AmigasandAmichs: Prostitute-Concubines, Strategic Coupling, and Laboring-Class Masculinity in Late Medieval Valencia and the Mediterranean

Abstract

The hostelera Marí Fernández was no stranger to the secular authorities of late medieval Valencia. In October 1377, she, along with Marí Ximenes, Andreu Peres, and Berenguer Miquel, all hosteleras and hostelers, showed up to pay the fine of 11 sous for keeping the door of their establishments open at night, which was against the city's ordinances. 2 She appears again in 1381, this time identified as a fembra publica, whose infraction was to flaunt her concubinous relationship by "keeping an amich publicly in the brothel." 3 For this misdemeanor, her fine was slightly more significant: she paid 16 sous and 6 dinars. In 1383, Marí Fernández is back in the registers as a hostelera, and she is not the one in conflict with the authorities, rather, it's a woman named La Chica, a fembra peccadriu, who has been fined for illegally living with her amich in Marí's hostel. 4 In trouble again in 1397, Marí was fined 5 sous and 6 dinars for hitting Elvira Gallega, a fembra del bordell, in the head with a rock. In this final mention, Marí is identified as the amiga of Joan de Vega and a fembra del bordell.Marí Fernandez stands out in the Kingdom of Valencia's Mestre Racional, royal registers that identify the crime, the offender, and pecuniary punishment, for several reasons. 5 First, her longevity. She showed up initially in 1377 as a businesswoman and she was still, quite literally, in fighting shape twenty years later. Second, the range of appellations or descriptions affixed to her name highlight the overlaps and disjunctures we are interested in fleshing out. She was a hostelera, which could just be a hosteler,