How to Survive as a Medieval Single Woman

Summary

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Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode: How to Survive as a Medieval Single Woman

Date: January 6, 2026
Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Dr. Eleanor Janega (medievalist, co-host of Gone Medieval)

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Episode Overview

In this lively and candid episode, Dr. Kate Lister and Dr. Eleanor Janega dig deep into what it meant to be a single woman in medieval Europe. Together, they challenge misconceptions, examine the pressures and stigma facing medieval singles, and explore how women navigated work, housing, survival, and even old age on their own terms. The discussion is filled with humor, sharp social critique, evidence-based insights, and more than a few memorable asides about sex, scandal, and societal expectations—which, Kate and Eleanor argue, may not have evolved as much as we like to think.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Social Expectations and Stigma Around Singleness

[03:53]

• The default expectation was for women to marry and become mothers.
• Single women, then and now, face social stigma ("single Pringle" as Kate quips).
• “We exist in a world that's set up for couples. ...You tell someone you're single, then you get the headcock. ...It's like, no, I really don't want to.” – Kate Lister [04:40]

The Reality & Prevalence of Single Women in the Middle Ages

[06:26]

• More single women existed than often assumed.
• Singleness comprised both those never married and widows (“...just kind of like sitting around waiting for your husband to die, which is a time honored tradition.” – Eleanor Janega).

Legal Limitations: Coverture and Women’s Identity

[07:12]

• Coverture meant women legally existed as someone's wife or daughter; unmarried women’s identities erased in records.
• Some single women inherited and managed land, especially when there were no sons.

Daily Life & Economic Activities

[09:00]

• Nuclear families weren't yet the norm; extended family and local networks prevailed.
• In rural settings, groups of unmarried sisters might live together and run inherited land or businesses—“Very Jane Austen,” as Kate jokes.
• Work:
  • Single women often worked—running alehouses, weaving, washing, working as household staff.
  • Legal and tax records provide evidence when women were fined or shamed for business mishaps (e.g., brewing poor ale and being paraded on the “cucking stool”).

    “Agnes will get yelled at. ...Your beer sucks, Agnes.” – Eleanor Janega [10:07]

Public Punishment and Societal Shame

[10:22]

• Shame was a key tool for enforcing social norms. “Chair of shame” (cucking stool) as punishment for rule-breaking.
• “Shame is the major form of punishment, slash torture, in the medieval period.” – Eleanor Janega [11:20]

Urban Life: Distrust, Vagrancy Laws, and Sex Work

[13:18]

• Single women in cities were regarded with suspicion—assumed to be sex workers if their livelihood couldn’t be easily explained.
• Urban laws targeted women, requiring newly arrived single women get ‘attached’ to a household within a week ([18:09]).

  “Single men, come on in. ...It's specifically a law for [single] women.” – Kate Lister [18:35]

Secret Sex Work and 'Suspect Women'

[19:19]

• In places like 14th-century Prague, legal brothels coexisted with various categories of “secret prostitutes” and “suspect women,” many simply living together or running informal enterprises.

  “Mulieris Suspectus, that's the name of my progressive noise band, don't worry about it.” – Eleanor Janega [20:23]

• Some so-called “secret prostitutes” may have simply been single women pooling resources, but the label was used due to suspicion about unregistered sex work.

The Shaming of Financially Independent Women

[24:06]

• Medieval German term “Eigenbrotlerin”—women able to “buy their own bread”—was tinged with suspicion; modern parallels like “spinster” or “cat lady” endure as pejoratives.

  “Every study ...shows that women who are single are happier and live longer—because, you know, having children and dealing with men will kill you.” – Eleanor Janega [25:13]

Policing, Surveillance, and Social Anxiety

[25:56]

• Single women were heavily policed and monitored—suspected of sex work or other transgressions simply for living together or being in public spaces (e.g., beer halls).
• Cited examples from medieval Prague of collective female living arrangements (the “Golden Girls” of the Middle Ages) being perceived with deep suspicion.

Aging, Mutual Support, and Retirement

[29:22]

• Older single women often formed mutual support households.
• Retired sex workers, especially in southern France, sometimes pooled resources for joint retirement—sometimes supported by their communities for various reasons.

  “Whole brothels will just kind of retire together. ...They often save up for it. ...The community does pitch in... because they do like [the brothel], but you’re not allowed to say it.” – Eleanor Janega [30:03–31:49]

Nunneries as Retirement Communities & Social Escape

[34:13]

• Nunneries served as an option for older single women—including queens and former sex workers—but usually required financial means to gain entry.

  “You often have to come with some money ...especially in the case of women who are older, if you want to use it as a retirement community.” – Eleanor Janega [34:41]

• Social and religious motivations intermingled; entering religious life provided community, security, and a way to atone for “worldly” behaviors.

Protective Ambiguity & Sexual Suspicion

[38:00]

• The ambiguous sexual status of single women triggered particular anxieties: could they be lovers, rivals, temptresses?
• Social categories offered differentiation (wife = sex with husband; nun = celibate; prostitute = sex with anyone; widow = ‘retired’), but single women were liminal, “potential problems.”

  “If you haven't been locked down, so to speak, then ...you've not been locked down.” – Eleanor Janega [40:18]

Was the Medieval Period a Good Time to Be Single?

[41:01]

• Patriarchy made life difficult for single women in any era.
• But many medieval women might have preferred singleness to marriage due to the dangers of childbirth and rigid expectations.

