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Content Note: This post concerns historical documents which may deadname and/or misgender a possible transgender person. While quoted materials are replicated here in their original form, their accurate replication for expository purpose is not intended to imply accuracy regarding the central figure’s identity or expression. She/her pronouns are used in this piece to describe the central figure in any instance apart from a direct quotation from the historical record.
Queer history, as I’ve noted repeatedly on this blog, is a profoundly complicated area of historical study. This complexity is often a function of the core tension which historians (and casual observers) in this arena regularly face: how can we accurately apply modern terminology to historical persons who existed before that terminology was developed, especially in cases where we have limited or perhaps contradictory evidence of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors? While that discussion is potentially endless, it remains equally important to recognize that while definitions may be bound by time, identities and lived experiences are not. The case of a possibly queer and transgender medieval sex worker, Eleanor Rykener, exemplifies these tensions.
Who was this purported prostitute, briefly famous on the streets of 14th century London?[1] Why has Eleanor Rykener become a hotly debated and controversial figure, and can any definitive conclusions about her be drawn at all?
A Curious Case
Ostensibly, late medieval England should be the last place in history one would expect to find a transgender woman, particularly one working in the then dubiously accepted sex work industry.
For most modern observers, the late medieval period evokes romantic images (largely imagined in later centuries) of graceful lords and ladies, knights in shining armor, gallant nobles and royal courts sparkling with fine clothes and jewels. These stereotypes were only loosely reinforced by the reality of the upper classes during this period, and utterly removed from the much more mundane and profane experiences of everyone else – especially sex workers.
Prostitution is “the oldest profession” for a reason – sex work has been ubiquitous throughout human society since time immemorial and accepted (tacitly or otherwise) even in social contexts which theoretically denounced it in vociferous terms. Officials in medieval England, notably, took a sanguine and pragmatic view of the (thriving) sex trade, especially in major urban areas like London.
Ruth Karras writes that, “[m]unicipal authorities all over Europe recognized the social value of prostitution but tried to keep it as unobtrusive as possible, placing it under strict control without abolishing it totally. In many parts of medieval and early modern Europe this meant establishing licensed, or even municipally owned, brothels or official red-light districts.”[2]
Karras adds that prostitutes hardly benefitted from this legal status, apart from the barest toleration. Sex workers were still regarded as disreputable, if necessary, members of society in both a religious and secular sense. They were among the lowest individuals in medieval England, considered the epitome of wayward, lust-filled and sinful inclinations inherent in women. The latter condemnation, though obviously prejudiced and outdated, points to a critical assumption: that prostitutes were always women in this period.[3] If we interpret Eleanor Rykener’s complex narrative as that of a transgender woman, then the contemporary assumption is correct in her case – though perhaps not in quite the way that her contemporaries (and would-be persecutors) might have imagined.
Sewing Club?
The historical record for Eleanor’s mysterious life is sparse, and largely confined to an interrogation conducted in 1395. That interrogation and brief investigation which followed provides the outlines for how Eleanor came to be in the London sex trade – and how Eleanor became Eleanor at all.
These records offer little illumination of Eleanor’s early life or how old she was when she first came to London. They appear to confirm, however, that Eleanor’s legal birth name (perhaps a deadname?) was “John” Rykener – implying that Eleanor was in fact assigned male at birth. Eleanor’s account, given as part of the interrogation noted above, implies that she first came to London using that former name while living and presenting as a man.[4]
At some point, she entered the home of an “embroiderer” (and sometimes procuress) Elizabeth Bronderer and her daughter Alice. Elizabeth, per Eleanor’s description, regularly offered her daughter to men for sexual services and may have inducted Eleanor into the trade. Eleanor suggests that Elizabeth was the first to encourage Eleanor to adopt women’s clothing and presentation. She may also have suggested Eleanor’s new name, which she would use permanently thereafter.
