vus et
dessins daprs nature
par un des plus clbres artistes et gravs
avec tout le soin possible pour lutilit des
studieux (Paris, 1773),
n.p. Reproduced by
permission of the
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbttel.
even the unpredictability of positions, the hesitancy of experts when faced

with difficult or idiosyncratic situations, and the impact of local knowledge
become evident.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, marriage was both a
civil and a religious institution, governed by secular and canon or ecclesiastical law. It is not possible (or necessary) here to unravel the dense web of competencies involved. Rather, it suffices for the moment to indicate the several
points where legal and medical issues usually entwined: (1) over the right to
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Figure 2.
Male hermaphrodite.
From Garcon et fille
hermaphrodites.
Reproduced by permission
of the Herzog August
Bibliothek, Wolfenbttel.
marry, (2) over physical obstacles to marriage, and (3) over reasons for the
dissolution of a marriage or betrothal.24
Not everyone agreed as to the primary purpose of marriage or on
its exact placement in civil and religious frameworks. Many accepted the
opinion voiced by Ernst Bosen and Christian Ludwig (two physicians who
wrote extensively on legal matters) that the main function of marriage is
to produce children. For them and many others, nothing else validated a
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mating. The second purposethat of companionshipBosen and Ludwig, writing as physicians, judged to be far less significant, because its value
had to be determined on other [than medical] grounds. While the logic
here seems inescapable, such decisions were never quite that straightforward.
Those incapable of the sexual act, impotent, or sterile, commonly based a
claim to marriage on companionship and mutual aid, and physicians were,
willy-nilly, drawn into such debates. The third reason for marriageto satiate lustwas difficult to defend, according to these authors, because a too
great and disorderly sex drive [zu groe und unordentliche Triebe der Geilheit] in either man or woman represented a pathological rather than natural
state. Such excessive lubricity was hardly to be suppressed through wedlock
and posed a threat to the stability of civil society.25 Precisely these points kindled controversy. If Bosen and Ludwigs attitudes were common, they were
by no means universal. Much diversity of opinion existed among those who
made decisions about marriages, annulments, divorces, and separations. The
usual instances involved a series of physical inabilities: impotence, ambiguous
sex, age (too old or too young), and various illnesses, especially repulsive ones
like leprosy and scleroderma, or even severe malodor (halitosis). Such cases
nurtured lengthy negotiations over the right to marry and filled the archival
record with the problems and passions of ordinary people faced with obstacles
to their desire to conclude an important civic contract: marriage.26
The capon-marriage
The Capon-Marriage (Capaunen-Herath) refers to the marriage of a

castrato (Verschnittener). (A capon is a castrated rooster.) The matrimonial
woes of Bartolomeo Sorlisi (16321672), a famous castrato at the Dresden
court-opera, is a well-known story. In 1667 Sorlisi married the sixteen-yearold Dorothea Elisabeth Lichtwer with the consent of her parents and after
a five-year struggle with courts, dukes, and consistories. He and his bride
had requestedand received in January 1667permission to wed from
the Elector of Saxony, Johann Georg II. Nevertheless, several parties raised
objections even after the couples nuptials had been (quietly) celebrated. In
1685, one Hieronymous Delphinus (probably a pseudonym) published a
collection of the many opinions obtained, entitled Evnuchi conjugium, Die
Capaunen-Heyrath . . . (Halle, 1685); at least eight editions followed (see fig.
3).27 Scholars in several fields, among them cultural history, literature, and
musicology, have mined the Capon-Marriage for insights into, for example, perceptions of masculinity in the early modern world.28
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Figure 3.
Hieronymous Delphinus,
Evnuchi conjugium Die
Capaunen-Herath, Hoc est
scripta et judicia varia de
conjugio inter evnuchum et
virginem juvenculam (Halle,

1718), title page. Reproduced by
permission of the Herzog August
Bibliothek, Wolfenbttel.
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In the contemporary documents, little unanimity existed. Many