  “If you ask basically any medieval historian who's a woman, they will tell you, oh, I would like to be a nun …because you get to read books and hang out with the girlies.” – Eleanor Janega [41:39] “If we didn't tie the worth of women in society to being a wife and mommy, then women wouldn't do it because it fucking sucks.” – Eleanor Janega [41:59]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On persistent singleness stigma:
  “Take it from someone who knows, the single tax is all too flipping real. And that's me saying this in 2026. So spare a thought for the medieval women who chose the single life.”
  – Kate Lister [02:50]

• On survival strategies:
  “You'll just kind of club up…again, real Bronte sisters times. ...There's a reason why we tend to say ‘spinster aunt,’ right?”
  – Eleanor Janega [31:52]

• On community and retirement among sex workers:
  “If you've been working with the same women the whole time, ...you're like, if you see another dick, I swear to God. ...this is a retirement community now.”
  – Eleanor Janega [31:02]

• On single women as ‘potential problems’:
  “They are seen not necessarily as people, but as potential problems. ...They don't fit easily into the neat categories of what is expected of women.”
  – Eleanor Janega [38:47]

• On the eternal suspicion of women living together:
  “If it was a brothel, that would make sense. ...But just a bunch of women living together? Suspicious.”
  – Kate Lister [27:53]

• On the allure of nunneries:
  “I would like to be a nun ...because you get to read books and hang out with the girlies.”
  – Eleanor Janega [41:39]

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Useful Timestamps

• [03:53] – Introduction to medieval singleness and modern parallels
• [06:26] – Prevalence and types of single women in medieval times
• [09:00] – Life structure, family ties, and communal living
• [10:07] – Methods of shaming/punishing women for economic failures
• [13:18] – Single women in urban settings: suspicion & regulation
• [18:09] – “One week” rule: single women must attach to a household
• [19:19] – ‘Suspect women’ and clandestine sex work
• [24:06] – Language of stigma: “Eigenbrotlerin,” “spinster,” and modern echoes
• [29:22] – How older and retired women supported each other
• [34:13] – Nunneries as social and financial refuges
• [38:00] – The ambiguous sexual status as a root of suspicion
• [41:01] – Was it ever good to be single? Choices, trade-offs, and hazards

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Tone & Style

The episode is frank, witty, and irreverent, maintaining both scholarly insight and playful banter. Kate and Eleanor’s rapport is full of asides, jokes, and contemporary connections, making dense information both accessible and relatable.

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Further Exploration & Recommended Reading

• Dr. Eleanor Janega’s book: “The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society”
• Dr. Janega’s podcast: Gone Medieval (History Hit)

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For listeners interested in the evolving status of women, societal policing of sexuality and autonomy, and the humor and messiness of history, this episode of Betwixt The Sheets delivers both insight and entertainment.

Transcript

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[Kate Lister]

Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are you, I am me. And this is Betwixt the Sheets. Welcome back. But I think you know what's coming by now, don't you? Don't you? I certainly do. But for any newbies that may have wandered in, I do have to tell you this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range adult subjects. And you spin italt too. We call that the fair dues warning. Right, you have been forewarned. Let's crack on. You might be wondering, why is Kate out for a walk in the medieval city of York? Well, that is a good question, especially on a freezing January morning. Well, I'm out here doing some very important research on the lives of single women so that you can stay all warm and snuggly inside. You are welcome betwixt us. But if you were expecting Sex and the City, the medieval years, you might be a tad disappointed. But there are still some amazingly scandalous stories to explore nonetheless, especially at a time when to be visible as a single woman in society was a brave move which left you vulnerable to all sorts of wild accusations. I'm so glad that we don't do that anymore. But how did they do it? Well, I am ready to find out if you are. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Take it from someone who knows, the single tax is all too flipping real. And that's me saying this in 2026. So spare a thought for the medieval women who chose the single life. Granted, the idea of choice is not the same then as it is now. I mean, some chose it. Not always their choice, but someone chose it. Some had singleness thrust upon them. I mean, some may have been widowed, but what kind of a life could you expect if you decided that matrimony just wasn't for you in the medieval Period. Well, joining me today to find out is the BFF of the show, Dr. Eleanor Yarniger, author, medievalist, and co host of our sister podcast Gone Medieval. And she is here to help us find out about the single lives of medieval women. So without further ado, let's crack on. Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Elena Yannicker.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

How are you doing, Kate? I am better every time I gaze upon your lovely visage.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, thank you. The last time I saw you, we were in front of a live studio audience.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

That's right. And now we're just going to have to hoot and holler on our own.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, we are. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun, wasn't it? That was a right giggle. The result did not go the way I thought it would, but it was still.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

I'm glad that everyone came with me on my very specific journey.

[Kate Lister]

They did. They did. You won that one, I think. Yeah, well. But we're here to talk about single women. That's a cause very dear to my heart. Single women in the med. Medieval period. Easy to be a single woman in the medieval period. No, no, no.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Let's just put it that way. Let's just put it that way. I mean, the end of episode. Thanks for having me, Kate. Check out Gone Medieval and Done. Yeah. I think that the biggest issue that single women in the medieval period have is exactly the same thing as the biggest issue that single women have now, which is that socially, the expectation for women was that they would become wives and mothers.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

In that order.

[Kate Lister]

It's enforced today like, I'm a single Pringle and I feel the stigma of that every single day. It's like, it just follows year round, and we're in a much more enlightened time where more and more people are being single. But you get it. Whether it's like, you know, you tell someone you're single, then you get the headcock. Aw.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

I'm sure you'll find someone.

