Common women : prostitution and sexuality in Medieval England / Ruth Mazo Karras.

Common women : prostitution and sexuality in Medieval England / Ruth Mazo Karras.

9780195062427 hardcover alkaline paper
0195062426 hardcover alkaline paper

New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.

English

viii, 221 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

HQ186.A5 K37 1996

306.74/0942

"Common women" in medieval England were prostitutes, whose distinguishing feature was not that they took money for sex but that they belonged to all men in common. Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England tells the stories of these women's lives: their entrance into the trade because of poor job and marriage prospects or because of seduction or rape; their experiences as street-walkers, brothel workers or the medieval equivalent of call girls; their customers, from poor apprentices to priests to wealthy foreign merchants; and their relations with those among whom they lived. Through a sensitive use of a wide variety of imaginative and didactic texts, Ruth Karras shows that while prostitutes as individuals were marginalized within medieval culture, prostitution as an institution was central to the medieval understanding of what it meant to be a woman. This important work will be of interest to scholars and students of history, women's studies, and the history of sexuality.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-213) and index.

1600L Lexile

Studies in the history of sexuality.

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