called for the marriage to be terminated or argued that it was never a true
marriage in the first place. Still others insisted that the partners could not be
separated and that the marriage should rather be tolerated. The theological faculty in Greifswald viewed such a marriage as dubious [bedencklich]
but felt that neither a divorce nor an annulment was warranted because such
a union did not run directly counter to scripture. Although the primary
goal of marriage for all Christians (Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed alike)
remained procreation (which in this case was, of course, impossible), nonetheless the cohabitation of the pair was judged permissible as long as the
couple restrained themselves [sich migen].29 Such control seemed all the
more imperative because Eunuchi propensiores in venerem seyn; eunuchs
were known to be especially ruttish. It would, however, be best for all concerned if the two cohabited chastely, not as Maritus et Uxor, but as Frater
et Soror. The marriage stood until the death of Sorlisi in 1672. This history
orients us to the current academic and political positions and alerts us to
how various parties to the debatephysicians, government officials, theologians, and juristscrafted and then deployed their arguments.
Despite its rarity, the marriage of castrati excited abundant commentary precisely because it touched so many sensitive religious and civil
issues. Albrecht von Haller, writing in the 1780s, remarked on the cascade of
writings that capon-marriages had undammed. He deplored how frequently
theologians viewed them as the devils work or branded them mockeries,
as the theological faculty at Giessen had done in decrying Sorlisis marriage
as an abomination. An enlightened physician, Haller insisted, would not
have concurred and would have accepted a couples right to found their marriage on other criteria altogether: friendship and mutual assistance. But the
battle linesenlightened medical men versus bigoted clericswere by no
means set. While Haller was right about the position of this one theological
faculty, theologians and consistories never followed a party line because they
could not agree on what it was to be. In the Sorlisi case, benighted theologians just as frequently countenanced or at least refused to annul such
joinings, and often referred approvingly to the second fundament of the
wedded statecompanionshipas fully justificatory. Moreover, Hallers
position rested not on medical knowledge (nor did he base his argument
on such grounds): he called on the essential truths of humanitarianism and
enlightenment.30
The pros and cons concerning the marriage of castrati and the evidence brought to bear can be further explored by looking at the arguments
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for and against such marriages presented in the petition (on Sorlisis behalf)
submitted by one Johannes Gericke (Jur. Cand. und Practicus; Gericke
was probably either Sorlisi himself or his amanuensis) on August 25, 1666,
and a 1707 publication by the legalist Carl (originally Charles) Ancillon on
eunuchs more generally.31 Gericke, or Sorlisi, admitted that such a marriage
would not produce offspring and that Sorlisis inability to satisfy his wife
sexually could conceivably throw her in periculum fornicationis et adulteri, while his sole motive might be to indulge his lusts. For these reasons,
secular and ecclesiastical law opposed such unions. Yet, others opined that
these two betrothed could not be denied the right to wed, and Gericke
listed some seventeen reasons why. Of these companionship was paramount.
Moreover, the duty of procreation had limits as no one forced, or even urged,
childless pairs to separate. Finally, because Sorlisi sometimes experienced
erectionem penis and could complete congressum, he was also able to still and
extinguish a wifes legitimate sexual desires.32 Many dispensations to marry
were sought, and obtained, on what may seem even flimsier grounds, such as
utility. In 1762, the erstwhile opera-castrato, Filippo Finazzi, petitioned the
Hamburg City Council for permission to wed a woman who had become,
in his words, a vital component of my household economy. They subsequently married with official blessing.33
Such reasoning and such exceptions did not go unchallenged.
Charles Ancillon, a French Huguenot lawyer who had fled to Prussia after
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, vigorously refuted the nuptial rights of
eunuchs and castrati in his Traites des eunuques. He commenced his philippic
(unoriginally) with the assertion that [p]rocreation then is the lawful End
of Marriage, noting that the existence of barren marriages did not contradict this rule. The argument that marriage formed a civil contract and was
therefore lawful for every Body to engage in . . . and consequently Eunuchs
[also], Ancillon dismissed as a common but seriously mistaken belief. Law
allowed all to marry except those it specifically prohibited. The Causes
which hinder Marriage are very many: age, family alliance, consanguinity, religious difference, and numerous (yet not all) medical conditions. But
amongst all these Impotence is considerd as one of the Principal [barriers],
both by the Civil and Canon Law.34 According to Ancillon, companionship never sufficiently legitimated the establishment of a marriage. Properly
understood, the maxim that vindicated a union on the basis of companionship involved an actual state of wedlock. It sanctioned the continued cohabitation of the couple as brother and sisterif they were contentwhen
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a preexisting male impotence was discovered after the wedding. The axiom
did not pertain to eunuchs in the least.35
Capon-marriages fascinated contemporaries.36 Yet, what can such
highly unusual cases tell us about the situation of others whose lives were
neither so closely scrutinized nor provoked extended published commentary?
Surely, the marriage of castrati occurred infrequently and can hardly be taken
as a typical case. Still, we should not ignore extraordinary circumstances if for
no other reason than that they generated a rich documentation that exposes
the principal positions and illustrates how difficult it is to allot with certainty
particular arguments to theologians, to lawyers, or to physicians. Moreover,
similar questions and similar difficulties arose in more conventional situations. Details of less sensational or less famous examples are found not in
imprints like the Capaunen-Herath, but in legal and medical collections and
in the archival record. Two such instances represent how debates over bodies
in civil life engaged medical, theological, and legal evidence and the views of
many lay people as well: the legless groom and the child-bride.
The legless groom
In 1798 the tailor Barthold Ernst, then living in the small town of Jerxheim
in what is today Lower Saxony, hoped to marry.37 Ernst was about forty-five
years old and earned his own living (if a rather meager one) as a tailor. His
intended, Katharina Grene, was also of age (in her late thirties) and single.
Several objections, including those raised by her brother and a group of
women from the town, stood in the way of their happiness, because [Ernst]
was born a cripple, in that he is totally missing both legs and his right arm
and in their place has only rough stumps (StAWf, 111 Neu 2496, fol. 2).
The case of the Jerxheim tailor hardly constituted the first time such
matters had attracted the attention of the ducal consistory and privy council.
In 1770, for instance, the day-laborer Zacharias Bergmann in Schlewecke
had announced his desire to wed. The pastor reported to the consistory
that several women in the village had recently given birth to malformed
children after encountering the misshapen Bergmann; he had a frightful
appearance with a nose and mouth resembling a pigs snout. The villagers attributed this misfortune to his pregnant mother being frightened by
a large swine (StAWf, 14 Alt Nr. 671). Barely one month earlier, the ducal
privy council had officially advised him that he would never be permitted
to marry. The consistory, however, protested this decision and registered
8/21/08 11:14:29 AM
its doubts about the wisdom of a categorical denial. The consistorys members praised Bergmanns demeanor as quiet and judged his constitution
sound. Because his intended bride felt no revulsion at his appearance,
it was not to be feared that she would be shocked into bearing monstrous
offspring. Besides, if denied permission to marry, he might give himself over
to debauchery and thus provoke more trouble. The women of the village
agreed, feeling that Bergmann was far less likely to be out on the street if
safely married. (One wonders if another motive did not play a substantial role
here. Did the village women believe that the unmarried Bergmann, his lusts
unslaked, somehow threatened them or their daughters?) Bergmann was not
allowed to wed in 1770, and eight years later he tried again. This time, he
and his intended bride had already produced a child with no discernible
deformities. Still, permission to marry was withheld until 1781. In neither
instance is there any mention of medical evidence being sought; moral issues
and local knowledge (in the form of village opinions) weighed most heavily
(StAWf, 14 Alt Nr. 737).
The case of Barthold Ernst, almost thirty years later, admittedly
looked different, but local knowledge, personal contact, and moral considerations also played central roles in the wrangling that went on. How was the
misfortune of Ernsts birth explained?
One is able to relate no other cause for his exceptional handicap,
except this one: his father, very soon after marrying [Ernsts]
mother, was employed with his wife at court [as a servant]. His
wife was already in the first months of her pregnancy with Ernst.
[The father] was often hectored by his co-workers with the question if he had already begun to make a child. To which he always
answered, that he had finished the head and the torso and he was
now starting on the arms and the legs. (StAWF, 111 Neu 2496,
fols. 23)
This description, of course, presents us with a version of the belief in the
effect of the imagination on the fetus (Versehen).38 Although by the end
of the eighteenth century, academic opinion generally no longer accepted
that a mothers thoughts and emotions could affect the physical form of her
child, the belief remained strongly rooted elsewhere and not only among an
ignorant multitude. The medical officer in nearby Schningen, Georg Mhlenbein, when called upon to examine Ernst, raised the possibility. When
the local magistrates asked Mhlenbein if the physical faults with which
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one was born could be passed on from parents to children, Mhlenbein