[Kate Lister]

You'll find someone. It's like, no, I really don't want to. Or like, we exist in a world that's set up for couples. That's. That's the other thing, you know, is that, you know, if, like, there's someone's having a wedding, are you gonna get a plus one? Are you not gonna get plus one? A single person supplement when you go on holiday. These aren't things medieval people would have been particularly worrying about. It was like, oh, it's. It's Just a single person supplement when I'm going to. When I'm going to Spain.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

That's true. You know, I guess we use the term now couples privilege, you know, because there, there's all sorts of stuff like, you know, rail cards where you can get the two together. Rail card. Or, you know, just how rent is cheaper if you got somebody else.

[Kate Lister]

But it's hell of expensive to be single because obviously you're paying for absolutely everything. Then there's tax breaks that you get if you're in a couple. Maybe that's just America. Is that an American thing? Tax breaks if you're married? I'm not sure.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

You know, you and I are two sides of a spectrum. One is like totally single and the other one is like, I don't know, multiple relationships. There's just like a bunch of relationships stuck to me at all times, like birds. Anyway.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, dear.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Which is not like the medieval period. Right. Okay.

[Kate Lister]

So no, both of us would have been in the stocks, quite frankly. We would have both have been regarded as figures of suspicion. Me for being on my own and you for being in a polyamorous situation. They'd have just thought both of those were incredibly bizarre. How common were single women in the medieval period?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Well, more common than you'd think is the answer. So it isn't a, you know, unknown. And I suppose that there are sort of two ways of approaching singleness. There is, you know, never getting married. Fantastic. Love it. Love that for them. And then there is also just kind of like sitting around waiting for your husband to die, which is a time honored tradition. You know, that's.

[Kate Lister]

That's funny that we don't call that single. We call that widowhood.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And that, that does seem to be the thing to aim for. I've noticed that whoever we're talking to, whatever period we're in, if it's a patriarchal sit, the goal is get married. Get married rich. Make sure he's got some problems with his heart, and then, you know, follow him around going, boo. And then.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And then. Exactly.

[Kate Lister]

And then you get to be a rich widow.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

That's the best thing possible. But, you know, there are a lot of people who, who simply don't make it that far. Yeah. And I guess that we tend to know a little bit more about single women in urban environments than we do in the countryside. And it's difficult to know about single women because of coverture. Right. So coverture is our technical term for when women don't really have their own names in legal documents. So for Example, if you get married, you become Mrs. John Smith, as opposed to having your own name. And there's a similar sort of phenomenon as someone's daughter, which is what you will kind of end up being if you don't marry. Right. So you will just kind of stay at the level. Drilling.

[Kate Lister]

She has handymen above her, making. Making noises, if that's what anyone can hear.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah. All right. Okay. So in, you know, this situation where you were just someone's daughter because you never get married, we do know that there's single women because we see them, for example, inherit land. People are often quite surprised by that. You know, they think that, you know. Yeah, right. Because in a patriarchal system, you would just be like, oh, well, then, you know, lands would just be forfeit if no one has a son or, well, you'll just give it all to your son. And we see that that isn't true. We definitely see that land gets passed down to people's daughters, often while people are still alive. They'll be like, yeah, seems like she needs. She needs a little bit of land, because girl's not doing it. Like, she's just not getting married. And it's like. But I do think that these situations. One of the things that's interesting and how you can kind of compare and contrast that with modern single dumb and is because since we haven't, like, really invented the nuclear family yet, you know, this idea that families in big quotes are a married man and woman and their children.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, that's interesting.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

They're around their extended family. You know, they're still probably going to be living in the village that they're from. So, like, you know, they're around their mom and dad until their mom and dad die. They'll have their siblings around. They'll have, like, grandparents, they'll have nieces, they'll have nephews. Like, Auntie Joan didn't care for it. Those are her lands. And you probably still are going to kind of like live maybe with your family or maybe you've got, like, a smaller cottage. But, like, oftentimes you're. You're still just kind of be around in the area with familial ties. And so that leads to us being unable to see very much about them. You know, they're going to need to show up in tax records. So we're gonna have to see dad write down that he's giving land to you or you're going to have to break the law, which is a big way we find out about them. And that can be Women who brew not very good ale, that's a big way women come to our attention is that like someone is just brewing like the most God awful ale. And everyone is like, agnes, what did you do? And she's like, I don't know, I don't know. You know? And then, you know, she'll get made to sit on the cucking stool and everyone will be like, your beer sucks, Agnes. And be like, agnes, could you really.

[Kate Lister]

Get put on a ducking stool for beer being.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

It starts out being a cucking stool is what it's called initially. You know, not to be confused with a cuck chair. All right. It's not the same.

[Kate Lister]

We're on a side quest already. Explain cooking, ducking and cuckold stool, please.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Okay, so ducking stools initially start out as what we call a cucking stool. And it's literally just a chair that they are going to put somewhere public, often in front of your house, and everyone will come by and yell at you for the thing that you did wrong. And it's like the chair of shame.

[Kate Lister]

Right. Okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

This then becomes more and more elaborate. Eventually, especially for example, in Edinburgh, they would attach the chair to kind of like a long pole and parade you through the city. And the pole kind of goes up and down like a fairground ride, so that everyone can be like, agnes brewed bad beer again. And then eventually that then will end at the water and then people will get ducked. And then by the early modern period, it's just ducking, so it's just waterboarding. Right. But in the medieval period, it's a chair you get yelled at in.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So it's not as serious as, for example, the stalks where you're gonna have your feet through the holes and you can't move. It's more like you're going to have to sit in the naughty chair for three hours and everyone is going to see that you did something bad.

