Although the research has been constant for decades, there is still a manageable amount of research on the medieval history of prostitution in Europe. This question forms the basis of the study, and it might make prostitution researchers take notice with interested suspense, especially since it has so far remained unanswered. In the first chapter, Page deals with the case of the alleged child murderer Repplin, probably a clandestine prostitute.
This fourteenth-century case took place in Zurich and involves a single woman suspected of having killed her new-born child. The author describes in detail the general circumstances of prostitution, its different forms and, above all, the difficulties of a contemporary definition of who can be considered a prostitute and why.
With this in mind, the Repplin case is special: The judges in court do not treat her as a prostitute a priori, but as a possible child murderer. This is essential when researching medieval prostitution, which can have so many faces.
Above all, the wealth of detail presented reflects the quality of the study. Page contextualizes his three case studies extensively and takes into account the possible approaches of the individuals mentioned as well as the social topography of the space in question. When gathering relevant information to form a general data basis, the author uses a method that connects data with a reliable methodology cf.
In doing so, he chooses a broad approach for his dense description, which, in addition to the obvious biographical circumstances, also includes social, economic, and legal circumstances. At first glance, these explanations appear to meander, but Page always manages to return to his main object of investigation. Despite the critical and profound method of source evaluation, it remains unclear whether the first case study really provides enough evidence to assume a context of prostitution.
