Navigating Historical Gender Identity: The Case of Katharina Hetzeldorf

How do you begin to look for examples of lesbians in the medieval period?

Even though it was deeply frowned upon by the powers that be, the clues are very much there... if you know where to look.

What examples do we have? How did the male-run church respond to fears that nuns were getting too close for their liking? And how did a 13th century court react when a dildo was presented in a case against a woman accused of sodomy?

Joining Kate today is medieval historian Tess Wingard to help us find out more. You can find out more about Tess's work here: https://tesswingard.wordpress.com/

This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

All music from Epidemic Sounds/All3 Media.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  

You can take part in our listener survey here.