[Kate Lister]

Well, they weren't fucking around, were they?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah. Shame is the major form of punishment, slash torture in the medieval period is that they'll just shame you so, you know, Agnes will get yelled at.

[Kate Lister]

Powerful, though. There's been like loads of research about how shame functions within social groups and social settings, and it's hugely influential in forcing behavior. Mm.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

It's no joke. And so like that. That really is a big punishment.

[Kate Lister]

It is. I mean, for example, like, if you were gonna go and do a talk somewhere, and if that talk was like, you know, somewhere really shameful, like an authoritarian government or something like those comedians did With Saudi Arabia. That. I wouldn't do that. Would you?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

No, absolutely I wouldn't do that.

[Kate Lister]

Shame.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah. I mean, and that's. And that's the thing. And quite rightly, if I like accepted money from an authoritarian state, all of the people that I write history for would be like, oh, Eleanor's gonna be.

[Kate Lister]

And they'd move away. Right? Yeah. I'd put you on a cooking stool, that's for damn sure.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Okay.

[Kate Lister]

Moving on. We're back from the side quest. Single women. Right. So. But they could be punished like that. That's quite brutal.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, it is. You know, oftentimes you'll also be, for example, fined for that. But when we see these fines coming, or we see people getting in trouble for these things, or we tend to kind of understand that they're running a business.

[Kate Lister]

So I learned that from your book that it's sort of a myth that women just didn't work. They've been working the entire time.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, quite. And we get to know more about their businesses when they're single, you know, because it's not under your husband's name, it's under your name when you get in trouble, it's under your name when the taxes get paid. And we do tend to see, for example, single women, especially in village life, it's sometimes just like a bunch of sisters.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I like that.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah. Where they're kind of like, I don't.

[Kate Lister]

Know, it's very Jane Austen. Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Like we've got enough money, we've got enough land. Like we just inherited it from dad and it's the three of us and we're just kind of muddling by. So we will see whole households of single women like that. It tends to change a bit when you get into cities.

[Kate Lister]

Oh.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And this is where it becomes a little bit more complex because within the village life, within an agrarian sense, you know, there's a real understanding of where you fit in. Right. The village that you were bo born and raised in, everybody says, oh, that's, that's Agnes. I don't know why we're going with Agnes, but we are. It's, it's, it's quite common, I guess, in the medieval period. So that's Agnes. She lives with her sisters, she is a weaver, and, you know, she's got her plot of land over there and, and that's just Agnes. Right now if you move to a city, things become a little bit more shaky because single women are often looked at very specifically with distrust.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I'm used to that. Uh huh.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And Very specifically, single women are looked at with distrust because, stop me if you heard this one before, they're worried you're a sex worker.

[Kate Lister]

Constantly. That's. It's a constant assumption about me, I'm afraid. Why would they make that assumption? Because there's lots of reasons why somebody can be single.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, Well, I think that within an urban context, they're like, where's your money coming from?

[Kate Lister]

I see. Okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So especially if you've moved in from the countryside, that's like a big question. Because it's like, well, what? You know, cities are expensive. Cities mean that you're going to have to have some form of livelihood to support yourself. And if you're fresh off the turnip truck, then, baby, what you doing? What are you doing here? And to be honest, a lot of them are doing sex work. You know, like, I'm gonna be so real with you right now. A bunch of them do sex work because, you know, especially if you're younger, you know, if you're. If you're a pretty young thing from the countryside and you come in, that's instant work. You know, you move to London, you go find yourself a job in one of the brothels in the stews, and like, you're ready to rock. That is a way that you can make a lot of money, a lot.

[Kate Lister]

Of money in a short space of time. How easy? This is one of those questions. It might. Might not have the records to even answer it, but how easy would it have been as a single woman to go and get a job that could support you? But living by yourself in the city in like 14th or 15th century London, because it's difficult now.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, it's not the easiest because. So there's basically several echelons of what you could go and do. Now, say you are from a family that already makes things. You could attempt to go get a job in the workshops of people who are making that same thing. So if your father was a saddler and you know rather a lot about saddling, you might have a letter of introduction from him and be like, hey, what's up? Hello. The saddlers guild. I have been doing this all of my life and here I am. Do you want essentially the same worker for cheaper? Sucks, but okay, it does suck, but it's still tons of cash. Right? So that's right at the top of society. You have rather a lot of household workers because, you know, rich folks, they're not cooking their own food, they're not scrubbing their own floors so you can present to households and say, yeah, I've been a scullery maid for Lady Muckety Muck out in the countryside. I want to move to the big city. Is their job going? And that is something that you can rise through as well. You can make your way up from scrubbing the floors to running the kitchen, which is a very lucrative job. So that is something that you can absolutely do. Then there are kind of like the lower menial forms of work that are incredibly common. No one wants to do their own laundry.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Laundry in the medieval period is incredibly difficult to do because you've got to either take the laundry to where there is water or the water to where there is laundry. And wet clothes are heavy. Laundry can take days upon days. So washer women are in constant demand.

[Kate Lister]

That's interesting, because I once heard someone from the English collective of prostitutes, which is like a union group today for sex workers, saying that the two jobs that are always available to women now are sex working and cleaning. And that was interesting. Like that. You'd kind of touch on that. It's kind of the same thing.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Exactly. And it's this feminized workforce. You know, here's the jobs that nobody wants, right? Because, you know, the minute anybody gets money, they farm out the cleaning to somebody else. And that's one of the arguments. For example, in order to acknowledge that housework is work, stay at home, moms aren't unemployed, they have a job because if you had money, you wouldn't do the hoovering. So you will get someone in to do that for you immediately, and that's how you know it's a job. So that is kind of the range that you could find for single women. But single women also have a few barriers in the way of that. It's not just the job thing. The biggest thing that is going to be difficult for you as a single woman in an urban context is very specifically housing.

