The Church’s double standard towards prostitution created the foundation for a new source of ecclesiastical income. In 1309, Bishop Johann of Strasbourg himself built a brothel. It yielded double profits: first from the sale of sex, and thereafter in fines levied upon the guilty. All the clergy in Strasbourg enjoyed the new and modern bordello - some openly, as clients, others in the course of their moral inspections - while the profits were shared.
Since olden times, Southwark has been a prostitution area on the south side of the Thames, across from the city of London. As a bishop, Saint Swithin of Winchester built a nunnery in Southwark, and later a whole district for whores. The supervision of prostitutes would be delegated to the secular authorities, but as before, the profits went to the diocese, and the whores from that district were known all over London as Winchester Geese. In 1161, Henry II decreed the revenue from the Southwark brothels to be a royal privilege awarded to the bishopric. This privilege stood for approximately five hundred years. As a consequence, London could have more churches built from the proceeds of prostitution than any other large European city, with the exception of Rome.
Thomas Aquinas spent many long hours reflecting upon when, and under what conditions, the Church could accept taxes or income from prostitution without becoming morally defiled. In his day, there were few men of the cloth who thought so deeply about these questions. The syphilitic Pope Sixtus IV reformed the taxation of Rome’s whoring districts in 1471 and managed to increase church revenues considerably. Thus it was that the whores of Rome contributed to the building of Saint Peter’s Cathedral. There is always a bright and lucrative future for effective sin.
—Love For Sale: A Global History of Prostitution, by Nils Ringdal, Chapter Eleven: Celestial Whores, pg 154-155
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