Using an interdisciplinary approach and incorporating sources from across the entire European continent dating from the early Middle Ages to the sixteenth century, this book examines the phenomenon of prostitution in a variety of contexts and highlights the extent to which the institution mattered for both the higher and the lower classes.

Albrecht Classen is university distinguished professor of German studies at the University of Arizona.

Chapter 1. Prostitution: A Historical Phenomenon from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Ages, Mirrored in Literary Documents
Chapter 2. Modern Voices and Witnesses of Prostitution in Literature
Chapter 3. The Canoness Hrotsvit and the Prostitute: An Early Medieval Playwright and Her Responses to the "Sordid" World of Prostitution
Chapter 4. Christine de Pizan's Advice to Prostitutes: A Late Medieval Perspective by a Woman Writer Regarding Prostitution
Chapter 5. Prostitution in the Work of Late Medieval Poetry: Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376/77-1445)
Chapter 6. Prostitution in the Works by François Villon: Autobiographical-Erotic Discourse from the Underside of Courtly Culture
Chapter 7. The Prostitute as Protagonist: The Intriguing Case of Fernando de Rojas's Celestina (1499)
Chapter 8. The Sojourn in a Brothel: An Unusual Perspective in a Late Medieval German Verse Narrative
Chapter 9. The Prostitute and Prostitution in Late Medieval and Early Modern German Song Poetry
Chapter 10. Prostitutes in fabliaux, mæren, and novelli: The Rise of Realism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature Seen through the Lens of Commodified Sexuality
Chapter 11. Prostitutes in Sixteenth-Century Schwänke (Prose Jest Narratives)
Epilogue