[Kate Lister]

Okay?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So it's like one thing. If you are born the daughter of a guild member and you just don't want to get married, and you're just going to be a grocer your whole life, everyone's going to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, there she is. That's fine. But if you've moved in from the countryside, a lot of places have laws on the books that specifically say that you have a week to get attached to a household.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Why a week? Why? Why?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

That's the law in Southampton in the 14th and 15th. You have one week. You have one week, and it's like, you need to Be attached to a household. Now, it doesn't mean you need to go get married, but it means that someone has to vouch for you. There has to be somewhere that you're living where they can say, oh, yeah, she's with us.

[Kate Lister]

I wonder if that's like, to stop homelessness or something.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

It is to stop vagrancy. They also don't want this to lead to street level sex work.

[Kate Lister]

But is this specific to single women with single men.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Single women, single men. Come on it. And what's.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, we don't care. Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Like you can come on it because there's going to be some laboring job for you. We don't care. It's specifically a law for women.

[Kate Lister]

Look at that. So you've got one week to get your shit together, ladies.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And it's quite prevalent, quite prevalent in English cities in particular. They don't want God.

[Kate Lister]

That's interesting.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Women moving around, right. So it's like you need to explain what it is you're doing. So, you know, that can be being a maid, it can be getting a job, you know, and it could also be like joining a brothel. If you're like, yeah, I work over on Whores Nest, actual name of street in Southwark. I didn't make it up. I'm attached there. Then everyone will go, oh, fair enough.

[Kate Lister]

We thought you were up to something suspicious, but now we know it's all fine.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, because it would be suspicious if you as a woman can't really explain what your job is and where you live. And indeed we see this come out, for example, in interesting places. So there's a document that is like my favorite thing of all time that I'm always going on at everyone about. And it's called the Archdiaconate Protocol of Prague was made in the 14th century over a period of about 20 years. They get a new archdeacon in, in Prague and he decides that he's going to be a real good guy and he's going to go parish to parish in Prague and he's going to say, hey, don't suppose you're having any theological issues around here? Yeah, that's good. And hilariously, like, half the theological issues are like, sexual, like priests shagging sex workers, priests running brothels, like all of these things. But we see a lot of complaints about women and in particular they will refer to women as what they call suspect women. So Mulieris Suspectus, that's the name of my progressive noise band, don't worry about it. And also what they call secret prostitutes, Meritrix Occulta.

[Kate Lister]

A secret sex. What does that mean? Like, secret to who?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So, well, this is the thing, right? There's an entire street in 14th century Prague Krakowice. It still exists and ironically is one block away from like one of the big brothel streets now.

[Kate Lister]

Nice.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Like, it's. It's changed like one block in 600 years, which I really love. But it is home to a lot of women who are very specifically clandestine prostitutes. A suspect women, secret prostitutes. And they just seem to be women who are not explaining what they are doing. There's just a bunch of single ladies over there.

[Kate Lister]

So is that. That they're keeping it a secret or like the authorities don't know about them? Is it like that they'd be having sex or something and they go, surprise.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

What a move.

[Kate Lister]

I'm a hooker.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Surprise. That'll be 1500 quid. Thank you.

[Kate Lister]

That would be a surprise. Here is an invoice.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So we've got the PO right there, so it's fine.

[Kate Lister]

Who are they secret from?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So basically the idea here is this is quite common in the Holy Roman Empire, which is like. Yeah, okay, so there are brothels, like, duh. Like, obviously there's tons of brothels, but the brothels tend to be municipal and chartered.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So, like, you go to the city and you say, hey, what's up? I want to start a brothel. And they go, right, you are. Here's your charter. But that means here that the sex work in question is legal, which is the thing we don't like. Right? Because if you have legal sex work, then there's ways to have illegal sex work. These women might be selling sexual services, but they don't have the correct ticket that says, yeah, you can absolutely do that.

[Kate Lister]

Go for it with you. Okay. Okay. So they are not officially registered. I'm with you. Okay. God, that's fascinating, isn't it?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, but we don't even know because it might be true that they're selling sexual services, or it might just be that it's a bunch of single women and so people are being dicks to them.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Eleanor after this short break.

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[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Can I make my site softer? Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?

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[Kate Lister]

You see this a lot, this suspicion around single women and what they're doing and what they are capable of. I was reading a book on gender and sexuality in early modern, not medieval modern Germany, and they I'm going to butcher this one now. But the term they used for single women was Englera To Brot, it sort of meant that women that could buy their own bread.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, yeah. That is something that is regarded with suspicion and indeed it's something that we have often turned into a pejorative.

[Kate Lister]

Like spinster.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Like spinster, where it's like, you know, oh, yeah, it's, it's, oh, got your own money, do you? Well, you should be ashamed of that. Or even indeed, like using cat lady was like, oh, found companionship, have you?

[Kate Lister]

I've always thought that's weird. It's like, that's like when you listen to these, if you can be bothered to these, like the fevered ravings of men's rights podcasters and the only thing they can keep coming back to is like, yeah, but you're alone. It's like, I know, that was the point. That's like, that's. I don't know why. Like that's supposed to be this horrendous insult. That's the idea. But they can't get outside of it. Like, that's the worst thing that they can think of is I don't want to have sex with you. Good. Well, I won't have sex with you either.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Well, this is the thing, right? And it's something that we tend to see historically with single women is that you need to employ shame around women who make their own money, right? So, you know, here's a bunch of women who are just like hanging out, living together in Prague, and it's like.

