Word: rossiaud
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Dates: during 1988-1988
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...Jacques Rossiaud's new book on medieval prostitution is an engaging study that argues that the sale of sex did indeed flourish in a time when the Pope condemned everything from fornication to chastity. In an era in which the Church dictated what sexual positions pregnant women under the age of 25 could assume, the women of the night were the hardest working portion of the labor force in the cities and towns. Rossiaud analyzes the reasons for prostitution's longevity despite prohibition's on its existence...
...Rossiaud's study is one of a growing number of works on the role of prostitutes in history, and he uses an impressive and exhaustive study of ancient French archives to show how prostitution came to be in medieval France. The author has clearly spent a considerable amount of time collecting and reading court records, marriage contracts and prison sentences from the cities of Lyons, Dijon and Toulouse, and he uses these to uncover the moral code that existed in the French urban areas...
...time when women were repeatedly victims of sexual violence, and gang rapes by organized groups of men were considered common, Rossiaud shows that violated women lost their marriage marketability and were forced to turn to a life of selling themselves on the street or in the public baths...
Whether women were adulterous or victims of kidnapping and forced sexual intercourse, Rossiaud uses documents from the era to show that they were always considered guilty in the public...
...main body of Rossiaud's work, however, centers on why prostitution was allowed to flourish in a time when contemporary theologians like Aquinas and Saignet fought against "Nature" and condemned fornication, chastity and masturbation as evil. He attempts to question whether the impetus was from within the town--men in the towns--or whether it was from without--salesmen and other wanderers who happened to be in town for a few days. And in the process he is able to maintain a light writing style that, while informative and academic, is not too ponderous to be enjoyed...