Introduction

Abstract

This chapter situates the book in relation to key questions relating to the themes of prostitution and subjectivity, explaining its contribution to existing scholarship on both and bringing the reader up to date on relevant historiography. It outlines several definitions of subjectivity as the term has been employed by historians and makes the case for the importance of seeing medieval prostitutes as ‘complex subjects’, both within the history of prostitution specifically and in the larger context of histories from below. A concluding section asks what ethical obligations might be at hand in the archival encounter with past subjects.