Lesbians in pre-modern Spain
Lesbianism (female homosexuality) in pre-modern Spain (1200 - 1813) was largely not tolerated and considered illegal, with a possible death punishment.
A number of modern words associated with lesbianism in Spain originate from this time period including tortillera, desviada, marimacho, tríbada and virago.
[3][note 1] At the same time that problems around scholarly treatment of lesbians exist, female homosexuality in this period of Spanish history is rarely discussed.
[5] In official Spanish, terms to describe female homosexuals were often scarce when compared to men in dictionaries like Diccionario de autoridades .
Its origins are likely intertwined with homophobia, and would later become similar to the English language word queer in its popular usage in the Spanish speaking LGB community.
[8] Marimacho, a derogatory term for masculine looking women, was first used around 1611 in a handwritten supplement of the Sebastián Covarrubias' Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española.
It defined marimacho as "This name has been the vulgar one to the spirited and developed women that seems to have wanted the nature to make them men, but in the sex, at least in the facility".
(Spanish: “este nombre ha puesto el vulgo a las mujeres briosas y desenvueltas que parece haber querido la naturaleza hacerlas hombres, sino en el sexo, al menos en la desenvoltura”)[10][8] Women were not like men because of their looks according to this early definition but because of their interests, abilities and activities that were generally the exclusive domain of men.
After her parents forced her to join a convent, Erauso eloped and then posed as a man in order to be able to board a ship to head to the Spanish American colonies.
Her story eventually made its way to Pope Urban VIII, who granted her an audience and subsequently gave her permission to wear men's clothing.
[16] In 1584, French historian Pierre Brantôme wrote, "two ladies that be in love with one with the other ... sleeping in one bed ... such is the character of the Lesbian women."
[1] Amar sólo por vencer and La burlada Aminta y venganza del honor both featured lesbian desire.
[1] 17th century Spanish novelist María de Zayas condemned male homosexuality and homoerotic desire in her works but also wrote highly suggestive pieces about female-female intimacy.
[2] Saint Teresa de Avila is considered one of the most important woman writers of this period, writing on gay and lesbian themes.
[5] Teresa of Avila's work also inspired other Spanish sapphic writers including 19th century poet Carolina Coronado.
[5] In Tirant lo Blanc, originally published around 1490 and written by Joanot Martorell and Martí Joan de Galba, a pair of women engage in genital contact with each other.
[1] Homosexuality was generally more tolerated in Europe's pre-modern era than it had been during the Roman Empire, with the exception of Visigoth Spain.
The major forces in Medieval Spain opposing homosexuality were Christian theologians, who did so on the ground that such sexual relationships had no procreative purpose.
[19] While literary texts of the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries often featured female homoeroticism, the leading religious, legal and moralist writers of the period were often silent on the topic.
[1] In 1700, Ludovico Maria Sinistrari wrote, "More than once I have consulted very learned men... they all candidly confessed... that they were completely ignore as to how it [female sodomy] can differ from pollution, produced by rubbing their privy parts together.
"[1] In the 17th century, Nicholas Chorier wrote, "Italian, Spanish, and French women love one another.... At first this custom was common especially among the Lesbians: Sappho enhanced this name and thus dignifies it.
[14] Compared to their peers in other Renaissance European countries, Spanish legislators were highly knowledgeable about illicit same-sex female desire.
[1][14] Garbiel de Maqueda argued in 1622's Invective against the use of legal brothels linked female homosexuality with prostitution.
[24][25] The Royal Chancellery of Valladolid dealt with an appeal of a sentence by the secular courts of a woman accused of female sodomy by the mayor of San Sebastián in 1503.
[14] In 1603 in Salamanca, a civil case was register against Inés de Santa Cruz and Catalina Ledesma, who had been living in her house as a domestic partner.
The civil case rested largely on the testimony of neighbors who claimed to have heard sounds like sex and floorboards creaking like from a night of passion through a shared wall.
[1] 28-year-old widow Ana Aler and 22-year-old laundress Mariana López were prosecuted by the Inquisition in Aragón in 1656 for committing female sodomy with each other.
They had been reported to the inquisition by their neighbors who claimed to have witnessed them hugging and kissing, with one saying that Ana "would put her hands under Mariana´s skirts and touch her genitals.
[1] Huarte's text suggest a relationship between same-sex desire and physical appearance, suggesting that more masculine women and more feminine men were destined to be born the other sex, but, "Many times Nature has made a female, and having been in the mother's womb for one or two months, for some reason her genitals are overcome with heat and they come out and a male is created.
On the other hand, often Nature has made a male with his genitals on the outside, and with an onset of coldness, they are transformed to the inside and a female is created.