[Kate Lister]

Eigenbrotherin that was it.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

German speaker.

[Kate Lister]

Email me that just popped in there. Eigenbrautlerin.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, you do it with spinster, you do it with cat lady. Because, you know, every single study that's ever been done on this global northern society, let's put it that way, you know, there might be some different going on in Madagascar, but it shows that a. Women who are single are happier and live longer.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Because, you know, having children and dealing with men will kill you.

[Kate Lister]

So marriage is good for men. The studies seem to show again and again is if a man gets married, he can expect to live longer. He will have a happier, better quality of life, he will have more money, more shared resources. And it doesn't hold true for women.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So you have to insult them, Right.

[Kate Lister]

You have to be mean to them.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And you have to police them. Right? So in, in the case of medieval Europe, what they're going to do is they're going to monitor you incredibly heavily and they are going to wonder about what it is you're doing. And we see this play out in Prague, you know, both with the kind of policing of lines in on Krakow street and what are these women doing here? And also just women who are kind of in public. So we, we see complaints about, like, there's women in this beer hall, so we think that they might be sex workers. And it's like, why?

[Kate Lister]

Well, it's all the proof I need.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah. Like, they're drinking beer. So, you know. Or there's a really interesting case that I think is. Is pretty cool, where there's a woman and her name is Mara. There's only, like, women who are named in the whole thing. There's. There's a lot of talking about women, but they never have names. Right. But this woman Mara, she gets in trouble because she isn't technically single, she's technically married to, like, one of the king's chancellors or somebody, but she's living in a house with five other women, some of whom are unmarried, and they're selling, like, blessed herbs.

[Kate Lister]

Is that. Is that herbs in inverted commas or actual herbs?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

It's difficult to say. It's probably a bit. A little bit of both, you know, like, listen, medieval people are not opposed to cannabis use. I'll just say that. So they're selling medicines of some kind. When I say this, a lot of times people say, oh, are they up on a witchcraft, you know, charge? And I'm like, no, it's medieval.

[Kate Lister]

That doesn't happen medieval. That's early modern, that leave the medieval People alone.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

But they're like, what are they doing? And there's just this absolute bafflement that you and your girlies would get a cute house. Like, it's very golden girls.

[Kate Lister]

It's.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, like, they're golden girls again, like. And that's just it. And, yeah, they've got, like, a side hustle. You know, they sell herbs in order to make the rent, and they're just hanging. And that is enough to draw the attention of people in the neighborhood. And they're going to rat you out to the archdeacon about it. They're like, those women live together. And they're like, well, do you think it's brothel? And they're like, I don't know.

[Kate Lister]

Make more sense to them. If it was.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

If it was. If it was a brothel, that would make sense. And we see this sort of same pattern repeat even now. So, like, when I was in uni, for example, in the great state of Illinois in America, it was technically illegal for people to have sororities. It happened anyway because they count as brothels.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And you weren't allowed to have that many women, single women, living together, like, in. In bedrooms, the way that people in sororities do. I'm given to understand. I did not go to a frat school.

[Kate Lister]

I was gonna say.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Eleanor, you please do not write down that I went to a frat school, because I did not. Okay. You will not find your girl anywhere that.

[Kate Lister]

Would. That really surprise me?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

No, it was not that kind of party, honey. No. But, you know, even if it had been, you know, you'd have definitely been a hooker, though.

[Kate Lister]

That's what would be the listening at your front.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

There's no shame in that. Okay, but. But paying for friends, not happening.

[Kate Lister]

But I was gonna ask you about, like, how did women, when they're getting older, deal with this? Because, like, this is the thing is, like, if you can sustain yourself, if you can manage to find a way to make money without a. Which is a lot harder, but it is doable. Like, you can find your way through it. It's very difficult. You might end up on the game, but you can find your way through it. But eventually you're gonna get older, hopefully, and then you're gonna retire, and then you're gonna, like, you just. We just can't keep doing the same work. Like, what are the retirement communities? I was gonna ask you, do women end up living together?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, they do, kind of. So that's probably what's going on with Mara at all. It seems to be that it's a women who are a little bit older and it just kind of seems to be that they're looking after each other. Now you married to king's chamberlain, doesn't want to live with him. She's like, no, thanks.

[Kate Lister]

Nice.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

See you, pug. So obviously these are people who have a little bit more money in this case. But we do tend to see that women, especially in an urban context, continue to just kind of live together. Right. So you, you'll just kind of club up. If you are on the game in later medieval Europe and you are a tied to brothels, another option that you have sometimes is quote unquote, conversion. Their word, not mine.

[Kate Lister]

Interesting.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And you can be like, I'm a nun now.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I see. Get thee to a nunnery. Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And now that is going to go a couple of ways. Now, in the first place, there's a whole order that gets set up called the Magdalenes. And the Magdalenes, it's not a particularly fun order. They're really mean. There's like rather a lot of beating that goes on, but that's not as much fun as. Which we don't really like. Eventually they'll just turn into a regular old order of non special. There's a really great book written by Leolidia Otis which is all on sex work in very specifically southern France. And one of the big things that tends to happen there is whole brothels will just kind of retire together. And they'll be like, this is a retirement community now. And the community will be like, yeah, okay, great. They will pitch in and they'll be like, it's really cool.

