During the course of the fifteenth century, brothels began to flourish in cities all over Austria until their abolition during the period of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in the sixteenth century. This paper focuses in particular on four Tyrolean brothels Bolzano, Hall, Innsbruck and Merano and on the relevant sources of late medieval brothels in general, taking into account both their potential as well as their limitations.
Certain sources allow a closer look into the daily life of both the prostitutes and the brothel keepers. Court cases sometimes provide information about the names of people and their daily business. Second, it concentrates on everyday life in these brothels. Furthermore, the brothels provided the possibility of controlling extramarital sexuality. For this reason, the municipal authorities also tried to prohibit clandestine types of prostitution β no doubt to also protect their own financial interests.
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