Ambiguous Control

Hannah Coleman

Why did you choose this specific medium?
I have chosen to do a digital art piece for multiple reasons. The first reason is I love art and I have been drawing for about 10 years now, so I have confidence in my artistic ability. The second reason is I enjoy expressing themes through imagery. I have chosen to do it digitally because that is what I have access to and is the easiest for me to create an illustration. By choosing my compositions, colours, and details I can imbed a deeper meaning into my art. The third reason I have chosen to do this medium is that although I am creating my art with my idea and themes in mind when others view it, they may have a different opinion or conception of my art, which can often lead to interesting conversations.

Provide an overview of your topic and why you chose it.
My topic is sex work, and prostitution in medieval Europe. I first got intrigued by the topic of sex work when we explored the topic of sexuality in medieval text and how contradictory many of the ideas are. The distinction between theory (which is a lot of the texts that have remained throughout history) and practice also left me with many questions about sex work. If the theory is saying that sex is only for procreation, and is heavily regulated, why are brothels a thing? Does practice contradict the theory, and how? Something that was said during a lecture or a podcast that stuck with me is that, if we think about the people who lived in the medieval ages as just people like us, this has given me a new lens when viewing medieval research. I have also chosen this topic because Judith Bennett’s (2007) article discussing the “Patriarchal Equilibrium” got me comparing sex work now and sex work in the medieval ages and questioning the continuity or transformation. Karras, Ruth Mazo whose work I looked at focuses on women’s sexuality and prostitution, and reading her articles and chapters in her books, also gave me a new lens to help me along with my research. Specifically, in “Women’s labours: reproduction and sex work in medieval Europe.” (2004) where Karras discusses the definition of sex work and explores it in a different light, an example being the expectation that women were meant to have children and reproduce and how that can be related to labour. Although my main research is around prostitution, I want to view it in a different light and question the agency these women or men had when participating in sex work.

Explain what each section of your piece represents and how it relates to your topic. Discuss how the primary and secondary sources you read influenced your representation.
My illustration composition is split into three sections, the top, the middle, and the bottom. I have chosen this composition because I want to show that practice is between theory, but often it does not fully collide or interact with each other, therefore I have drawn the top section and bottom section in a cloudy mist way. At the top of my illustration, I have drawn it in white to represent clouds, and I have drawn a top of a church building with a cross to represent the power that the church had in medieval times and historically. I have also drawn eyes, in a more masculine, and older way to represent the people who had power, which were usually older men. This was influenced by the primary reading within Smelyansky, Eugene’s (2020) “The Intolerant Middle Ages” pages 274 to 276. When researching this court document which is describing the case of Elizabeth Moring being prosecuted for prostitution outside of where the church has control. The eyes in my illustration are influenced by this because the voice or appearance of women, like Elizabeth, her voice is not found in the document at all. I have also drawn the eyes looking in different directions for a purpose. The eyes looking down towards the women are the ones who crave control, while the others looking up or sideways are the ones who are more lenient. The middle section is where the brothel and women who are working as sex workers are. This is the practice, there are many types of people and reasons for why women enter sex work and this is represented by the four women I have drawn. The woman starting from the left is working for money, and the second girl is also working for money, but she does not have any other options to earn money, the girl in the chains was sex trafficked which is influenced by the book “Human Trafficking in Medieval Europe: Slavery, Sexual Exploitation, and Prostitution” (2020) written by Paolella, Christopher. The final woman is to represent mystery because we do not know all the reasons in which one may enter sex work. I have also drawn a road sign with the words BROTHEL on it because within the practice but also theory, the categorization, and labelling that goes on are still prevalent today. An example of this that I was influenced by in my sources was the video by Dr. Janega, Eleanor, and Dr. Kate Lister (2022) where they go to Europe and discuss street names that were sexual and theorize may be why they are named such. I have also drawn the women wearing white hoods because in the primary source #87 Confinement of Pimps and Prostitutes” in The Towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages By Trevor Dean (2000, page 201) it is the law for pimps and prostitutes to wear a white hood to identify that they are prostitutes and if discovered without it, they are fined. The clothes the women are wearing too are meant to be plain with no excessive jewelry, as discussed in Karras’s “Prostitution and the Question of Sexual Identity in Medieval Europe” (1999, page 159) prostitutes were not allowed to appear as respectable women and with their clothes being regulated, it allowed for them to be distinguished which is also evidence in Mazzi’s book. In the article “A Life of Ill Repute: Public Prostitution in the Middle Ages.” (2020) Mazzi discusses how in Florence prostitutes were supposed to wear a similar white hood, but instead, it was covering the shoulders and a pale pastel colour instead of white (Mazzi, 2020). I believe that this is evidence that the rules and regulations around prostitution depended on the city in which you lived. The bottom half is a snake wrapping around an apple to represent the genesis story. I was influenced by #67-Regulation of Brothels: A. Florence” in Lives and Voices: Sources in European Women’s History By Lisa DiCaprio and Merry E. Wiesner (2001, page 186) because in this source when prostitution was made illegal it stated “ enforcing morality and concerned with those deviating from the norm male-headed households” (67, 2001) I believe this relates to how women who are working in sex work who have control and agency over their bodies are not fitting the mould of servant to man which is going against God and gaining knowledge and power from the apple and snake. I have also drawn lighting that goes through all the sections, and that is because the information and rules from the top, middle, and bottom are often contradicting.

Citations Janega, Eleanor, and Kate Lister. 2022. Medieval Pleasures: What Was Sex Really Like In The Middle Ages?. Video. Youtube: History Hit. Judith Bennett, “Chapter 4: Patriarchal Equilibrium” in History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2007): 54-81. Karras, Ruth Mazo. "Prostitution and the Question of Sexual Identity in Medieval Europe." Journal of Women's History, vol. 11, no. 2, summer 1999, p. 159. Gale In Context: Canada, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A55983691/CIC?u=unorthbc&sid=summon&xid=890ba97d. Accessed 16 June 2022. Mazzi, Maria Serena. A Life of Ill Repute: Public Prostitution in the Middle Ages. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020. Paolella, Christopher. Human Trafficking in Medieval Europe: Slavery, Sexual Exploitation, and Prostitution. Amsterdam University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv18x4hw8. Smelyansky, Eugene. 2020. The Intolerant Middle Ages. 23rd ed. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. Pg. 274 to 276. #67-Regulation of Brothels: A. Florence” in Lives and Voices: Sources in European Women’s History ed. By Lisa DiCaprio and Merry E. Wiesner (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), page 186. #87-Confinement of Pimps and Prostitutes” in The Towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages ed. By Trevor Dean (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), page 201.