Catharina Margaretha Linck, “A Swindler of Land and People” (1720)

This pamphlet from 1720 claims to contain a “detailed and true description of a swindler of land and people.” Catharina Margaretha Linck (1687-1721) a.k.a. Anastasius Lagrantinus Rosenstengel is a particularly interesting example of cross-dressing in order to change one’s gender identity, which often coincided with spatial mobility. Using the identity of Rosenstengel, Catharina Linck first appeared as a prophet before spending several years as a soldier. She temporarily switched her identity back to that of a woman to work as a calico printer before taking on a male identity again in order to marry Catharina Margaretha Mühlhahn. She was eventually found out, exposed, and reported to the authorities by her mother in law, and, in 1721, she was executed for sodomy. Using different identities, Linck/Rosenstengel is documented to have traveled to Brussels, Terbank, Antwerp, Münster, Cologne, Soest, Rheinfels, Hildesheim, Helmstadt, Halberstadt, Calbe, Gehofen, Wittenberg, Nuremberg and Halle.