A Life Of Ill Repute

Prostitution is often called the oldest profession in the world. Even in the Middle Ages, people believed that there would always be women willing to use their bodies for profit. But who were these women who offered themselves up to men? In A Life of Ill Repute Maria Serena Mazzi traces and reconstructs prostitution in the early fourteenth century, describing how in medieval European society women - often extremely poor and overwhelmed by debt, or victims either of predatory men full of duplicitous intentions or simply of rape - were traded as commodities. Prostitutes, according to Mazzi, were despised and condemned but considered necessary in an ambiguous and contradictory society that tolerated their sexual exploitation to safeguard the virtue of honest women and counter the vice of homosexuality, while allowing men to vent their own impulses. The theory of the lesser evil - encouraged by both the church and the state - is the grounds on which prostitution flourished in medieval Europe. In the Middle Ages prostitution was censured and considered disgraceful, but at the same time it was deemed inevitable and even necessary. A Life of Ill Repute uncovers the hypocrisy and speciousness of ecclesiastical, political, and social arguments for the justification of the existence of public prostitution.

To be labeled "of ill repute" in medieval society implied that a person had committed a violation of accepted standards and had stepped beyond the bounds of permissible behavior. To have a reputation "of good repute", however, was so powerful as to help a person accused of a crime be acquitted by his or her fellow peers. Labeling a person in medieval times was a complex matter. Often, unwritten codes of behavior determined who was of good repute and who was not. Members of the nobility committing a "fur-collar crime" might have considerable leeway to oppress their neighbors with violence and legal violations; however, a woman caught without appropriate attire and without the proper escort hazarded the label of a "woman of ill repute." Gender, class, social statutes, wealth, connections, bribes, friends, and the community all played a role in how quickly or how permanently a person's reputation was damaged. 'Of Good and Ill Repute' examines the complex social regulations and stigmatizations that medieval society used to arrive at its decisions about condemnation and exoneration. In eleven interrelated essays, including three previously unpublished works, Hanawalt explores how social control was maintained in Medieval England in the later Middle Ages. Focusing on gender, criminal behavior, law enforcement, arbitration, and cultural rituals of inclusion and exclusion, 'Of Good and Ill Repute' reflects the most current scholarship on medieval legal history, cultural history, and gender studies. It looks at the medieval sermons, advice books, manuals of penance, popular poetry, laws, legal treatises, court records, and city and guild ordinances that drew the lines between good and bad behavior. Written in a lively, accessible, and jargon-free style, this text is essential for upper level undergraduate history courses on medieval history and women's history as well as for English courses on medieval literature.

Ubiquitous in the streets and brothels of nineteenth-century Paris, the prostitute was even more so in the novels and paintings of the time. Charles Bernheimer discusses how these representations of the sexually available woman express male ambivalence about desire, money, class, and the body. Interweaving close textual analysis with historical anecdote and theoretical speculation, Bernheimer demonstrates how the formal properties of art can serve strategically to control anxious fantasies about female sexual power. Drawing on methods derived from cultural studies, psychoanalysis, social history, feminist theory, and narrative analysis, this interdisciplinary classic (available now for the first time in paperback) was awarded Honorable Mention in 1990 for the James Russell Lowell prize awarded by the Modern Language Association for the best book of criticism.

Paul Aro The House Of Ill Repute Stories from prostitutes working at a brothel in the Middle East from the basis of the novel The House Of Ill Repute by Paul Aro. This novel is not, however, a collection of erotic tales but rather a story that develops dramatically, revealing tragic glimpses into the souls and lives of people associated with houses of ill repute. The Novel translated into English from Armenian. This novel is Paul Aros debut.

Houses of Ill Repute is the first book to focus on the difficulties of distinguishing between private homes and buildings, such as brothels and taverns, which housed activities neither public nor private in ancient Greece, providing a way forward for the study of domestic and entertainment spaces in the Hellenic world.

RITA Award Winner She wants to escape her present . . . When Clara Mayfield helps her sister elope, she’s prepared for the scandal to seal her fate as a spinster. What she doesn't expect is to find herself engaged to the vile Baron Rutherford as a means of salvaging her family's reputation. Determined not to be chained to a man she loathes, Clara slips out of Essex and sheds her identity: she becomes Helen, maid at the Earl of Ashworth’s country estate. After all, below stairs is the last place anyone would think to look for an heiress . . . He wants to forget his past . . . William, Lord Ashworth, is attempting to rebuild his life after the devastating accident that claimed the lives of his entire family, save his beloved sister and niece. Haunted by memories of what was and determined to live up to the title he never expected to inherit, William doesn’t have time for love. What he needs is a noble and accomplished wife, one who can further the Ashworth line and keep the family name untarnished . . . Together, can they find the perfect future? From their first encounter, the attraction between them is undeniable. But Clara knows William is falling for Helen, a woman who doesn’t even exist. The question is, if she reveals the truth about her identity, can she trust the broken William to forgive her lie and stand by her side when scandal—and the baron—inevitably follow her to his door?

Madeline Tyler and her two best friends, Ellie Jo Johnson and Olivia Chaplin, have just graduated from high school in Griffin, Georgia, in the spring of 1961. In search of a better life than rural Georgia offers, the girls set off in the pursuit of their dreams--but it isn’t long before life steps in and derails their plans. Madeline’s dreams of attending college are cut short by the deteriorating health of her father, and she finds herself returning home to help out with her family’s needs. Ellie and Olivia both enroll in beauty school, making a start only to see tragedy strike, ending the dreams of one in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, Madeline meets Bart Richmond, a charismatic used-car dealer and wannabe NASCAR driver who likes fast women and faster cars--and he has his sights set on her. To complicate matters further, Nick Elliott, Bart’s married friend and owner of Griffin’s cotton mills, can’t get Ellie out of his mind after watching her win the local Miss Iris contest. Only time will tell how the two men will impact the friends’ lives. Set in the South in the 1960s, this saga tells stories of love lost and found for three young women whose lives are forever changed.