Eleanor gives little insight as to what Elizabeth’s motivations were, but Elizabeth’s prostitution of her own daughter suggests she might have opted to leverage Eleanor as a potential income earner also.[5] The interrogation that this information is drawn from also does not clarify the extent of Eleanor’s agency in this initial phase of her possible transition. The notion that an embroiderer/bawd would welcome an individual she believed to be a man into her household, and suggest that newcomer dress and behave like a woman entirely of her own volition taxes the imagination. There is some evidence in Eleanor’s account that Elizabeth used Eleanor as part of a “bait and switch” routine where Eleanor would be swapped into clients’ beds after Alice had serviced them, but the purpose of this game (perhaps to protect Alice’s reputation?) are not entirely clear. Importantly, however, Eleanor’s later life suggests that she was content in her social transition and would maintain it long after departing Elizabeth’s household.
According to Eleanor, it was another sex worker named Anna who first instructed her in the physical aspects of her new role. Specifically, the interrogation document records that it was Anna who “first taught him to practice this detestable vice in the manner of a woman,” a likely reference to sodomy. In the eyes of Eleanor’s later investigators, her actions with men constituted this act since her body was anatomically male, justifying her eventual detainment.
“Calling himself Eleanor…”
These details imply that economic motivators, as much as any notions of identity or preference, played a key role in Eleanor’s presentation (at least early on in her career). Intriguingly, however, “Eleanor” seemed to stick and remained her chosen name and identity insofar as the historical record can confirm.
Eleanor eventually left London, but took her newly acquired skills with her – all of them. Apparently, Elizabeth could sew after all and gave Eleanor basic instruction in this trade also. Eleanor proceeded to work as an embroiderer in Oxford, but continued to earn money as a sex worker on the side. There is no mention of “John” in this part of Eleanor’s account. By her own description, she worked both her licit and illicit job roles presenting as a woman. Much the same was true when she next moved to Burford. In these locales, she apparently lived harmoniously among the townsfolk “in women’s clothing and calling himself [herself?] Eleanor,” according to the official interrogation.[6]
From here, Eleanor’s account describes encounters with scholars, Franciscan monks, and chaplains, but also notes affairs with several women including nuns. Indeed, Eleanor’s interrogation record seems to differentiate her specific gendered role(s) in these encounters: whereas with the women she describes performing the act “as a man”, her male partners instead had “sex with him as a woman.”[7]
It was the latter act which ultimately put Eleanor at risk. In December 1394, she was approached on the streets of London by a potential client, John Britby, who correctly assumed Eleanor was a prostitute.[8] The pair agreed to a price, and then proceeded to “a certain stall in Soper’s Lane, committing that detestable unmentionable and ignominious vice.”[9] It was here that they were found by “certain officials of the city” and then apprehended. Both Britby and Eleanor were brought before the Mayor and Alderman of London to give explanation for their purported crimes. It is through this interrogation that the key document, detailing Eleanor’s life until then, was created and preserved for posterity.
Off the Hook?
Ironically, it proved difficult for London officials to charge Eleanor with a crime at all. Timing, in this instance, actually favored her: at this point in English history, sodomy was not technically a punishable offense and was considered more a religious matter than a civil one. Indeed, it would not be until the reign of Henry VIII that “buggery” would be formally prohibited in England beginning in 1533 and subject to state-sponsored persecution.[10] Indeed, the next few hundred years saw Englishmen imprisoned, tortured and murdered for supposed “sodomitical” acts. Had Eleanor been caught and interrogated at any point during this period of English history, her story might have ended in tragedy.
Instead, it ends with a blank space: there is no record that Eleanor was ever charged with a crime, further interrogated or endured an extended detainment at all. After the incident in 1394, she effectively disappears from the historical record. She was not even charged for other sexual offenses or activity related to prostitution; the details of the interrogation, which repeatedly refer to her with he/him pronouns, confirm that her inquisitors saw her as simply a cross-dressing male and perhaps struggled to bring prostitution charges against her for that reason. Perhaps these officials thought, as some scholars have suggested, a presumed man could not really be a prostitute at all? John Britby, notably, does not seem to have been charged either for his role in soliciting her services.
