And here's an interesting tidbit: in middle English, the word "courtesan" just meant a member of the Papal curia -- and none of them, I suspect, would have been women. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=byte&byte=35511064&egdisplay=open&egs=35512268 Karen Larsdatter www.larsdatter.com