Dr Gillian Jack

Professional biography

I studied history at the University of Edinburgh, receiving an MA in 2001. I returned to study, receiving an MLitt and PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2014 and 2018 respectively. I wrote my PhD thesis on civic authorities' involvement with a monastery for repentant prostitutes in Florence between the fourteenth and early seventeenth centuries. I taught historiography and early modern history at the University of St Andrews for several years. Prior to that, I taught history in the University of Edinburgh's lifelong learning department. I joined the Open University as an Associate Lecturer in 2017 and currently teach on the following OU modules:

• A113: Revolutions
• A223: Early Modern Europe: society and culture 1500-1780
• A328: Empires: power, resistance, legacies
• A883: MA History Part 1
• A884: MA History Part 2

Research interests

My main research interests are late medieval and early modern prostitution, women religious, and poor relief in Catholic Europe. I am interested in welfare institutions, charity and state involvment. 

Impact and engagement

Publications

Prostitution, Repentance, and Social Welfare in Renaissance Florence: The Monastery of Sant'Elisabetta delle Convertite, monograph under contract with New Historical Perspectived (forthcoming, 2026)

'Sex and Salvation in Renaissance Florence,' History Today, May 2025, pp.40-49

17 peer-reviewed entries in A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen, 1500-1650: Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts, (Ashgate, October 2016)

A selection of recent talks and papers

"Doubtful Virtue: Sex Workers' Daughters at Sant'Elisabetta delle Convertite in Sixteenth-Century Florence" Society for Renaissance Studies Conference, Bristol, July 2025

"Shame, Gender, and the Body in Early Modern Europe” Renaissance Society of America Virtual Conference, December 2022 (panel organiser). Paper: “The Monastery of Sant’Elisabetta delle Convertite as a place of penitence and prevention.”

“Convertite Nuns and the Grand Ducal Family in Early Seventeenth-Century Tuscany,” Renaissance Society of America Virtual Conference April 2021

"Bodies on trial: sex, sexuality, and gender before the courts in Florence" Society for Renaissance Studies Biannual Conference, Norwich, July 2021 (cancelled due to Covid-19)

"Medieval Sex Lives," Previously... Scotland's History Festival, 23 November 2019

“Licit and illicit sex: female prostitution and male homosexuality in Renaissance Florence,” Birkbeck Medieval Seminar, 21 June 2019

“A nefarious and unnatural evil: How prostitution was used as an anti-sodomy measure, and how anti-sodomy measures were used to fund former prostitute nuns in Renaissance Florence,” LGBT History Month forum, University of St Andrews, 23 February 2018

“Sex and the City: Locating Prostitution in Late Medieval Florence,” Gender and Transgression, University of St Andrews, May 2017

"A Guild for Prostitutes? Rethinking Prostitution and the Onestà in Renaissance Florence," Society for Renaissance Studies Biannual Conference, Glasgow, July 2016