Modern Interpretations
To be sure, this strange story leaves us desperate for more details – or just any further information to illuminate Eleanor’s history passed down through our collective history. Alas, scholars are left sifting through these pieces of the record and have come to varying conclusions.
The crucial piece of scholarship on Eleanor’s story is certainly that of Ruth Karras (cited previously as a medieval period expert) and David Boyd, first published in 1995: “The Interrogation of a Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-Century London.”[11] This article represents the first scholarly analysis of this forgotten bit of English legal history, which the authors consider through the lens of social acceptance of male transvestitism and same-sex intercourse in this period. This early analysis, from almost thirty years ago, implies that Eleanor may have been queer but not necessarily transgender. However, Ruth Karras has since confirmed that (were the article to be rewritten today) Eleanor would have been considered a transgender woman – not a transvestite – in their analysis.[12]
Other interpretations take a similar view: Kadin Henningsen argues strongly that Eleanor’s experiences reflect those of a transgender woman, especially within her cultural context. Eleanor apparently lived and interacted with others as a woman, including and outside of her work in the sex trade, and took on jobs (such as embroidery, and briefly a barmaid) almost exclusive to women.
Henningsen adds:
“The most obvious indication of this from the [interrogation] document is the fact that the scribe records that she is brought before Mayor John Fressh wearing women’s clothing and insists on “calling [herself] Eleanor” even within a hostile juridical context…Indeed, by making this statement, she strategically—and perhaps even defiantly—inscribes herself into the historical record as a woman.”[13]
What of the other women in Eleanor’s story?
“By discussing her relationship with Anna and Elizabeth, Eleanor indicates that she was part of a community of women who not only accepted her as a woman but helped her live as a woman, providing her with both clothing and a name. In modern terms, we might say that Anna and Elizabeth helped Eleanor socially transition. The historical record documents, therefore, Eleanor’s transition and gives glimpses of her life as a transgender woman.”[14]
Others have come to entirely different conclusions, with some even arguing that the entire case itself – based on the interrogation document – could have been a fabrication outright with political motives.[15] Most obviously, there are alternative views of Eleanor’s identity, or perhaps skepticism that she was a transgender woman at all. In theory, Eleanor could have been a cisgender, heterosexual man who simply adopted an assumed identity for commercial purposes. In a similar vein, it could be argued that Eleanor’s lady friends, particularly Elizabeth and Anna, encouraged her transition for their mutual economic benefit and Eleanor went along with the plan for the same reason.
Neither of these explanations, however, explain why Eleanor would have maintained her female identity in all circumstances, even after leaving the company of these women, nor why Eleanor would have insisted on female attire and using her female name before the officials who questioned her.
Another possibility is that of genderfluidity. Genderfluidity refers to an identity or gender expression which can change over time; identity and expression might change together, or separately, and both may change more than once for a person who identifies as genderfluid.[16] Notably, Eleanor seems to have described her sexual acts with men and women differently, ascribing the masculine and feminine genders depending on the situation and her role therein. This could be both a signal of a genderfluid perspective on herself, but alternatively could have been the only means to explain her sexual history to a group of perplexed scribes.
Then there is the entirely separate matter of sexuality – astoundingly, an area where we have seemingly even less confirmation than the matter of her gender identity. It seems clear that Eleanor had frequent sexual encounters with both men and women (though scholars seem to agree that the men paid for Eleanor’s company, whereas her female partners did not). Bisexuality or pansexuality are obvious options, and (had this terminology been available to her) Eleanor might have related to both. But sexual actions do not constitute attraction or identity, especially in the complex arena of sex work.
Another possibility is that Eleanor (if we assume she was transgender, or genderfluid) was a lesbian, and sought out women as her preferred lovers who she did not seek payment from for time spent. Alternatively, given the economic realities of the age, it is possible that Eleanor was attracted to both men and women but the men she serviced were better able to pay. Therefore, she required them to do so. The women likely had fewer means to pay, or perhaps repaid Eleanor in kind or by other means.
Conclusions?
Frustratingly, much of this discussion remains speculative. What conclusions, then, can be drawn from this fascinating story?
