title: A lesbian execution in Germany, 1721: the trial records.
abstract: In 1891, Dr. F. C. Müller of Alexandersbad published in Friedreich's Blätter für gerichtliche Medizin und Sanitätspolizei a transcription from the Prussian State Archives of a trial of two lesbians that took place in Halberstadt in 1721. The records, translated here, describe in lively detail the religious life, wanderings, and lesbian relations of Catherina Margaretha Linck. Linck was tried for committing sodomy with her lover, Catherina Margaretha Mühlhahn. The trial documents also reveal with some particularity the legal questions raised by lesbian relations in the early eighteenth century with regard to moral theology, Saxon law, and physiological theories.
mesh_terms: D002203:Capital Punishment / Q000266:history*; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006716:Homosexuality; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence / Q000266:history