responded that current anatomical and physiological teachings held it to be
impossible because the nerves connect mother with child in no ascertainable manner. But, he continued, can we be so sure that the nervous system alone has the developmental power to shape the individual limbs of the
body? He emphasized that we still know far too little about the power of
nature in conception and about the ways in which it occurs to be able to
dismiss the workings of the imagination on the mother as harmless. Experience (meine eigene Erfahrung), he insisted, presents us with numerous
very convincing proofs [of] the so-called imagination-effect. He trotted out
two stories from his familys history. One concerned his brother who was
born with a large black birthmark that, in his opinion, amply testified to the
force of the imagination on the fetus. Mhlenbeins own experience therefore counted more than philosophical and academic knowledge, even to a
man who had been trained in medicine at a university. He also insisted that
congenital flaws (such as Ernsts lack of limbs) as well as acquired ones tend
to be passed from parents to children and thus one should not grant Ernsts
request (StAWF, 14 Alt Nr. 737, n.p.).
Mhlenbein accepted the hypothesis that children lie already
preformed in the egg-sack of the female sex as the most plausible explanation for conception and embryonic development. (The ducal Board of
Healththe Ober-Sanitts-Collegiumdisagreed, holding preformation
theory to be no more and probably less likely than others.)39 For these reasons, he emphasized, experience is our sole [reliable] guide (Nov. 20, 1798,
in StAWf, 111 Neu 2496, fols. 23). Mhlenbeins opinion not only diverged
from that of the Board of Health, he also fashioned his arguments differently. His description of the two incidents from his experience shared a narrative form and strategy with that used by the local women to explain why
they did not want Ernst to marry. Whereas the women of Bergmanns village felt he was less dangerous properly wed, those of Ernsts village believed
the opposite. Again, local knowledge could be extremely varied in its tenets,
and one should be very careful in postulating a generalized form of folk
belief in such cases.
Ernsts intended bride, with whom he already had an irregular union
(Afterehe), was also queried as to whether they lived harmoniously together.
Did he gratify her sexually? She replied that she had cohabited with him for
more than two years and that among all her other lovers [she named nine] . . .
no one so fully satisfied her lusts as he. His malformation [Verunstaltung]
hindered him . . . in no way in intercourse which he was able to accomplish
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Figure 4.
Sketch of the child of Barthold
Ernst and Katharina Grene.
Niederschsisches Staatsarchiv
Wolfenbttel, 14 Alt 737, n.p.
Reproduced by permission of the

Wolfenbttel.
without any special aid on her part.40 Didnt she worry about giving birth
to another deformed child? No, she answered, and moreover, she contested
the fact that she had given birth to a malformed infant (ein verunstaltetes
Kind) sired by Ernst. She described her child as a fruit of about five to
six months that was properly formed except for the left leg, the thigh of
which was too short, the knee thick, the shin bent, with a single toe missing. He only had been made into a cripple by [repeated] handling and by
being squeezed into a box. Although the accompanying drawing seemed to
contradict her statement graphically, she denied that it represented the fetus
as it was at birth (see fig. 4). Thus she voiced absolutely no hesitations about
marrying Ernst.
The local pastor, Spies, under pressure from his parishioners,
refused to perform the nuptials without the explicit permission of his superiors. He queried the consistory as to how this perplexing case should be
8/21/08 11:14:29 AM
Figure 5.
Sketch of Barthold Ernst.
Wolfenbttel, 14 Alt 737, n.p.
Reproduced by permission of the

