To browse Academia. Markian Prokopovych. Historical background Vienna, the Habsburg capital and a Catholic stronghold, has a long history of measures against prostitution which, apart from serving as a model for other regions of the Empire, were also strongly shaped by the imperial court and the clerical elite. The first systematic β though unsuccessful β attempts to eradicate prostitution date back to the late eighteenth century and the rule of Empress Maria Theresa. Emperor Joseph II abolished a number of historic public punishments for prostitutes such as public shaming, wearing of chains and the cutting of hair, but the majority of the earlier laws forbidding prostitution remained in force.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, prostitution remained within the juristiction of criminal law. The ministerial decree of 30 December requested the police not only to take prostitution into consideration, but also to tackle public health concerns that were connected to it. In , the first comprehensive regulatory legislation was introduced and, consequently, prostitution became the prerogative of the morality police Sittenpolizei.
From that time onwards prostitutes were legally requested to register and undergo regular medical examinations. Practically until , when the first attempts to reform the regulatory system were introduced, the general tendency had been to maintain strict control over registered prostitutes operating in brothels and other tolerated establishments and ruthless elimination of the illicit sex trade via police action, detention and expulsion.
It took another 10 years until the prohibition of brothels was finally passed in The focus of this paper is the position of prostitutes in urban settlements of medieval Slavonia, a part of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. The following questions are discussed: which social group did prostitutes come from, what possible reasons led a woman to become a prostitute, were prostitutes involved in the other types of criminal activities, how were prostitutes organized, in which part of the city were prostitutes situated, and what do we know about their customers?
The research shows that prostitution was not limited only to members of the lowest layer of society and people on the margins, and that there existed a certain tolerance towards prostitution. Blanka Szeghy. This article discusses the stance and strategies of town magistrates regarding various kinds of sexual behaviour in the kingdom of Hungary in the second half of the sixteenth century.
