ABSTRACT
All societies identify as suspect and threatening certain types of behaviour, appearance or lifestyle which differ from the prevailing norms. As a result, associated individuals or groups are marginalized, ostracized or actively persecuted. Although these groups may be quite diverse in the nature of their difference, some common stereotypes recur: their predilection for acts of sexual depravity, criminality and other anti-social behaviour, accompanied by metaphors of pollution and disease. The poor became badged and, therefore, dishonourable members of the community, just as Jews, lepers and prostitutes before them. Prostitution, previously the socially acceptable outlet for male sexual energies in particular, was largely driven underground as part of a wider moral agenda during the early modern period. Much of the official treatment of deviant or marginal groups in the early modern period was a matter of regulation or containment rather than destruction.
