The history of prostitution in France has similarities with the history of prostitution in other countries in Europe, namely a succession of periods of tolerance and repression, but with certain distinct features such as a relatively long period of tolerance of brothels.
Middle Ages Early Medieval Period After the period of Roman rule, the Visigoth monarch Theodoric I (ruled 418–451) persecuted pimps, violence was often used against them, the maximum penalty being death. His grandson Alaric II promulgated the Breviary of Alaric in 506, one of its provisions was the prohibition of prostitution. A public flogging was the proscribed penalty. Under this code both pimps and prostitutes were included. Clovis I introduced the code to Frankish Gaul.
Charlemagne (768–814 AD) further attempted to suppress prostitution, declaring flogging (300 lashes) as a punishment in his capitularies. This was primarily aimed at the common man, since harems and concubines were common amongst the ruling classes. Some idea of the seriousness with which the state regarded the offense is provided by the fact that 300 lashes was the severest sentence prescribed by the Code Alaric (Breviary of Alaric). Offenders also had their hair cut off, and in the case of recidivism, could be sold as slaves. There is no evidence that any of this was effective.
General tolerance In the Middle Ages, the authorities, whether the municipalities, lords or kings, organised or supervised prostitution within institutions. Buildings run by the bourgeois or the church, (particularly abbesses in the 14th and 15th centuries) paid a lease to the authorities. These public brothels were indicated by a red lantern lit by the keeper of the house during opening hours.
In general, prostitutes were not marginalised but integrated into a society where they have a role to play. In the fabliaux of the Middle Ages, the prostitutes were accomplices of other women and helped them to avenge the so-called seducers. The cathedral of Chartres has a stained glass window of the Parable of the Prodigal Son which was given by prostitutes, in the same way that other windows were given by other trade guilds.
The regulations of this time were often municipal, and limited to supervising the activity: Freedom of activity in certain streets or neighbourhoods; Restrictions on the freedoms of prostitutes (travel, associates); Compulsory clothing to distinguish prostitutes from other women (girdles); Days and hours of opening the houses (10 am to 6 pm or 8 pm in Paris; Monday to Saturday,This type of regulation was not respected and night and Sunday working was gradually tolerated. closing during Sunday Mass and Holy Week). Alongside this legal public prostitution, are private institutions (hotels, taverns and :fr:bordelages) and prostitutes who worked on the street or went from hotel to hotel.
Under Philippe-Auguste an irregular militia, the Ribauds, was instituted around 1189, to whom the policing of the public girls was entrusted in Paris. Its leader, the "King of Ribald" ruled over the prostitution in Paris. The Ribauds were abolished by Philip IV (1285–1314) due to their licentiousness.
Occasional repression This general tolerance has exceptions. The very devout Louis IX (the future Saint-Louis), after returning from the Seventh Crusade, sought to make the kingdom conform with his religious views of morality and initially tried to prohibit prostitution. By a Royal Decree of December 1254, he pronounced the expulsion of all "women of evil life" from the kingdom and confiscation of their belongings. It also outlined punishment for prostitutes and pimps. The prostitutes went into hiding and the king was pressured to restore the previous situation. Faced with the impossibility of applying this decree, a second ordinance of 1256 was introduced. Although still railing against women who were "free with their bodies and other common harlots", he acknowledged the pragmatic desirability of housing them away from respectable streets and religious establishments, and so obliged them to reside outside of the borders of the city walls. These measures did nothing to reduce prostitution and the number of prostitutes continued to rise.
In 1269, Louis IX, who was preparing to embark on the Eighth Crusade, again sought to root out evil from the realm. Once again, the clandestine activities of the prostitutes and the disorder created made the king revoke the order. His resolve to do away with prostitution was affirmed in a letter of 1269 to the regents in which he refers to the need to extirpate the evil, root and branch. The punishment for infraction was an 8 sous fine and risking imprisonment in the Châtelet (see below). He designated nine streets in which prostitution would be allowed in Paris (Rue de la Huchette, Rue Froimon, Rue du Renard-Saint-Merri, Rue Taille pain, Rue Brisemiches, Rue Champ-Fleury, Rue Trace-putain, Rue Gratte-cul, and the Rue Tire-Putain) (see below), three of them being in the sarcastically named Beaubourg quartier (Beautiful Neighbourhood).
Today, this area corresponds to the 1st–4th arrondissements clustered on the Rive Droite (right bank) of the Seine (see map). These streets, associated with prostitution, had very evocative if indelicate names including the Rue du Poil-au-con (or hair of the con, from the Latin cunnus meaning female genitalia, hence Street of the Pubic Hair, or Poil du pubis), later altered to the Rue du Pélican, in the 1st arrondissement, near the first Porte Saint-Honoré,Le saviez-vous ? Rue du Poil-au-Con... urban trip paris Feb 2 2010 and the Rue Tire-Vit (Pull-Cock, i.e. penis, later the Rue Tire-Boudin, Pull-Sausage) now Rue Marie-Stuart, in the 2nd arrondissement, near the first Porte Saint-Denis. It is said that Tire-Boudin was a euphemism invented for Mary Queen of Scots when she asked after its name, and the street is now named after her.Realms of Memory: The construction of the French past. II: Traditions; p. 363 Pierre Nora, Lawrence D. Kritzman. Columbia University Press, 1997 The nearby Rue Gratte-Cul (Scratch-bottom) is now the Rue Dussoubs, and the Rue Pute-y-Musse (Whore [who] hides there) the Rue du Petit-Musc by corruption. The "rue Trousse-Nonnain" (fuck nun), later became Trace-Putain, Tasse-Nonnain, and Transnonain; then in 1851 it was amalgamated into the Rue Beaubourg.In the 3rd arondissement from Porte Hydron to the Saint-Martin-des-Champs Priory. Rue Transnonnain. Le Garde-mots Nov 23 2009 The Rue Baille-Hoë (Give Joy) is now Rue Taillepain in the 4th arondissement near the Porte Saint-Merri.
