Even after the Domitian edict the practice of castration continued to be profitable to some and the edict was disregarded. James Huneker, a 20th century music critic, brought to the attention of Pope Pius X the fact that the beautiful soprano voices of eunuchs could still be heard in Rome. There were, of course, open denunciations of the practice of creating eunuchs, made by the church.

A great many of Italy's famous singers have been of the evirati or castrati, terms used by the musicians to describe the singing eunuchs. When castrated before puberty boys usually retain their boyhood voices and these voices are described by some writers as being of "great sweetness."

Such was the ambition of one Italian father that he is reputed to have castrated his own son on behalf of his aspirations for a musical career for his son. [It must have been far more than ONE Italian father. I've seen numbers as high as 4000 boys per year being castrated in Italy. LOW figures are about 2000 per year. -JA]

Now and then, cryptorchidism (previously mentions), not being recognized, played fateful tricks upon the high and mighty. There is a story told of an Egyptian pasha who was alarmed to find that his wives were bearing colored babies. The pasha's chief eunuch was a Negro. He had been castrated in childhood when but one testicle had descended. The other testicle later descended and the "eunuch" attained fatherhood.

History is not merely sprinkled, but is generously baptized, with periods of infamy. During one such period, when some of the world's well known religions were in the prime of their glory, Africa furnished millions of slaves to the world. It is a matter of history that the little African boys were more highly valued as slaves if they had been mutilated - made into eunuchs.

Castration is today a simple, though delicate, operation. Mortality, when it occurs, is usually due to other factors than the requisite surgery. In darker ages the mortality was high but men and boys were expendable - and cheap. The China of centuries ago furnished many boys who were made into eunuchs and, hence, slaves.

The Hebrew religion of historical times declared it worthy of death to castrate one of the lower animals. The creation of eunuchs was prohibited. There were, however, according to the Bible, eunuchs in the palaces of Israel's kings.

Tarses, no more than two centuries ago, became king of Persia. He was a eunuch. Tarses made himself one of the famous generals of history.

Oriental monarchy has followed closely the Persian pattern. Masterful Orientals have become powerful generals and have thus made of themselves rulers. As rulers they have had harems and into the harems their male and female descendants have been born. The males among these descendants, attended by eunuchs and women, have grown into effeminacy. These effeminates have not pursued courses analogous to the courses pursued by their illustrious fathers. Because of this governmental administration has fallen largely into the hands of eunuchs. These eunuchs have contrived to overthrow their "kings" and many of them made themselves into kings.

When the revolutionists overthrew Abdul-Hamid of Turkey, among the first of their post-revolution acts was to hang, publicly, Abdul-Hamid's chief eunuch.

Eunuchs, even though neither hes nor shes, and even though they were for centuries enslaved, have enjoyed a juicy slice of the world's riches. As the creation of eunuchs has become less profitable, however, it has become less popular. As a legal procedure, the creation of eunuchs is not widely practices today, although, as little as one might believe it, castration, under certain conditions, is carried out at the direction of a count in the State of California, today.

To Sexology (whose publisher, at 25 W. Broadway, New York City, has granted permission to reproduce it) belongs credit for the following:

"THE MALE EUNUCH

"The eunuchs of history have been divided by Dr. A.P. Cawadias (as reported in a recent issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, London) into five classes: (1) those who were employed by ancient Eastern and other peoples as special slaves or servants; (2) the religious eunuchs, who represented a form of mystical madness causing priests and followers of certain ancient Eastern religions to castrate themselves so as to devote the whole of their services to their divinities; (3) the singer eunuchs - those who were castrated in order to keep a sweet infantile feminine soprano voice, which was much sought after; (4) the eunuchs who were victims of criminal assault, and finally, (5) those who were castrated for medical reasons or to better the qualities of the man.

"The history of these types of eunuchs as described by Dr. Cawadias is fascinating. Religious castration, he says, was renewed in the middle of the 18th century by a sect originating in Russia and spreading into Roumania, known as Skoptzy. Its eunuchs were the first to undergo complete medical examination"

Herodotus told a story of a eunuch who became a Persian royal governor. On becoming governor the eunuch caused the arrest of the slave trader who, when the governor was a boy, sold him as a slave after causing his castration. The governor, using his particular methods of persuasion which included, it is unnecessary to guess, torture, caused the slave trader to castrate his own sons. This accomplished, the sons were compelled to castrate their father.

