A pretty definitive account of prostitution in medieval England, Karras does a good job of articulating the medieval concept of prostitution—where what made you a 'whore' was not so much that you took money in return for sex, but the very fact that you were (seen as) sexually available—while treading a careful path between seeing these women as solely victims of the society in which they lived, and seeing them as in control of their own destiny. There were one or two small points to nitpick at—while I am sure that a man's sexual activities were not as overwhelmingly defining of their identities as women's were, I don't think that their behaviour was entirely irrelevant either. Despite those quibbles, this is I think the book to turn to if you have an interest in the subject. ( )