queer masculinities

80 Queer Masculinities, 1550–1800
discipline of the population: Statute on the Authority of the Church over
the Unrepentant (1629). It was necessary, the royal order explained, to
consider, especially now, how God’s wrath and surely imminent
revenge and punishment might be averted. Orthodox Lutheranism
explained military defeat and famine as God’s punishment for the
ungodly conduct of the population. The statute appointed the clergy as
‘servants’ in matters of morals, namely as supervisors who warned,
admonished, and often initiated prosecution. In the 1740s, after severe
criticism from the courts the priestly supervision of morals was
reduced. 9
The exemplary punishment and the spectacular ‘publicity’ surrounding
the executions in 1613 and 1628 are, as we shall see, in obvious
contrast to the administratively ordered discretion and ‘silence’ of the
eighteenth century.
The cases of 1663 and 1673–74
Both of the instances of sodomy that we know of from the second half
of the seventeenth century took place in a military setting. That the
sodomitical conduct became known to the authorities was undoubtedly
because it involved victims who considered themselves raped and
abused.
Soldiers employed at the extensive works of fortification around
Nyborg Castle were housed in the town of Nyborg. In August 1663
Sergeant Claudi Amberg shared a bed with a 13-year-old boy, Hans
Claussen, who later in a military court explained that Amberg had
committed an immoral act with him while he was asleep. When he
woke up the sergeant had threatened him, promised gifts and money,
and put his male member in his behind. The boy became ill, but recovered
after a week. Sergeant Amberg did not confess. Consequently the
court sentenced him to undergo torture, ‘so that the truth may be
brought into the light of the day.’
It is not known how the matter with Sergeant Amberg ended. The
commanding general in Nyborg reported the case to the Commanderin-Chief
of the Danish army and asked what should be done. Neither
he nor the War Office answered. Six weeks later the general in Nyborg
wrote to the king and complained that he had not received an answer
to his inquiry. The War Office then ordered him to resume proceedings
in the military court. Renewed interrogation did not lead anywhere
and again the commanding general wrote to his superiors in