Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England (Studies in the History of Sexuality)

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book on Medieval Women.
Review: Dr. Karras has written a wonderful book exploring the roles of medieval women. It's written in a language that is accessable to everyone! A great read for anyone interested in educating themselves about medieval women.

Rating:
Summary: Prostitution in England compared to the rest of Europe
Review: This book is very helpful for those people who want to make a comparative study between prostitution in England and in the rest of Europe, particularly Italy for which we have a wealth of material and publications. The reading is easy and engaging, and the book offers many important references and a rich bibliography that can be used to expand on this subject.

Rating:
Summary: Well Researched
Review: This is the last book I've had to read for my Medieval history class, which focused on women in the Middle Ages. We started out by examining mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe, and then looked at Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc. I guess it is fitting to end on the lowest of the female population in this time period, the prostitute. This book, by Ruth Karras, provides an in-depth analysis of the role that the prostitute played in the male dominated world of the Middle Ages, but with a twist, as Karras uses her analysis to also examine sexuality in the same period. The focus is on English prostitutes, mostly due to accessibility of records. England had a fairly stable government, so records were better preserved. France, for example, lost many court rolls and other important records in the chaos of the Revolution in the 1790's.

Karras gives a broad sketch of the prostitute by showing how they were affected by laws. The laws served a dual purpose. They seemed to try and protect prostitutes from beatings and coercion, but also tried to keep them in a restricted place in society, by isolating them to the outskirts of town, and regulating both what they could wear and how they conducted themselves in their personal relationships. The power structure, according to Karras, seemed to subscribe to the theory that prostitution was a necessary evil, in that men needed an outlet for their sexual energy. If this need wasn't met, the general belief was that these men would resort to rape and other unpleasantness against the other ladies of the town/city. So while prostitutes were reviled, they were also accorded a role in society that was seen to fill an important need.

There's lots of stuff I'm leaving out, of course. Some books always give a revelation of sorts that the reader remembers long after the book has been read, and this one has a good one. England had very few legal brothels, but one was on the outskirts of London, in Southwark. These brothels were referred to as "stews", and this stew was actually owned by the Bishop of Winchester! He made quite a profit off the ladies, too. He didn't run the house directly, but appointed brothelkeepers who did the dirty work. An interesting role for the Church, don't you think? Actually, it sort of makes since in light of the belief that prostitution filled a social role of sorts. The government sure wasn't providing any sort of programs or assistance. The Church was the closest thing to a social service system (I'm way out on a limb here, I smell a research paper!) so maybe bishops running houses of ill repute wasn't so spectacular after all.

Copious notes at the end of the book show the astonishing amount of primary and secondary sources that Karras scoured through to construct the book. I'm impressed. This book certainly has an interest to the historian, but the casual reader would get a kick out of it too, as it isn't overly scholarly, and it reads fast at 142 pages. Well done, Dr. Karras!