Lisbetha Olsdotter

Lisbetha Olsdotter (died November 1679) was a Swedish woman, who was executed on a number of different charges after having dressed as a man, served as a soldier and married a woman.

On 24 October 1679 Svea Hovrätt in Stockholm brought the charges, earlier raised in the court of Långhundra Häradsting. Lisbetha Olsdotter is reported to have been originally from Tysslinge torp in Östuna parish in Långhundra Härad.

The trial

Background

Olsdotter had run away from home and abandoned her husband and children. According to the documents, a soldier's widow, Sara, had originally advised her to dress as a man in order to seduce the vivacious widow Maria.

In 1678, she was a servant in the household of the country administrator Jon Persson in Alby in Botkyrka under the name Mats Ersson. With the help of the master mariner Erik Persson Arnelii, who knew that she was female, she enlisted as a soldier, and gave Arnelii some of her salary as thanks for his help and silence.

She was present in all the military drills and performed all her duties as a soldier, and married, according to all traditional ceremonies of the church, the maid Kerstin Ersdotter. After the wedding, however, Kerstin Ersdotter discovered the biological gender of her groom, and reported Lisbetha Olsdotter to the authorities.

Charges

Olsdotter was put on trial for several charges:

Execution

Olsdotter was judged guilty of the charges under the law of the act of religion from 1655: for having, with full intent, "mutilated" her gender, "mocked God and the Order of God", and fooled authorities and her "fellow Christians" by impersonating a man. She was sentenced to death by decapitation. The woman she had married, Kerstin Ersdotter, claimed that she had been as fooled as every one else and was therefore judged as a victim of the crime rather than an accomplice to it.

Sara and Arnelii, who had helped her, were also arrested. The case, however, was so unusual, that the verdict would be confirmed by the highest Royal court in the country first.

The Royal court confirmed the verdict on 12 November, and ordered the priests to clarify for her what sin she had committed in the eyes of religion. It was decided by the court, that she would go to her execution dressed as a man, but wear female headgear. She was decapitated on Hötorget in Stockholm in 1679.

From the late 16th century to the early 19th century, there were several known cases in Swedish military history of women dressing and presenting as men, especially in the early 18th century. The most famous case was the one of Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar in 1728. An unnamed woman, who served in the Great Northern War, was whipped as a punishment, but continued to wear male clothing until the 1740s, when she was known on the streets of Stockholm as "The Rider"; Maria Johansdotter, who was put on trial in Stockholm in 1706 for having dressed as a man and served as a parish clerk, was given a sentence of eight days in jail and then set free. Most of the cases did not lead to execution, as in the case of Lisbetha Olsdotter.

References

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