In 1358, the Grand Conseil of John II (1350–1364) echoing the "necessary evil" doctrine of Saints Augustine (354–430 AD) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) declared that "les pécheresses sont absolument nécessaires à la Terre" (Sinners are an absolute necessity for the country). Prostitution remained confined to designated areas, as indicated in this decree in the reign of Charles V (1364–1380), by Hugh Aubriot, Provost of Paris in 1367, outlining the areas outside of which prostitutes would be punished 'according to the ordinance of Saint Louis';
Contemporary accounts suggest that this decree was rarely enforced.Histoire de maisons.... closes mais d'un point de vue architectural ! ; batiweb. Retrieved August 3, 2007.
Under Charles VI, in an effort to prevent wives and daughters being mistaken as prostitutes, brothels were permitted in designated, segregated areas. Prostitutes were given royal protection from rape, allowing them to refuse clients if they wanted.
In 1446 new rules reinforced the measures being taken by prohibiting the wearing of certain outfits considered to be highly provocative; feather, fur and the infamous gold belts.
Early modern era
The tolerance period continued in the 15th century, but the 16th century saw a return to repression. Among the factors that may explain this change is the emergence of syphilis in the late 15th century (possibly in Naples in 1494, though recent studies challenge this) and the reformation in Catholic cities returning to more rigid morality.
In 1560, the Edict of Blois made prostitution an illicit activity and a new moral order swept over France. Imprisonment or banishment was applied to those who did not respect the new prohibitions.
Despite these measures the number of prostitutes did not decrease. Thus in 1658, Louis XIV ordered all women guilty of prostitution, fornication, or adultery be imprisoned in the Pitié-Salpêtrière until the priests or religious officials say they have repented and changed. It is also Louis XIV who created, in 1667, the function of lieutenant-general of police, who will be in control of the surveillance of the public girls. In 1687, orders were issued that prostitutes should not be within two leagues of Versailles or in the company of soldiers. Punishment was severe and consisted of cutting off of nose and ears. The women should have their morals be corrected by work and piety.
The police had full power to repress indiscriminately debauchery, prostitution and adultery, but in 1708 and 1713 (Ordinance of July 26, 1713 on "women debauchery" which enshrines the offence of prostitution), the conditions of repression are somewhat formalised (Louis XIV was in the end influenced by devout influences and ended his life of libertinage). Whistle-blowers have to sign their denunciation, and a distinction is made between public debauchery (punished by fine or injunction to leave the premises) and acts of prostitution (banishment or imprisonment). This distinction however, has little effect.
The death of Louis XIV stopped the repression. Louis XV, restored licensing and the morality police were limited to supervising the brothels and transforming the tenants into police auxiliaries. The advent of Louis XVI signalled the return of repression. On November 6, 1778, an order of police lieutenant Lenoir prohibited solicitation in all its forms.Let express very inhibitions to all women and girls debauchery hanging in the streets, on the docks, squares and public walks on the boulevards of this city of Paris, even the windows. All under penalty of being shaved and locked in the hospital. Every month, three or four hundred women were arrested in Paris. Those who could buy their freedom were freed, others are put in hospital or in prison.
After the French Revolution, the revolutionaries removed prostitution from the domain of the law, refusing to make it a matter of legislation. In a break with the proliferation of the previous royal ordinances and their prohibitionist approach, the revolutionaries established, by absence in the main codes of law in 1791, the tolerance of this activity. Only the surveillance of places of prostitution is prescribed by the Code of Police and procuring minors is punishable by the Penal Code in the name of the violation of morality, a legal category created by revolutionaries. The practice of prostitution itself is not outlawed.
On October 4, 1793, the Commune of Paris issued a regulatory order forbidding prostitutes to stand in public spaces to "incite to debauchery". Although it led to the arrest and sanitary control of more than 400 prostitutes in 1794, this decree did not prevent the continued development of prostitution, particularly at the Palais-Royal, which became the first sex market in the capital. There were many "daughters" that crisscrossed the garden paths and galleries of the Palace, and erotic shows and shops dedicated to prostitution.
At the turn of the century, the authorities estimated that there were 30,000 prostitutes in Paris alone, plus an additional 10,000 high-class prostitutes. To measure the extent of the phenomenon, most contemporary historians point out that if the proportion of prostitutes was the same today (about 13% of women), Paris would have a population of more than 100,000 prostitutes.
Contemporary era Official tolerance