In vino crimen sodomitiae - Der zweite Gerichtsprozess wegen Sodomie vor dem Landesgericht Gutenhaag in der Untersteiermark im Jahr 1749 Eine mikrohistorische Studie

Abstract

From the end of May to the beginning of June 1749, a trial took place at the Gutenhaag Provincial Court in Lower Styria, which is to be considered exceptional in many aspects, both at its time and examined from an historical perspective. Exceptional was the charge, exceptional the court trial, exceptional was the verdict, which was written down in both German and Slovenian, becoming thus the first legal document of its kind in the latter language. Two small peasants of advanced age and both drunkards of regional renown were put on trial, accused of sodomy. The trial displayed their completely different attitudes towards the accusation; it displayed furthermore diverse social micro-dynamics that led towards the accusation, independently of the alleged sexual practices of the defendants. And finally it displayed different views of the authorities upon the crime, which according to the ruling law was to be punished with the death sentence: Although the judge sentenced them to banishment from their homeland Styria and to hard labour, Empress Maria Theresia, whose verdict was final, demanded the capital penalty. Her verdict clearly was entirely of a premodern Catholic mode, along which a man is perceived only in terms of his expediency: Man lives not because of him and from himself, but indeed by his Creator only and in the service of the God-given ecclesiastical and political authorities. With their deviant sexual practices, their sodomite crime, the two poor man had gone against their God and their appointed authorities, and therefore had to die.