Els von Eystett

Els von Eystett (also Els von Eichstätt) was a woman who worked in a public brothel in Nördlingen, Germany, in the late fifteenth century. Els originally worked in the brothel as a kitchen maid and later as a prostitute. Her experiences are documented in the records of a criminal investigation carried out by the city council of Nördlingen between December 1471 and January 1472.

The investigation was first prompted by rumours that Els had become pregnant by a customer, and had subsequently been forced by the brothel madam to finish her pregnancy by means of a herbal abortifacient.[1] The inquiry later expanded to involve the interrogation of all twelve women working in Nördlingen's brothel in the latter half of 1471, as well as the brothel madam Barbara Tarscheinfeindin and brothel-keeper Lienhart Fryermut. As several of the women in the brothel had left Nördlingen by the time the interrogations began (including Els herself) the investigation also involved cooperation between the authorities in Nördlingen and the city councils of Nuremberg and Weißenburg in Bayern.

Original transcriptions of the women's testimony are held today in Nördlingen's civic archive. The case record offers the most comprehensive vision of prostitution currently known to have survived from medieval Europe which shows the perspectives of prostitutes themselves.[2] Els's story has been the subject of several book chapters, [3] [4] magazine articles,[5][6] a TV documentary,[7] and a theatrical production,[8] and has been the focus of modern research into prostitution in medieval Europe.[9][10][11]

  1. ^ Schuster, Peter (1992). Das Frauenhaus. Städtische Bordelle in Deutschland 1350-1600. F. Schöningh. p. 92. ISBN 9783506782519.
  2. ^ Page, Jamie (2021). Prostitution and Subjectivity in Late Medieval Germany. Oxford University Press. pp. 65–111. ISBN 9780191895272.
  3. ^ Schuster, Peter (1992). Das Frauenhaus. Städtische Bordelle in Deutschland 1350-1600. F. Schöningh. p. 92. ISBN 9783506782519.
  4. ^ Page, Jamie (2021). Prostitution and Subjectivity in Late Medieval Germany. Oxford University Press. pp. 65–111. ISBN 9780191895272.
  5. ^ Page, Jamie (June 2019). "Inside the Medieval Brothel". History Today. 69 (6): 28–39.
  6. ^ Thadeusz, Frank (15 June 2019). "Paar des Grauens". Der Spiegel (25).
  7. ^ "Käufliche Liebe im Mittelalter. Wie Wanderhuren wirklich lebten". Bilderfest GmbH.
  8. ^ "Els - Die Frauenhausakte von Nördlingen". Freilichtbühne Nördlingen.
  9. ^ Schuster, Peter (2003). "Lebensbedingungen der Prostituierten in der spätmittelalterlichen Stadt". In Hödl, Günther; Mayrhofer, Fritz; Opll, Ferdinand (eds.). Stadt der Frauen (in German). Linz. pp. 265–91.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ^ Schuster, Peter. Das Frauenhaus. Städtische Bordelle in Deutschland 1350-1600. Paderborn: F. Schöningh. pp. 11, 92, 113.
  11. ^ Räuschel, Lara-Sophie (2014). "Das Nördlinger Frauenhaus und die Justiz. Der Abtreibungsfall der Dirne Els von Eystett (Reichsstadt Nördlingen, Reichsstadt Weißenburg)". Historischer Verein für Nördlingen und das Ries Jahrbuch (35): 1–35.