Wolfenbttel.
handled. He posted a series of documents to this higher authority: his own

description; Mhlenbeins two reports on Ernsts physical condition as well
as his medical opinion; the objections of the womans brother; and a list
of village women who protested the marriage. Mhlenbeins second report
included quite fine sketches of Ernst (see fig. 5) and of the still-born infant.
The consistory then forwarded the entire bundle to the Board of Health for
its judgment. Three members produced opinions. All gave reasons for why
the marriage should be allowed to take place, but advanced them extremely
cautiously. Each member proved reticent to set out anything that would
8/21/08 11:14:30 AM
serve as a legally binding decision. The first member wanted to avoid drawing any legal conclusions based on the currentimperfect, as he described
itstate of medical, anatomical, and physiological knowledge:
In this case all of the developmental theories [we have] are equal.
Not one of them [he singled out the theories of Johann Christian Reill and Erasmus Darwin] is anywhere near firmly enough
grounded or free enough from the problems of arbitrary a priori
ideas that they can serve as a basis [Bestimmungsgrund] for any
kind of action in civil affairs [bei irgend einer Handlung im brgerlichen Leben], such as in a court or as a legal opinion.
The second expert more confidently asserted that the effect of the mothers
imagination on her fetus is either to be completely discarded or seriously
doubted. So, in this case, we should not anticipate an unhappy result.
Finally, the third member of the Board concluded that
Barthold Ernst, in respect to his ability to father children
[Zeugungsvermgen] is a complete man, in that he is not only of
a proper [adult] age, but also has well-formed and positioned genitals, is able to accomplish the act of intercourse, andas is often
true with crippleshas a strong sexual drive.
Moreover, if one denied Ernst the right to marry, either he would pursue his
illicit union anyway or take up with some other cheap whore. In conclusion, the Board of Health believed that the marriage could proceed. The
consistory concurred and the couple wed.41
The child-bride
My third and final example about physicality in early modern civic society
combines debates about age with issues of bodily constitution. The Church
Ordinance of 1568 for Braunschweig-Wolfenbttel (where this case, like that
of Barthold Ernst, occurred) specified that both groom and bride must have
reached a suitable age to marry; for males seventeen, for females fifteen.42
Younger aspirants had to procure dispensations from the consistory. While
technically the consistory bore full responsibility for granting dispensations,
several groups actually negotiated decisions, and each relied on varied kinds
of evidence and forms of argumentation. Usually involved were local authorities, the consistory, the ducal privy council, village or neighborhood inhab512 Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies / 38.3 / 2008
8/21/08 11:14:30 AM
itants, and, of course, the marriage candidates and their families. Matters of
age repeatedly embroiled prospective brides and grooms and a host of others in acrimonious quarreling. Men, as well as women, could be considered
too immature for matrimony. Seventeen years was specified, and numerous
petitioners sought dispensations for men and boys as young as fifteen. They
pleaded need most often, but always stressed physical maturity (see StAWf,
14 Alt Nrs. 684, 672, 673, for examples). (There exists, of course, a similar
range of cases concerning those viewed as too old to marry.)
On February 17, 1740, Frantz August Heinrich Horn, a citizen of
Wolfenbttel, approached the consistory for permission to wed his betrothed
(petition in StAWf, 14 Alt Nr. 695). In many ways, the marriage appeared a
completely suitable one. He was a prosperous merchant, she the daughter of
an innkeeper with a substantial marriage portion. The problem lay with the
woman, Sophie Heidewig Gradehand, who was just twelve, and thus three
years below the minimum age that the Church Ordinance mandated. The
bridegroom was in his forties. The age differential alone, of course, posed no
problem. Thus, he appealed for a dispensationem nubendi. Two issues came
into play and affected the consistorys deliberations. One seemed purely
physical; the other lumped morality and physicality together. Yet, in fact,
morality and physicality are not easily separated as the case above of the tailor Ernst amply demonstrates. And Horns petition adroitly addressed both.
The prospective bridegroom indicated that he grasped the moral implications of physical development, providing literally physical evidence. My
bride, he observed, not only appears fully grown . . . [she] exceeds in height
other women of her age. Her mother, he added, feared that her obvious
maturity might lead to disaster, because the men who frequented her tavern
could seduce the girl assuming she was older, having been led on by her alltoo-abundant gifts.
Horns description of his intended did not fully satisfy the consistory and it requested a further evaluation from the local magistrates (Amtmnner). Outwardly, the latter opined, she was viripotens. They seriously
doubted, however, that she would prove marriageable in all other respects.
They had therefore forbidden the couple to wed and consummate the union
until after obtaining a dispensation. The magistrates did not deny the mans
claimsfor example, as to his needs for a housekeeper and wife, in that
orderand they appended some noteworthy details about the situation: he
did not want to lose a good catch; his brother was an idiot who needed
close watching; Sophies mother had just remarried, would be happy to be
rid of the girl, and was, moreover, given to drink. The girls step-father, her
8/21/08 11:14:30 AM
guardian, also pressed for the rapid marriage of this filia nubili. There was
no explicit discussion of whether Sophie had reached menarche (report from
Wolfenbttel, Feb. 26, 1740, in StAWf, 14 Alt Nr. 695).
The debate over the girls suitability for marriage drew in several
parties; significantly, no one sought a medical opinion. Apparently a medical
judgment about maturity or, for that matter, about the advisability of allowing such a young woman to bear children, seemed superfluous. (Not much
later, of course, writers on public health and population policies, such as
Johann Peter Frank, would warn against pregnancies in very young girls.)43
Decisions about the girls physical maturity rested on evidence provided to
the eyes of all concerned, although not everyone saw the same thing. Many
commented on her size and appearance that, on one hand, determined her
nubility and, on the other, opened her up to improper sexual advances.
The four members of the consistory concurred in granting a dispensation. In doing so, they explicitly linked physical factors to intellectual and
emotional maturity. While they expressed concern about whether the girl
was adult in her perceptions or still childish, the evidence of her body
persuaded them that she was grown in mind as well as in form; thus, she
could marry. One members disquietude expressed itself in a long and rather
tortured comment ad votum. In the end, however, he felt that even if her
bodily development did not bring with it proportional reasoning ability,
nonetheless this succulent piece [Sukkelenz] was probably better protected
in a husbands household than in her familys tavern.
Another member of the consistory came to similar conclusions
about physical appearance and stature as indicators of mental ability and
emotional maturity. He pointed out how the Church Ordinance stipulated
that permission to marry was to be withheld from persons who do not
yet know how to live reasonably [die noch nicht wien mit Verstandt zu
leben]. One usually presumed that someone of such tender years lacked
wit enough to make sound decisions, but Sophie Gradehands very physical
structure indicated more advanced powers of discernment.
Yet despite agreeing to grant the dispensation, the consistory
remained uncomfortable with its own resolution. The members tried, individually and as a group, to convince the girls family and her bridegroom to
hold off the actual wedding and its physical consummation for another two
years. They met firm resistance. Horn, the girls mother, and her guardian
all protested that circumstances made such a postponement highly inadvisable. Still, the case went on. The consistorys decision apparently could
not be carried out without the explicit permission of the ducal privy council.
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The consistory argued that no collegium can grant dispensations in legal

