Prostitution in Medieval Rhodes

All of the above described sins, were cruelly punished depending on the sin, usually with the burlesquing and ridiculization of the sinner, according to the decree of the Magnus Magister of the Knights of Rhodos, who was usually acting under the pressure of the Orthodox church and the honest family men, of the local society. Burlesquing usually included the procession on the back of a filthy donkey, of the one who was being blamed, roughcasted with dirt and soot and sometimes even blinded. To this procession, where the sinner was ridiculy insulted, all the people of the city were invited to take part, by the public crier, using a horn or a trumpet.

In this kind of despotic and oppressive society though, none was escaping the sin, nor the priests neither the Knights, who were mostly children of rich Feudalists, influenced by the early Renaissance philosophy and in several cases they had bastard children who where claiming rights and fortune, as inheritance, from the military Order of the Knights.

In the late 15th century, economic affluence was accompanied by such a moral turpitude which forced the Grandmaster Pierre d’Aubusson to impose, in 1483, stiff penalties on adulterers, adulteresses, procurers, pederasts, gamblers and the like. And the penalty would be DEATH BY BURNING, which was also the punishment for those who would have a relationship with Muslims or Jews. At the same time, the prostitutes had increased in number, often causing scandals. The Grandmaster then decided – since it was very difficult to expel them – to confine them to a particular quarter of the city, which should possibly be the Jew district, while Jews were also persecuted.

Despite the described underground situation, Rhodes does not constitute a glaring case of moral collapse, neither the size of prostitution was of such significance that it stigmatises entire the society and sure it did not exceed the limits of other cities of Mediterranean.