The Persian governor, it appears, accomplished both vengeance and the prevention of further reproduction in the slave trader's family.

It has been stated that castration, under certain conditions, is carried out as a legal procedure, in California. Some nine years ago Judge Frank P. Collier, then on the bench in Los Angeles, was transferred to the Pasadena area. Several well known and reputedly wealthy businessmen had become involved in sex crimes against small girls.

Judge Collier had been engaged in a vast amount of private research into the rehabilitation of sex criminals. Until well known and wealthy men became publicly involved it had apparently been of no concern in the Pasadena area, as to what happened to sex criminals.

California laws provide heavy penalties for sex offenders. Indeed, under certain laws, persons convicted of certain sex offenses may be confined in the state penitentiary for life. Probation may be granted by the sentencing court.

It has long been proverbial that al laws (in all states) have loopholes which exceptionally shrewd (and sometimes prosaically dull) lawyers may find for use to the advantage of their clients. Through these loopholes guilty persons may be freed. These loopholes often provided a hangman's noose for the innocent.

In order to execute a plan he had formulated through his research, Judge Collier was compelled to seek a legal loophole. California laws did not provide for the castration of sex offenders, either as a means of punishment or as a method of rehabilitating these offenders.

California law stipulates that a judge may require that certain conditions (which he is empowered to name) must be met in order that probation be granted. This was the Collier loophole. He offered sex offenders the choice of spending the remainder of their natural lives in prison, or of voluntarily submitting to castration. Thus, castration with legal sanction became, to all intents and purpose, legal in California.

There are those who believe that what is now known as "Collier's Choice" is successful. Doubtless it all depends on what one conceives success to be. It certainly succeeds in getting a fair number of men made into eunuchs. As to this, however, it would be possible to run into page after page of discussion. Such is outside the scope of this book.

[In the early years of the 20th century castration was used far more widely in the United States for both therapeutic and criminal justice purposes than Cauldwell discusses here. Indiana was especially noted for frequent castration of mental patients. Texas for castration of criminals. -JA]

As a measure for the preservation of life or health, or of health and life, castration is regarded, under medical jurisprudence, to be legal anywhere.

Somewhere in this thread I asked whether the castration of pre-teen boys was followed by penile shrinkage, and received a reply from a "Fully Qualified Member" (his name escapes me) referring to the Italian castrati and saying that some of these were sexually active. As to penile shrinkage the answer was "Yes".

Since the castrati lost their testicles at age 8 - 9 according to the accepted wisdom, it seems to follow from the information received that they went through life with penises even smaller than those of 8 - 9 year-old boys. But besides this, in spite of (a) never experiencing the testosterone surge that comes with puberty and (b) losing whatever secretions they may have had up till then, they still retained sexual curiosity and longings. Can this be right?

To support the notion that they could, and did, I draw on my own experience, now decades in the past, when I was a young draftee. The child of a near-neighbour, aged 11 going on 12, was without doubt the most dirty-minded kid I've ever encountered in a long life. "Come upstairs and watch me playing with my piss-piss" was a typical invitation. Yet at a guess, his testosterone output was nil - he had a tiny withered-up scrotum, the testicles no larger than peas.

I used this unpleasant child as the template for "Simon". Whether he actually had his atrophied genitals removed I don't know, but it might have improved him.

C van D

Nearly all of the Italian castrati first appear in the written record only after their careers are established, usually not before they were in their 20s. There is no information about when or where they were castrated, nor their age at the time. We can only know that they had to have been castrated before their voices broke.

So far I have found relevant information about only a few castrati, but what I have discovered is quite interesting about the individuals involved and the circumstances of their castrations.

One interesting pair is Giovanni Carlo Bernardi (born April 11, 1682) and his brother Santi Francesco (born October 31, 1686). Their first documented professional singing was in December 1695 when the both of them (ages 9 and 13 at the time) were paid 3 lira each for singing in the choir of the cathedral in Siena.

On August 31, 1696, their father, Giuseppe Bernardi signed a contract with the rector of the the Opera Metropolitana di Siena stipulating that his son Giovanni Carlo was to serve for 6 years in the chorus and that the father was to be reimbursed for the cost to have him castrated. He was castrated by the surgeon Giovanni Domenico Tolensani on November 23, at the age of 14 and his father was reimbursed 50 lira for the surgery.

