"Dance and Make Revels" Cross-Dressing Prostitutes and Gendered Performance as a Method of Accessing Agency in Medieval London

Abstract

Did prostitutes in medieval London have agency? This paper examines a new transcription of a medieval chancery bill concerning a woman accused of dressing in men's clothing and attempting to seduce a merchant at Hanse precinct in London. Rather than assessing this accusation as a potential expression of identity, this paper assesses Joan White's use of male clothing as a method of asserting limited agency over the lived experience of a medieval prostitute. By drawing on the work of Veronica Franco, another medieval courtesan, whose writings also suggest that she was accessing a certain type of agency, this article posits that while participants in the medieval sex trade did not necessarily have agency, they were able to access an "economy of makeshift" through which they could create limited facets of agency for themselves.