what are some famous before 17th century Lesbian couples listed in history? Also have any lesbian couple remains/mummies ever been found? I know there was a male couple found: Weerdinge Men - Wikipedia What about female couples?
The most famous would surely be the classical poet Sappho, who’s responsible for our modern words “sapphic” and “lesbian” (she was from the island of Lesbos). I don’t know if we know the names of any of her female lovers, though.
Moving this question, which is no way sounds like a request for homework help, to MPSIMS from Cafe Society.
If you’re looking for cases where both women were famous then I’d be surprised if there were any at all. Women were largely ignored by history for centuries, especially if they weren’t married to an important man. A woman can of course be a lesbian and married to a man (I assume that historically the vast majority of lesbians were married to men), but few of them left behind notes explaining that they really liked the ladies. Sappho is a notable exception, and we only know about her because she was a great poet. For a big chunk of history it was rare for women to even know how to write, and there’s no way to know how a woman so long ago really thought or felt if she didn’t write it down. It’s also unlikely that a woman’s personal writings would have been preserved for centuries if they were considered scandalous or damaging to her family’s reputation.
If “couple” just means that you’re looking for a famous historic woman from before 1600 who we have good reason to believe was actually romantically involved with other women then Sappho is the only one I know of. There are a few references to women who had sex with women in fiction and drama from before 1600, as well as laws describing the punishments for women who have sex with other women, but that’s about it as far as I know.
If during the 17th century counts then I’ve heard speculation that Queen Anne of Great Britain and the Duchess of Marlborough were more than just friends, but I don’t know what if any evidence there is to support this. I know very little about her, but Queen Christina of Sweden (who was kind of butch and refused to marry) may have been in love with her friend Ebba Sparre.
IIRC some are named in her poetry, but I doubt there’s any way to be sure these were the real names of her actual lovers.
There’s an old story that Queen Victoria was presented with legislation outlawing homosexual acts both for men and for women. Vicky refused to believed that any women could be so evil as to engage in that sort of behavior. So she crossed out the parts referring to women. So, homosexuality for men was illegal in Britain, but not lesbianism.
I don’t believe the story anyway. I don’t think that’s how laws are made over there. In any case that was after the OP’s time constraints.
There are some records of trials of nuns in the middle ages. The book “Immodest Acts” documents one such case in detail, that of Sister Benedetta Carlini, Abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God.
A few are mentioned here as being lesbians, but no distinct couples.
I beleive that’s a garbled version of the House of Lords rejecting a bill to criminalise lesbian acts, led by F.E. Smith, Lord Birkenhead, as recounted by wiki:
The problem is that homosexuality for most of recorded history was seen as a act rather than an identity. Meaning that you might partake in homosexual acts, you were not defined as exclusively homosexual or gay or lesbian.
Sorry OP, this is after your dates (18th century), but I want to give these ladies a special mention for being amazing: The Ladies of Llangollen.
They were two young ladies from Ireland, both being pressured into marriage or otherwise a convent. They ran away together and made a life for themselves as a couple in the Welsh town of Llangollen. Their families came after them to try to bring them home, but the two ladies knew what they wanted and stuck together. They became quite famous, though reportedly they lived unremarkable lives.
Although we have no way of knowing the exact nature of their relationship, it seems pretty likely they were lesbians.
Doña Catalina de Erauso lived most of her life in the 17th century (why that limit anyway?) but, although neither the wiki article in English nor that in Spanish mention it, longer biographies I’ve read stated that while she was living in Peru she was this >< close to getting married to another woman - I’ve never seen any references to whether her bride knew, or what happened to her after the “groom” fessed up.