First, it is my personal view that Eleanor should be interpreted as a transgender woman, although alternative perspectives are plausible and definitive confirmation is unlikely to materialize. That so much of Eleanor’s voice and story (even though translated through the pens of her would-be persecutors) has survived over 600 years to our present day is astonishing. Though this evidence is far more limited than we might wish it to be, it nevertheless makes a compelling case study in trans+ history.
But even if one chooses to interpret Eleanor’s identity differently, or views her through the genderfluid lens, it is quite clear that she was capable of and comfortable with integrating into women’s presentation, roles and social mores. Apparently, she lived a considerable length of time (maybe years? The majority of her life?) interacting with late medieval English society as a woman. She encountered no troubles until she was caught in an act of sex work. Trans+ historical figures were thus woven into social contexts that failed or refused to recognize them – then as now.
This latter point highlights another intriguing implication of Eleanor’s story: diverse gender identities, gender transition and transformation, and the flouting of strict gender binaries are very far from a modern concept. I’ve noted previously on this blog that non-cisnormative gender identities are in evidence even thousands of years prior to the lifetime of Eleanor Rykener, let alone our own lifetimes. Eleanor’s existence confirms that medieval England was, like the rest of history, rife with individuals who existed outside the gender binary in some form or fashion. She would hardly be the last such figure in England, as entire cultures rife with queer and gender nonconforming individuals would proliferate throughout the UK in the following centuries and into the modern period (the mollies of the 17th – 18th century are perhaps the best documented, but not an isolated, example).
While Eleanor Rykener’s story is thus a singular, briefly documented moment, what her story represents in queer history is far more impactful than a simple legal record would initially suggest.
[1] Note that for the purposes of this discussion, I will refer to Eleanor with she/her pronouns in accordance with her stated, preferred name.
[2] Ruth Mazo Karras. “The Regulation of Brothels in Later Medieval England,” Signs 14, no. 2 (1989), pg. 401, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174556.
[3] Of course, male prostitution predated the medieval period in Europe and many other regions, and would endure long after (as my related blog posts on the Molly culture in England and Kabuki theatre in pre-Meiji Japan discuss more fully).
[4] “The Questioning of Eleanor Rykener (also known as John), A Cross-Dressing Prostitute, 1395,” Internet History Sourcebooks Project, Fordham University, revised October 4, 2024, https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/source/1395rykener.asp.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] M.W. Bychowski, “Eleanor Rykener,” The Lone Medievalist, accessed October 12, 2024, https://lonemedievalist.hcommons.org/women-of-the-middle-ages/eleanor-rykener/.
[9] “The Questioning of Eleanor Rykener,” ibid.
[10] “Law and Oppression,” Historic England, accessed October 13, 2024, https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/lgbtq-heritage-project/law-and-oppression/.
[11] David Lorenzo Boyd and Ruth Mazo Karras, “The Interrogation of a Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-Century London,” GLQ (1995) 1 (4): 459–465, https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-1-4-459.
[12] Ruth Mazo Karras and Tom Linkinen, “John/Eleanor Rykener Revisited,” Chapter in Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies: Essays in Honor of E. Jane Burns, edited by Laine E. Doggett and Daniel E. O’Sullivan, 111–22, Gallica, Boydell & Brewer, 2016, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/founding-feminisms-in-medieval-studies/johneleanor-rykener-revisited/417D8EA6FFC609DC6499C589AB2A5BE7.
[13] Kadin Henningsen, “’Calling [herself] Eleanor’: Gender Labor and Becoming a Woman in the Rykener Case,” MFF, vol. 55 no. 1, 2019: 249–266, http://ir.uiowa.edu/mff/vol55/iss1/.
[14] Ibid, pg. 252.
[15] Jeremy Goldberg, “John Rykener, Richard II, and the Governance of London”, Leeds Studies in English, 45: 49–70.
[16] Sabra L. Katz-Wise, “Gender fluidity: What it means and why support matters,” Harvard Health Publishing, December 3, 2020, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/gender-fluidity-what-it-means-and-why-support-matters-2020120321544.