[Kate Lister]

Actually, there were contemporary parallels with that. There's a community, and I think it's Brazil or it's in one of the southern American states where retired sex workers go and they look after one another. That's incredible that I love it. Had the continuity.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Well, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense because, you know, if you've been working with the same women the whole time, you're likely friends, you're done. You're like, if you see another dick, I swear to God. Right. You know, so you're just like, okay, we're all going to be done. And they often save up for it. And then oftentimes the community does pitch in because they're just like, yeah, okay, well, fair enough. Because, you know, there is that uneasy tension with do we like brothels or do we not? And the answer is they do like it, but you're not allowed to say it. So, you know, maybe you Pitch in because you're like, oh, I like those girls and we've had good times. Or maybe you pitch in because you're like, yeah, I want that brothel closed. Like, so this is why. It's a really smart move on the part of the girls, right, because the girlies are like, listen, I've got a great deal for you, right, which is we will stop right now. And you said you hate it, so you could just pony up.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I love that.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So that is like one big way that they'll do it. And then in the countryside context, oftentimes you're just more around family, you know, again, real Bronte sisters times. You are just gonna chill with your people. You know, again, there's a reason why we tend to say spinster aunt, right? Because it's like, yeah, your, your nieces and nephews will take care of you or whoever, right? You're not going to, like, die out in the cold. That's not what is really going to happen. So, you know, you might have money because a lot of these women, especially if you're single, if you choose to stay single, a lot of the time it's because you have a means of doing that. It's not hard to get married. You know, dick is plentiful and low value. So a lot of the time when we do see people who are single, either, you know, they suffer from health problems or they really just don't want to.

[Kate Lister]

They just don't want a lesbian.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, I mean, that's the other one.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Eleanor after this short break.

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[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Can I make my sight softer? Can I make my sight firmer? Can we sleep cooler?

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[Kate Lister]

Tell me about nuns, because they fascinate me. Because we often think about nunneries and, and monasteries as places like where really serious people go. And it's serious work and it's all very devout. It's easy to forget that it was often people going there to, quote, repent. There's often where they put the naughty people who'd had a past. I often wonder what they would have Been like to live there because that, that's definitely hooking up with a squad to survive, isn't it?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Oh, completely. And I mean you could of course make the argument here that, well, nuns are married to our boy jc.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, they are. I'd forgotten that. But yeah, the fine print.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Good point. Whether or not I'm going along with that sided marriage. Yeah, right, let's. Although some of these girlies, you know, they're making it work.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, they, they really went for it, didn't they? My God.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

That was a full marriage that some of them were enjoying. But like, what was that? Like, would that have been a ret. Retirement plan? Is that retirement community?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, absolutely. Now the, the thing that is going to come into it with nunneries is it's not one of those situations where you can just rock up as any woman and be like, hey, what's up?

[Kate Lister]

Damn, that's.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

I'd like to live here.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. All right.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Although now you might be able to.

[Kate Lister]

Do you think it's that easy? Just knock on the door, go, hello.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

I mean like, if you're really, if you're really wanting to do it, I think it's a little bit easier now because like, then they would say, okay, yeah, you and what money? Yeah, right. Like, especially in the case of women who are older, if you want to use it as a retirement community, you often have to come with some money. There is a kind of similar thing with. When children are kind of donated as oblates, as we call them, your family usually has to send you with some money. Or, you know, peasants who couldn't afford their sixth child would just be like dumping them at the door all the time. Right. That's not how it goes down. Because the idea here is that there's going to have to be some money to pay for the fact that you're not going to be able to work at the same level that like your middle aged sisters will be able to, for example. So you're not going to be the one scrubbing the floor. Right. Because you simply cannot. So there's got to be something that is coming along with that. So we do definitely see in the case, for example of sex workers, this is like a really hot option. But if you've made enough money on your brewing business, if you've made enough money, say weaving, then that might be what you choose to do. And a lot of people do because this is seen as incredibly attractive. You know, Queens retired to nunneries, they do.

[Kate Lister]

Don't. You've told me that Before I thought that that was a very interesting thing for a queen to be doing.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Well, you know, let's be so real. If you're a member of the royalty or nobility, from a medieval standpoint, you've probably done a bunch of bad stuff.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, you probably have. Yeah. It's time to atone.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah. It's like you don't get to that position in society. Like, they're not good people, you know, they have that money essentially by violence. And medieval society will just say that to their faces, you know, now we like to get all Disney about it, right? Now we get to be like, oh.

[Kate Lister]

She was a birthday princess.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

No, sometimes she gave alms to the poor and it's like, yeah, where should get those all? Like the money to give out in alms.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Don't question the accounts too much.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah. It's like this is, this is all stuff that's like extracted from the actual hard working peasants who are doing all the work around here. Right. And medieval people are clear on that. Like all you have to do is look at a hell fresco and see who is painted in the jaws of hell. And it's a bunch of rich guys. It's like, you know, a bishop and a king and this and usually a hot chick. A lot of the time that's just because they want to draw a hot chick.

[Kate Lister]

They like drawing babies, but, you know.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

So queens kind of understand themselves as being involved in that. They want to go atone. Right. Same kind of for single women, but they're probably not necessarily atoning because of their position in society, but they are Christians, you know, like, it's difficult for us to get our head round in our society, which is increasingly secular. These people do believe this.

[Kate Lister]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

It doesn't mean that they're always perfect. It doesn't mean that they're always able to live up to the moral standards of Christianity. But they'd like to not go to purgatory or hell. They would like to go to heaven. And if you've got enough money and you can get into the nunnery and you can then just kind of think about religion in your final years, then that's gonna get you really far.

