Common Women Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England [Paperback]

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.

In order to deal with both 'reality' and representation, Karras had to discover and exploit a wide variety of sources. She has skillfully woven together the records of town, manorial, and diocesan courts with insights gained from literary sources such as saints' lives, sermons, plays, andfabliaux....From the book's title to its conclusion, Karras emphasizes that control of women's independence, much more than sexuality, was at stake in the unending insistence on the shameful nature and image of women who were not 'safely under the dominion of any one man--husband, father, master.' Karras is not the first to make this point, but she argues it with authority and with a wealth of illuminating detail....This book makes a significant contribution to our appreciation of the social and cultural history not of prostitutes alone, but of all women in medieval England. --Clarissa Atkinson,American Historical Review

Karras has put together the definitive study of prostitution in late medieval England....Avoiding the problems inherent in many other studies, Karras treads a careful and well-articulated path between seeing prostitutes only as victims or describing them as agents in control of their own destiny....Karras has written an original, stimulating, and important book that will become a standard text on the history of prostitution. --Renaissance Quarterly

Ruth Karras's new book will become a standard text on medieval prostitution, but it will also be required reading for anyone interested in gender, sexuality, and womenlã›