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Condemnation and Praise

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The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, many Dutch cities had anatomy theatres, with collections of misformed babies preserved in alcohol, stuffed animals and human skeletons. The theatre in Rotterdam acquired a rather grotesque attraction around the middle of this century: the prepared and stuffed skin of a woman called Aal the Dragoon. This was placed, sword in hand, upon the carcass of a horse. Aal had served as a dragoon for many years when she was stabbed by a fellow soldier in a fight over a game of cards. The fact that her body was subsequently put at the disposal of medical science and that her remains were thereafter to serve the purposes of instruction must be considered posthumous punishment, because only the most serious cases among criminals were denied burial at the time.

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social History, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Rudolf M. Dekker & Lotte C. van de Pol

Authors
  1. Rudolf M. Dekker
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  2. Lotte C. van de Pol
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© 1989 Rudolph M. Dekker and Lotte C. van de Pol

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Dekker, R.M., van de Pol, L.C. (1989). Condemnation and Praise. In: The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19752-1_5

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