[Kate Lister]

I've been thinking about this for a while and like with the status of single women today, in fact, all throughout history, why they draw the attention of society and in the way that other groups don't. I think as well it might be the ambiguity of their sexual status as well. Because single doesn't mean celibate. It's not the same thing. And like, if you're a wife, that's you, that's you're supposed to be having sex with that person. Done. If you're a nun, no sex for you at all. You're married to Jesus. If you are a sex worker, sex with everybody. If you're a widow, I don't know, you've had sex and now you're not supposed to be having sex, but a single woman, you're in this weird ambiguous space of like, I could have sex, I could have sex with lots of people if I wanted to. And I wonder if that's part of the stigma and the suspicion around that status.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, I think so. Because they are seen not necessarily as people, but as potential problems.

[Kate Lister]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Like, they don't fit easily into the neat categories of what is expected of women, you know, because it's like, if you are nun, we know exactly what you're doing, we know exactly where you are. You're over. Now, are a lot of those nuns shagging also?

[Kate Lister]

Yes, yes.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

I've been rereading the Decameron, and this morning I was just reading Day Nine. The second story of Day nine is all about, like, a nun shagging her lover, getting caught by the other nuns. And then they, like, bring the mother superior to yell at her for shagging her lover, but she was shagging her lover, who's a priest, and accidentally puts her underpants on her head instead of her wimple. And, like, they all get found out and then they just go, never mind, just try to keep it on the DL. And like, that's the story, right? So we know that. That nuns are shagging too, and it's just kind of like, understood. But you're supposed to hide it. It's kind of the only thing. Just because you're single doesn't mean you're not. Yeah. So, right. Let's be so real. And that is, I suppose, part of the. The worry with single women, right, is if it's a single woman in the city, I don't know, like, is your husband shagging her? Are you trying to shag her husband?

[Kate Lister]

Steal husbands away? Can you. What are you doing?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Which is, you know, also I think, a big thing that we're still doing to single women now. There's this kind of like, oh, well, you're a. You're a sexual free agent. So, like, are you trying to steal my cr. No one wants your crusty man, girl.

[Kate Lister]

No, they don't. They don't. Not often.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

No one is interested in stealing your husband, honey. Like, you can it's fine. Right. But there is that. That worry that if you haven't been locked down, so to speak, then you've.

[Kate Lister]

Not been locked down. And especially.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Yeah, like, in a medieval context where we consider that women are the horny ones and women have this rapacious sexuality, then that is going to be bumped up even more so, you know. Yeah. You need single women if you're rich to scrub your floors, or, you know, even if you're on the farm, you have dairy maids and you have chambermaids, and you have all of these varying maids. And it's kind of quite similar to, like, worrying that, like, your husband's gonna shag the nanny.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

No.

[Kate Lister]

So as a final question, then, do you think the medieval period, which I'm well aware is a thousand years of history, by the way, it's not like, you know, sometimes we think of it of like, you know, a Tuesday in 1400 and something. It's a whole thousand years. But do you think it was a good time to be a single woman? Do you think it, like. Or was it a particularly bad time with their worst times?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Oh, I think it always kind of sucks to be a single woman because we live under the patriarchy. I suppose what I always tend to say about this is that I'd still rather be single woman in a medieval context. I mean, I'm gonna be so real with you. I do not wish to become pregnant in the medieval period. No, thank you.

[Kate Lister]

That's not good.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

And if you ask basically any medieval historian who's a woman, they will tell you, oh, I would like to be a nun is the thing, because you get to read books and hang out with the girlies.

[Kate Lister]

Potentially a widow. Potentially.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Potentially. Like, oh, if you could get married and he dies real quick before you get knocked off. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, that's a sweet spot.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

But you don't. You don't want to be a wife and mother. You're just going to die in childbirth. It doesn't seem very good to me, which is why, you know, we have these very strong narratives about how you're meant to understand your worth is as a woman, is getting married and having children. Because we have to tell those stories. Because if we didn't tie the worth of women in soc to being a wife and mommy, then women wouldn't do it because it fucking sucks. So, yeah, so you. You have to. You have to shame women into doing it. You have to tell them that you'll die unfulfilled. You'll die unfulfilled and rich and with your friends in a flat that's decorated exactly how you want it without picking up after anyone you know.

[Kate Lister]

Eleanor thank you so much. You have been marvelous to talk to. You always are. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Jo yeah, well obviously come on over to Gone Medieval where I usually don't talk quite so much about cooking. You know, I'm on every Tuesday talking about these sort of things. And if you want to keep up with my work, you can check out eleanor yonaga.com but if you're interested in single women, I would definitely check out of course my book, which is called the Once In Future Sex A Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society.

[Kate Lister]

Amazing. Thank you so much. You have been fab.

[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

You're fabulous app.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Eleanor for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts Coming up, we have got episodes on how filthy were the Egyptians and we have another on the rivalry between Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici. And if you.

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[Dr. Eleanor Yarniger]

Can I make my sight softer? Can I make my sight firmer? Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Advertiser]

Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting J.D. power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now the more you buy, the more you save on beds, faces and more limited time. For J.D. power 2025 award information, visit J.D. power.com awards. Check it out at the Sleep Number Store or SleepNumber.com today.

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[Kate Lister]

Book.

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[e-mail].

[Kate Lister]

You would like us to explore a subject or perhaps you just wanted to say hello. Then you can email [e-mail] this podcast was produced by Stuart Beckwith. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets the History of Sex Scandal in Society, A podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.