cases; only the privy council and duke possessed that ability.44 Thus, a right
that the consistory usually defended vigorously against the encroachment
of other powersthat is, to decide marriage casesit now argued it did
not have. Perhaps this reluctance, too, reflects lingering anxiety about the
wisdom of their decision. The privy council, despite requesting (the polite
form of ordering) the consistory to distribute the dispensation to Horn, also
seemed not fully happy with the outcome. It emphasized that this finding
in no way set a precedent and noted that in the future individual cases must
continue to be determined on their unique merits.45
Historians who study early modern communities are well aware of the ways
in which polities limited access to political participation and civic activities
according to a number of variables: wealth, religion, residence, birth (honorable or dishonorable, for instance), and occupation. As we have seen, bodies,
too, played a role, as did more temporary physical conditions (such as fever,
pregnancy, or epilepsy) not discussed here. Ambiguous bodies and defective
bodies often experienced severe restrictions on their rights to participate in
usual social and legal affairs. Yet, no simple rules or guidelines existed that
functioned in all cases, and virtually each instance was decided individually.
Nor did any particular expertmedical, legal, or theologicaldetermine
outcomes. Rather, relatives, friends, neighbors, and the individuals themselves raised their voices and were heard. As the Sorlisi cause clbre vividly
demonstrates, the judges to whom one might turn were several, and few
decisions went unquestioned. Bodies were literally bones of contention, but
no single authority disposed of them. And while bodily integrity remained
a critical determinant of ones position in society, those whose integrity
was compromised were not without advocates and supporters nor hopes of
appeal.
a
Notes