Three years later, on November 17, 1699, the father signed another contract with the Opera Metropolitana di Siena, committing his 12 year old son Francesco to a 6 year contract. The son was castrated by the same surgeon as his brother on December 2, and the surgeon was paid directly by the Opera.

The Opera Metropolitana di Siena shows up two more times. On July 21, 1679, Anton Maria Bigelli, a shoemaker, signs a 6 year contract for his son Girolano Bigelli and is compensated for the fee he has already paid for his 15 year old son to be castrated.

Again, almost a hundred years later, on October 11, 1775, Antonio Martini signs a 6 year contract for his son Andrea Bartolomeo Martini, which also compensates him for what he has already paid to have his 14 year old son castrated.

In both of these cases, the date of the castration, and the age of the boy at the time of surgery, is unstated, although we can guess that it was not too long before their contracts were signed if their fathers were to be reimbursed for their castrations.

The Pia Casa degli Orfani (an orphanage in Rome) also shows up four times. Four boys who were placed in the orphanage – Francesco Gordiani on August 24, 1819 at age 10, Giovanni Poli on February 28, 1820 at age 10, Giuseppe Ritarossi on March 23, 1852 at age 11, and Giovanni Cesari on April 20, 1852 at age 8 – have as their next entry that they were admitted to some choir at age 17 or 18 as a castrato. We can assume that they were each castrated while they were housed at the orphanage.

Domenico del Pane first appears in the record as a 9 year old boy soprano in a church in Rome in 1641. By May 4, 1646, at age 13, he appears as a castrato in the entourage of Cardinal Rinaldo d’Este. The cardinal had paid for his board and musical training at the German College in Rome. It can be assumed that the cardinal arranged for his castration as well, sometime between the ages of 9 and 13.

The only other possibly dated castration that I have found is for Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci, born in Siena in 1735. He actually managed to marry an Irish Protestant woman in London in 1766 when he was 31 years old. His wife later had two children whom he claimed as his own. In 1775 he was cited in an adultery case. His marriage was annulled at the insistence of his in-laws in that same year. His wife later wrote a book about him in which she claimed that he had been castrated at age 9. Tenducci is also famous for having worked directly with both Mozart and Handel and for having his portrait painted by Gainsborough.

What I find most interesting about this group is that all were from northern Italy and were castrated in either Rome or Siena. The standard information is that most castrati were from the south and that Naples was the castration center, if the boys hadn’t been castrated in their village of origin.

Clearly I have more research ahead of me on the Italians, but this information both does and does not speak to C van D’s question about penile shrinkage. At least some of the Italian castrati were castrated at an age where their penises would have had some enlargment in early stage puberty. They would have been old enough to have become interested in girls (or, some of them, in boys). They certainly could have become sexually active, though probably not with penetrative sex.

If they had already had some penile growth, shrinkage, if it occurred, would not have been back to the size of early childhood, but to something intermediate between that and the size to which they had grown prior to their castration. There may even have been further growth, as Burton reports from his research.

For eunuchs castrated well before the beginning of puberty, we have little but anecdotal evidence. Richard Burton, after examining several Black eunuchs who had retained their penises, wrote that even those who had been castrated at a very young age had penises larger than those of small boys – there was some penile growth after castration together with the growth of the rest of the body. Burton being Burton, and most of the eunuchs being slaves, Burton checked their erections and reported them to be the consistency of a strong rubber tube.

In a different footnote in the original edition of his translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Benares, 1885-86), Burton notes that most of the non-slave eunuchs were married and he gives a catalog listing of the types of non-penetrative sex that they practiced with their wives. They were definitely sexually active, even though they had been castrated well before puberty.

As an historian, I want to compliment you on your research and subsequent EA article. It is most informative. What I find most disturbing as a parent is that the boys were castrated (probably unwillingly) by their Father. It seems obvious that the motive for the Father was financial gain. Some psychiatrists could really have fun with the son-father relationship---if there was any afterwards.

Thank you again for your research,

Sailorboy

J. in his masterly piece of research, mentions four instances of boys castrated while inmates of an orphanage, the latest in 1852. This prompts me to wonder whether it was the practice for all the inmates to be neutered, perhaps on admission, and whether it had anything to do with their potential as singing boys or just to prevent sexual misbehaviour in an institution where all the boys would have lived at close quarters?