Advice needed from any historians of the 16th Century.

[Peter Why]

GillH has been reading volume four of Henry Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor", and I'm the DPL. The early part of this volume is devoted to prostitution around the world ("devoted"!). The following paragraph was in a recent section that Gill read (the quote starts off in France, but moves to England):

The title of King of the Prostitutes was given to the officer who presided over the royal brothels. In Paris, in Normandy, and in Burgundy, we find this functionary. Under the kings of France he enjoyed a high rank and many privileges; and associated with him was a woman who governed the prostitutes, and punished them with whipping when they offended. In England, also, the palace and the mansions of the nobles contained small brothels. In Henry VIII.'s palace was a room, with an inscription over the door, " Chamber of the King's Prostitutes."

That amused me, and I mentioned it to an academic friend of mine. She asked me where I'd heard about Henry's chamber, but Mayhew doesn't quote his sources, and an internet search for the key phrase yielded nothing other than the quote itself. Does anyone know anything more about this, please?

Peter

[MichaelMaggs]

I'm no historian, but I strongly doubt the accuracy of that statement. The earliest reference the OED has to the word "prostitute" used as a noun is from 1607, a full 60 years after Henry VIII's death in 1547:

• F. Beaumont Woman Hater iii. ii. sig. E2 My loue and dutie will not suffer mee To see you fauour such a prostitute... The woman you saw with me is a whore.

Although there are earlier examples of the word being used as a verb and as an adjective, such a high-profile inscription, if it had existed, would surely have been the subject of scholarly interest and would have made its way into the OED as an exceedingly early example of a new noun-use.

Or maybe there was some inscription in Latin.

[Peter Why]

Michael,

After your post, I found a page about prostitution in Tudor England: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/prostitution.htm

There were many thousands of prostitutes in London, Norwich, Oxford, York, Exeter and so on. Early in the sixteenth century various attempts to close the brothels began. In 1504, due to the general fear of the spread of syphilis, Henry VII closed these facilities, but business resumed the following year. According to John Stow, the whitewashed premises facing the Thames with their identifying signs -The Gun; The Castle; The Crane; The Cardinal's Hat; The Bell; The Swan and possible others less famous- were shut for a season and on reopening numbers had diminished. By then the women had scattered across London. Henry VIII defied this ancient ordinance during one of his many fits of outrage towards the Church by attempting to close the stewes in 1535 on the grounds that they disseminated diseases. Thus, the lucrative arrangement between the whores of Southwark and the Papal office ceased, but the lands passed into the hands of the new Anglican Bishop of Winchester. It has long been rumored that Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester cemented his friendship with King Henry VIII by providing him with a supply of "Winchester geese" (an epithet which came to apply to prostitutes generally as a result of their episcopal association in Southwark) for the royal pleasure. Primary source evidence to support this, however, has not been forthcoming. On 13 Apr 1546, though, old Henry VIII, eventually got rid of the bankside stewes of Southwark with a royal proclamation forcing the closure of all houses of prostitution within his realm, bringing to an end the 'toleration of such dissolute and miserable persons as have been suffered to dwell in common open places called the stews without punishment or correction (for) their abominable and detestable sin'.

I suspect all the records would have been in Latin. It's interesting to see "Primary evidence .. has not been forthcoming". The comment in London Labour does seem quite explicit, though.

Peter