Research for this essay was done while on a fellowship at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbttel, and as a research affiliate at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the
History of Medicine at University College London. I deeply appreciate the support of
both institutions. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a Stipendiaten Kolloquium at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbttel, Germany, in May 2006;
at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Atlanta, January
8/21/08 11:14:30 AM
2007; in a Work in Progress seminar at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of
Medicine at University College London, May 2007; and at a Johns Hopkins Seminar
in Science, Technology, and Medicine in November 2007. I would like to thank all
those who raised questions and made suggestions for their assistance.
Des deux frres Monstrueus, vivans en un mesme corps, que se voyent present en
cette ville (Oct. 24, 1633), cited in Kathleen Wellman, Making Science Social: The
Conferences of Thophraste Renaudot (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003),
92. I use the phrases civic actions and civic rights here in what may seem a rather
anachronistic manner. Obviously these rights and privileges have little or nothing to
do with the way we understand civil rights today. On monsters, see the special issue
Faces of Monstrosity in Eighteenth-Century Thought, Eighteenth-Century Life 21.2
(May 1997).
Biology is, of course, a more modern term that dates from no earlier than 1800. In
1802, Gottfried Treviranus defined Biologie as the science of life. Thus, no one in
the seventeenth or eighteenth century spoke of biology. See Biology, in Dictionary
of the History of Science, ed. W. F. Bynum, E. J. Brown, and Roy Porter (New York:
Macmillan Press, 1981).
The discussion of traditional, local, or indigenous knowledge has generally taken
place within the realm of policy. See the website of the World Intellectual Property
Organization, especially Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources, and Traditional
Cultural Expressions/Folklore, at http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/ (April 18, 2008).
The quotation on the symbolic meaning of bodies is from Janet Moore Lindman and
Michele Lis Tarter, The earthly frame, a minute fabrick, a Centre of Wonders,
introduction to A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America, ed. Lindman and
Tarter (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 2.
Disability studies has now established itself as a field of historical investigation,
although its validity is contested. See Catherine J. Kudlick, Disability History: Why
We Need Another Other, American Historical Review 103 (June 2003): 76393;
Viewpoints: Forum on Disability in History, with contributions by Douglas C.
Baynton, Catherine Kudlick, and Paul Longmore, Perspectives: Newsmagazine of the
American History Association, 44.8 (Nov. 2006): 512. A recent issue of Radical History Review 94 (Winter 2006), addresses the disabled.
Benedict Carpzov, Practicae novae imperialis Saxonicae rerum criminalium, 3 parts
(Wittebergae [Wittenberg], 1635); Paolo Zacchia, Quaestiones medico-legales, . . . ,
new rev. ed., ed. Johann Daniel Horst, 3 vols. (Noribergae [Nrnburg], 1726);
Michaelis Bernhardi Valentini, Novellae medico-legales seu responsa medico-forensia ex
archivis . . . continuata (Frankfurt am Main, 1711); Michael Alberti, Commentatio in
constitutionem criminalem Carolinam medica, . . . (Halle, 1739). These were only the
most famous and frequently cited authorities; there were numerous others.
Samuel Stryk, De matrimonii nullitate, Von der Nichtigkeit der Ehe, . . . (Hala Magdeburgica [Halle], 1739); Hieronymous Bruckner, Decisiones iuris matrimonialis controversi, Quibus tam ea, quae per proximos Triginta & amplius Annos de Causis Matrimonialibus inter Eruditos variis Sciptis pro & contra disputata sunt, . . . (Frankfurt
and Leipzig, [1692]); Johann Paul Kress, Kurtze juristische Betrachtung von dem Recht
der Taub- und Stummgebohrnen absonderlich was es mit selbigen in der Criminal Juris-
8/21/08 11:14:31 AM
10
11
12
13
prudenz vor eine Beschaffenheit habe, . . . (Wolfenbttel, 1729). One such popular
handbook was Johann Hermann von Teutschenbrunn, Rechtlicher Catechismus oder
fragweis abgefate Anweisung zu der gemeinen teutschen brgerlichen Rechtslehre zum
ntzlichen Gebrauch eines jeden teutschen Mitbrgers, 3rd. rev. ed. (Altdorf and Nrnberg, 1771). Among the medical and forensic treatments, see Hermann Friedrich
Teichmeyer, Anweisung zur gerichtlichen Arzneygelahrheit worinnen die vornehmsten
Materien so theils im brgerlichen Leben vorfallen theils bey Gerichte und Schppensthlen nach den Grundlehren der Arzneygelehrten zu untersuchen und auszumachen sind
aus den neuesten und bewhrtesten Stzen und Reguln abgehandelt (Nrnberg, 1752),
which discusses, for example, legal issues concerning Migeburten, conjoined
twins, hermaphrodites, and others, 8283, 90103; or Christian Gottlieb Ludwig,
Anleitung zur rechtlichen Arzeneikunde nach der zwoten vermehrten Ausgabe des Herrn
D. Ernst Gottlob Bosens bersezt [originally in Latin] (Leipzig, 1779), on Migeburten and conjoined twins, 4850. This is, of course, by no means an exhaustive list.
There are literally hundreds of works on these and related topics. Maren Lorenz has
evaluated a large number of these collections for the eighteenth century in her Kriminelle KrperGestrte Gemter: Die Normierung des Individiums in Gerichtsmedizin
and Psychiatrie der Aufklarung (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1999). A convenient
and very useful list of the most important of these works is found on 46267.
These are just some of many examples drawn from the archives in BraunschweigWolfenbttel. Niederschsisches Staatsarchiv Wolfenbttel (hereafter StAWf), 7 Alt
B 1100, unpag. file from 166566 (damaged eye); 111 Neu 514, fols. 34 (cleft palate); 111 Neu 2475, fols. 13 (genitals); 2 Alt 14689, fols. 510 (deaf). It is generally
believed that Victor, the wild boy of Aveyron, was abandoned because he was deaf,
although others have suggested that he was autistic. Harlan Lane, The Wild Boy of
Aveyron: A History of the Education of Retarded, Deaf, and Hearing Children (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976).
StAWf, 111 Neu 2454, fols. 215; 111 Neu 2468, fols. 112; 111 Neu 2817, fols. 2,
1314; 111 Neu 2822; 2 Alt 11492. Translations of German sources throughout the
essay are my own.
Carole M. Cusack, Graciosi: Medieval Christian Attitudes to Disability, Disability and Rehabilitation 19.10 (1997): 41419; and Irina Metzler, Disability in Medieval
Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages (London:
Routledge, 2006).
Krperkraft, in Adalbert Erler and Ekkehard Kaufmann, eds., Handwrterbuch zur
deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (hereafter HRG), 2:114547. See also Lebensfhigkeit, in
HRG, 2:165768; and Rechtsfhigkeit, HRG, 4:28893.
Testament, in HRG, 5:15265; Zeugen, HRG, 5:168493.
Michael Hagner, Von Naturalienkabinett zur Embryologie: Wandlungen des
Monstrsen und die Ordnung des Lebens, in Der falsche Krper: Beitrge zur einer
Geschichte der Monstrositten, ed. Hagner, 2nd ed. (Gttingen: Wallstein, 2005), 76
n. 6. The literary scholar, Ruth Gilbert, discusses some of the legal issues involved, in
Early Modern Hermaphrodites: Sex and Other Studies (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2002), 4150; as did Pierre Darmon much earlier, in Trial by Impotence: Virility
and Marriage in Pre-Revolutionary France (London: Chatto and Windus, 1979; repr.
8/21/08 11:14:31 AM
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
1985). Gilbert, as well as another literary scholar, Kathleen P. Long, Hermaphrodites

