Una prostituta in famiglia. Uno spazio di redenzione per le pubbliche meretrici a cavallo tra XI e XII secolo

Public prostitution had a large diffusion in the central centuries of\r\nMiddle Ages. It was essentially linked to the spread of urban centres and it\r\nwas mainly the fruit of the precariousness and the poverty, in which the lowest social groups lived in the urban world. A widespread and deeply rooted mentality considered the phenomenon morally offensive, theologically repugnant and worthy of being repressed or tolerated it, considering it thelesser evil, in order to safeguard social stability. On the contrary, the events of Peter the Hermit, Vitalis of Savigny, Henry of Lausanne and, in a sense,Robert of Arbrissel, attest that in a well-bounded geographical area,\r\nNorthern France, in the space of few decades between the XI and the XII century, religious experiences of the hermit mold and characterized by itinerant preaching devoted themselves to the conversion, but also to the material care of the prostitutes that wanted to leave their condition, often through the bond of matrimony. As attested by the works of Ivo of Chartres, these practices weren’t confined in single examples and personalities, but probably\r\ninfluenced and were influenced by the post-Gregorian canonistic science, in\r\nthe wake of the considerations about the foundations of marriage tie, that\r\ndeveloped just in that period.