Download PDF | Leah Lydia Otis - Prostitution in Medieval Society_ The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc - (1985).
259 Pages
Preface
This book is an adaptation of a doctoral thesis in medieval history presented at Columbia University in 1980. It was originally conceived in 1975, first as an article, then-at the urging of my friend Daniele Neirinck, who knew well the archival potential involved-as a thesis. The book, like the thesis, has a dual orientation. It is both a regional study of medieval prostitution and an attempt to place this regional example in the context of the development of prostitution in western Europe as a whole. As the regional study is based on original archival research, the "case history" of Languedocian prostitution forms the nucleus of the book.
The comparative material, gleaned largely from bibliographical research, assumes a secondary role, complementing, confirming, or qualifying the regional study. Hence, a word of advice to the general reader; You may wish to keep an eye on the notes. Although they often contain scholarly apparatus for the use of specialists, many are devoted to comparing Languedocian prostitution with its Italian, German, and English counterparts and are therefore of as much potential interest to the general reader as is the text itself. A second caveat may be added for nonmedievalists. Some of the chapters, especially those dealing with the earlier centuries, proceed by a careful analysis of a series of individual documents, conclusions and generalizations being kept to a minimum. This method has been adopted not out of love of pedantry but out of the concern not to deform, by "filling in the blanks" between existing documents, what little we know of the truth-and our knowledge is limited indeed. Errors in past studies of the history of prostitution have often been due to a rather too wild extrapolation from one or two documents.
Hypotheses are presented in this book, but always cautiously, with the awareness that they are subject to confirmation or invalidation in the light of future regional studies. This process is sometimes a flustrating one, for author as well as reader, but it is the only valid approach in a domain suffering from scant documentation, where the discovery ofjust one new document can lay to rest even the most plausible and seductive of theories. To the medievalist, I should like to specify that all translations of original texts are mine unless otherwise indicated. From you I must beg indulgence for any lacunae you may discover.
This book was written entirely in France, and I have not always been able to consult the best critical edition of the nonLanguedocian texts cited and may well be ignorant of some recent relevant article in an English-language periodical. Vocabulary is often a stumbling block for writers on prostitution; one cannot use a varied and colorful vocabulary without employing terms generally considered to be vulgar or, from the point of view of the prostitute, insulting. If the words used in this book are measured and neutral, it is not only to avoid a pejorative connotation, however, but also to reflect the vocabulary used in medieval legislative and administrative texts; hence, public ~vomell and public house are used frequently, not out of prudery but because they are direct translations of medieval Latin, Occitanian, and French terms.
Prostitute is usually a more appropriate translation of meretrix than whore; lvhore, on the other hand, is probably the best translation of bagassa, putain, garce, and other pejorative epithets used in the late Middle Ages. Similarly, when I use the term "honest" women to refer to nonprostitutes, I do not intend to imply that prostitutes are dishonest, nor to indicate skepticism, via quotation marks, about the honesty of nonprostitutes, but simply to render the term used in medieval texts, more evocative and less cumbersome than any contemporary circumlocutional equivalent.
Indispensable to the realization of this book were the efforts of many people-professors, colleagues, archivists, librarians, and others-whom I thank collectively for their contribution. I am particularly grateful to Professor Andre Gouron, who made it possible for me to research and write this essay during an extended stay in France as a lecturer at the Faculte de Droit de Montpellier and its branch campus in Nimes, and to the municipality of Nimes for its generosity. Special thanks go to MIle Galceran and Mme Siraudin of the Inter-Library Loan Service in Montpellier for procuring much of the bibliography and to Barbara Beckerman Davis, who provided an indispensable lifeline with the archives of Toulouse. I am also grateful to Ian Dengler, to Professors JeanMarie Carbasse, Michel Lacave, and Kathryn Reyerson, and to Alison Klairmont Lingo for sharing their knowledge and advice with me; to Gerry Moran for his wise counsel and moral support; and to my husband, Patrice Cour, who provided a confidence and enthusiasm that I myself often lacked.
Some contributions are nonetheless important for having been indirect. I am grateful to Andrej Kaminsky, whose courses sensitized me to the problem of "marginality"; to Betty Nassif, who taught so many of us that history can be a passion as well as a discipline; and to Robert Somerville, without whose example and constant encouragement I should never have undertaken doctoral studies in history. Finally, my greatest debts of gratitude are to my mentor, Professor John H. Mundy, who has had faith in this project since its conception and who gave earlier drafts of this essay the most exhaustive critical commentaries, and to Daniele Neirinck, archiviste-paleographe, without whose inspiration, guidance, and friendship this book would never have seen the light of day.
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