in Renaissance Europe (London: Ashgate, 2006), 8084, relies heavily on the wellknown cases of Marie-Marin le Marcis and on Jacques Duval, Trait des hermaphrodites, parties gnitales, accouchemens des femmes, etc. (Rouen, 1612). Sophia Rosenfeld
has addressed the issues of the deaf and the law in the late eighteenth century, Deaf
Men on Trial: Language and Deviancy in Late Eighteenth-Century France, EighteenthCentury Life 21.2 (May 1997): 15775.
Lorenz, Kriminelle KrperGestrte Gemter, 445.
Taufe, in HRG, 5:129.
Examples include Carpzov, Practicae novae imperialis Saxonicae rerum criminalium;
Zacchia, Quaestiones medico-legales; Valentini, Novellae medico-legales; Alberti, Commentatio.
Johann Valentin Mller, Entwurf der gerichtlichen Arzneywissenschaft nach juristischen
und medicinischen Grundstzen fr Geistliche, Rechtsgelehrte und Aerzte (Frankfurt am
Main, 1796), 367, 373.
Christian Gottfried Ludwig, Anleitung zur rechtlichen Arzneikunde nach der zwoten
vermehrten Ausgabe des Herrn D. Ernst Bosens bersezt (Leipzig, 1779), 185.
Mller, Entwurf der gerichtlichen Arzneywissenschaft, 367, 373.
Ibid., 377.
Michael Alberti, Systema jurisprudentiae medicae, quo casus forenses, . . . , 5 vols.
(Halle, 172540), 1:53. The baptism of hermaphrodites was also discussed at some
length by Martin Schurig, Spermatologia Historico-Medica: Hoc est Seminis humani
consideratio physico-medico-legalis, . . . (Frankfurt am Main, 1720), 62931, to mention just one of many other authors who considered the question.
Teichmeyer, Anweisung zur gerichtlichen Arzneygelahrheit, 97. The hermaphroditic figures are from a booklet featuring two pairs of unsigned engravings, usually associated
with the painter and engraver Jean-Michel Moreau or with the engraver Augustin de
Saint-Aubin, entitled Garcon et fille hermaphrodites vus et dessins daprs nature par un
des plus clbres artistes et gravs avec tout le soin possible pour lutilit des studieux (Paris,
1773). Each pair of identical engravings depicting the male and female hermaphrodite
features one plate in color and one in black-and-white with letters referencing body
parts for purposes of anatomical discussion.
Ruth Gilbert, Strange notions: Treatments of Early Modern Hermaphrodites,
in Jane Hubert, ed., Madness, Disability, and Social Exclusion: The Archaeology and
Anthropology of Difference (London: Routledge, 2000), 15051.
I rely heavily here on Stephan Buchholz, Recht, Religion und Ehe: Orientierungswandel und gelehrte Kontroversen im bergang vom 17. zum 18. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am
Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1988). Churches and states, as well as ecclesiastical and
secular law, all specified certain groups and individuals as unable to marry. All forbade marriage to minors (although the ages differed) and to people related in a particular degree of consanguinity. See Thomas Max Safley, Let No Man Put Asunder:
The Control of Marriage in the German Southwest; A Comparative Study, 15501600
(Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1984), 1127; and the much
older work of Francis X. Wahl, The Matrimonial Impediments of Consanguinity and
8/21/08 11:14:31 AM
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Affinity: An Historical Synopsis and Commentary (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1934). For a contemporary statement and summary of the
situation, see Teutschenbrunn, Rechtlicher Catechismus, 1011, 177; and Georg Adam
Struve, Jurisprudenz, Oder: Verfassung derer Land-blichen Rechte (Frankfurt and
Leipzig, 1718), 6465, 74, 106, 11819.
Christian Gottlieb Ludwig, Anleitung zur rechtlichen Arzneikunde nach der zwoten
vermehrten Ausgabe des Herrn D. Ernst Gottlob Bosens bersezt (Leipzig, 1779), 179.
The cases are numerous and are scattered throughout the archival record. The authorities and experts involved ranged from village headmen and pastors to the responsible
church consistories, ducal officials, and boards of health.
The most complete retelling of the story is by the music historian, Mary E. Frandsen, Eunuchi conjugium: The Marriage of a Castrato in Early Modern Germany,
Early Music History 24 (2005): 53124. I draw on her excellent account and the collection of documents attributed to Hieronymous Delphinus, Evnuchi conjugium, Die
Capaunen-Heyrath, Hoc est scripta et judicia varia de conjugio inter evnuchum et virginem juvenculam, . . . (Halae [Halle], 1718). More generally on castrati and eunuchs,
see Patrick Barbier, ber die Mnnlichkeit der Kastraten, in Martin Dinges, ed.,
Hausvter, Priester, Kastraten: Zur Konstruktion von Mnnlichkeit in Sptmittelalter
und Frher Neuzeit (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1998), 12352.
See Silke Hermann, Eunuchi Conjugium: Die Capaunen-Heyrath; Ein Narrativ
ber das rechte (Heirats-) Geschlecht, oder wessen Geschlecht rechtens ist, in Arne
Hcker et. al., eds., Wissen, Erzhlen: Narrative der Humanwissenschaften (Bielefeld:
Transcript, 2006), 15970; Elizabeth Krimmer, Eviva il Coltello? The Castrato
Singer in Eighteenth-Century German Literature and Culture, PMLA 120 (2005):
154359; Piotr O. Scholz, Der entmannte Eros: Eine Kulturgeschichte (Dsseldorf:
Artemis and Winkler, 1997); Frandsen, Eunuchi conjugium; Mary E. Frandsen,
Crossing Confessional Boundaries: The Patronage of Italian Sacred Music in SeventeenthCentury Dresden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 10, 12, 5153; and Lisa
Forman Cody, The Castratos Son: Bodily and Romantic Impostures in an Age of
Revolution, paper presented at the conference Imposters: Identity and Pretense
in Europe and the Atlantic World, 16001800, October 89, 2004, at the Clark
Library, Los Angeles.
The papal brief, Cum frequenter, of Sixtus V (1587) prohibited the marriage of
eunuchs.
Albrecht von Haller, Vorlesungen ber die gerichtliche Arzneiwissenschaft: Aus einer
