Abstract In the context of shifting attitudes towards prostitution in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, this article explores how prostitution is addressed in the Nuremberg Shrovetide plays, how the figures who mediate prostitution — the procuress (‘Kupplerin’) and the brothel keeper (‘Frauenwirt’) — are represented, and how prostitutes themselves are portrayed. The plays’ position within contemporary debates on prostitution cannot be characterized as wholly subversive nor wholly affirmative. Instead, they bring to the stage the intricate questions of their time, adopting perspectives that, on the one hand, ridicule marginalized groups, while, on the other, setting a tacitly accepted practice against moral condemnation.
Beatrice von Lüpke (Wed,) studied this question.