Those rascals chased from Holland! Sodomy, migration and identity building in eighteenth-century Antwerp'

Abstract

Convictions for sodomy were rare in eighteenth-century Antwerp. Nevertheless, the scarce trial records offer a fascinating insight into the urban perception of sodomy as a foreign phenomenon. A sodomy trial involving several Dutch migrants infused anxieties about sodomite conspiracies across the city. Although early modern sodomy has mainly been studied from a local or national point of view, this article shows that a transregional perspective regarding the repression of sodomy can shed new light on attitudes towards early modern deviant sexuality.