nachgelassenen lateinischen Handschrift, 2 vols. (Berlin, 178284), 1:264.
Delphinus, Evnuchi conjugium, Die Capaunen-Heyrath, 112. Frandsen suggests that
Sorlisi probably had a ghostwriter who was either a sympathetic theologian or an
ecclesiastical jurist (Eunuchi conjugium, 67, 7374). Charles Ancillon, Traites des
eunuques dans lequel on explique toutes les diffrentes sortes dEunuques, quel rang il ont
tenu, & quel cas on en a fiat, &c. On xamine principalement s ils sont propres au Mariage, & s il leur doit tre permis de se marie. Et lon fait plusieurs Remarques curieuses &
divertissantes loccastion des EUNUQUES &c Par M***. D***. (n.p., 1707). This was
then translated into English and published in 1718 as Eunuchism Display d. Describ-
8/21/08 11:14:31 AM
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
ing all the different Sorts of Eunuchs; The Esteem they have met with in the World, and
how they came to be made so. Wherein principally is examin d, whether they are capable
of Marriage, and if they ought to be suffered to enter into that State, . . . (London, 1718). I
quote from this English edition.
Delphinus, Evnuchi conjugium, Die Capaunen-Heyrath, 15.
It might have helped Finazzis case that he was in the process of converting from
Catholicism to Lutheranism. Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Senat Cl. VII Lit. Lb No. 12a
Vol. 1g.
Ancillon, Eunuchism Display d, 212, 21426.
Ibid., 22426.
A similar example involves the marriage of the castrato Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci
in England in the 1780s. See Cody, The Castratos Son.
The story of Ernst is taken principally from two files in the StAWf: 14 Alt Nr. 737
and 111 Neu 2496. The provenance of the documents illustrates the overlapping jurisdictions: 14 Alt contains the consistory records while 111 Neu is the archive of the
Board of Health (Ober-Sanitts-Collegium).
On the imagination and its effect on unborn children, see Schwangerschaft, in
Handwrterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 193637),
7:141621; Susan C. Greenfield and Carol Barash, eds., Inventing Maternity: Politics, Science, and Literature, 16501865 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press,
1999), 1112, 111, 11322; Rosemary Betterton, Promising Monsters: Pregnant Bodies, Artistic Subjectivity, and Maternal Imagination, Hypatia 21.1 (Winter 2006):
80100; Wendy Doniger and Gregory Spinner, Misconceptions: Female Imaginations and Male Fantasies in Parental Imprinting, Daedalus 127 (1998): 97129.
The debate between epigenesis and preformation was hotly contested throughout
most of the eighteenth century. See, in particular, Clara Pinto-Correia, The Ovary of
Eve: Egg and Sperm and Preformation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997);
and Shirley A. Roe, Matter, Life, and Generation: Eighteenth-Century Embryology and
the Haller-Wolff Debate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Although
by the 1780s epigenesis had won over most prominent physicians and biologists,
nonetheless, preformation could, as this case demonstrates, still command attention
and was not fully triumphant even as late as the 1790s. Peter Hanns Reill, Vitalizing
Nature in the Enlightenment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 5670,
15871.
Report of Board of Health to Consistory, June 2, 1798, in StAWf, 111 Neu 2496, fols.
89.
Opinions of the Board of Health (P.M. An das Frstl. Konsistorium zu Wolfenbttel, June 2, 1798) can be found in StAWf, 111 Neu 2496, fols. 816, here fol. 12.
Haller, for one, denied the ability of born or acquired malformations or loss of limb,
for example, to be passed on to children (or subsequent generations). Moreover, he
pointed out that lame parents and cripples [usually] produce well-proportioned and
healthy children (Vorrede, 101).
Frstliche Kirchen-Ordnung, [1568], chap. 22, par. 2.
Johann Peter Frank, System einer vollstndigen medicinischen Polizey, vol. 1, Von Fort
8/21/08 11:14:31 AM
pflanzung der Menschen und Ehe-Anstalten, von Erhaltung und Pflege schwangerer Mtter, ihrer Leibesfrucht und der Kind-Betterinnen in jedem Gemeinwesen, 2nd rev. ed.
(Mannheim, 1784).
44 Actum in Consistorio, Mar. 3, 1740, and opinions of consistory members from Mar.
4, in StAWf, 14 Alt Nr. 695.
45 Relatio ad Serenissimum, from Mar. 5; and Resolution of consistory giving Horn
permission to marry Gradehand, from Mar. 31, 1740; both in StAWf, 14 Alt Nr. 695.
8/21/08 11:14:32 AM
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The Body Debated: Bodies and

In 1633 Thophraste Renaudot, founder of the Parisian Bureau daddresse

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 38:3, Fall 2008

not by authorities seeking to exert control over their subjects or to discipline

and others. Likewise, one should be able to document a growing division

even the unpredictability of positions, the hesitancy of experts when faced

The Capon-Marriage (Capaunen-Herath) refers to the marriage of a

virginem juvenculam (Halle,

504 Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies / 38.3 / 2008

In the contemporary documents, little unanimity existed. Many

one was born could be passed on from parents to children, Mhlenbein

Reproduced by permission of the

Reproduced by permission of the

handled. He posted a series of documents to this higher authority: his own

The consistory argued that no collegium can grant dispensations in legal

516 Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies / 38.3 / 2008

1985). Gilbert, as well as another literary scholar, Kathleen P. Long, Hermaphrodites

518 Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies / 38.3 / 2008

Lindemann / The Body Debated 519

520 Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies / 38.3 / 2008

Lindemann / The Body Debated 521

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