“The filthiest service in the world”: Sodomy, emasculation, honor and shame in the Early Modern period

Abstract

There are countless literary and historical representations of the Thirty Years War. Common to many of the accounts is the excessive violence done not only soldier to soldier, but soldier to civilian. As Andreas Gryphius writes in Thränen des Vaterlands/Anno 1636 (quoted from Fischetti 1975:63):

Die Türme stehn in Glutt / die Kirch ist umgekehret. Das Rathauß ligt im Grauß / die Starcken sind zerhaun. Die Jungfern sind geschänd’t / und wo wir hin nur schaun / Ist Feuer / Pest und Tod / der Hertz und Geist durchfähret.

Indeed, much has been written on the “raping” or pillaging of towns and cities, and the raping of the townswomen by invading soldiers. Yet what of the sexual violence that male soldiers waged on males? What does one make of references such as “ihnen den Hintern zu lecken” (translated in English as “the filthiest service in the world”) in Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus? This reference is an example of Entehrung through sexual conquest on the battlefield, and relates the fear and shame felt by such conquered soldiers. To further shame the defeated soldiers, the victors sodomized their captors as a statement of ultimate conquest. Thus, capture by the victor was often not merely an issue of losing one’s honor as a soldier, but of losing one’s honor as a man. In my paper I wish to: 1) discuss the relationship between honor and shame with respect to sodomy in the Medieval and Early Modern period, 2) bring representations of male-male violence to light, 3) examine such representations with respect to honor and shame, and 4) further analyze the concepts of masculinity, sodomy and shame with respect to an excerpt from Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus Teutsch ^1.