Morals in Gaul.—Gynecea.—Capitulary of Charlemagne.—Morals in the Middle Ages.—Edict of 1254.—Decree of 1358, re-establishing Prostitution.—Roi des Ribauds.—Ordinance of Philip abolishing Prostitution.—Sumptuary Laws.—Punishment of Procuresses.—Templars. —The Provinces.—Prohibition in the North.—Licensed Brothels at Toulouse, Montpellier, and Avignon.—Penalties South.—Effect of Chivalry.—Literature.—Erotic Vocabulary.—Incubes and Succubes.— Sorcery.—The Sabat.—Flagellants.—Adamites.—Jour des Innocents.— Wedding Ceremonies.—Preachers of the Day.
The Roman accounts of the Gauls represent them as leading virtuous lives. Severa matrimonia is the expression of the historian. This would appear to apply more particularly to the women than the men. As is usually the case among semi-civilized nations, the Gauls, Germans, Franks, and most of the aboriginal nations of Northern Europe imposed upon the women obligations of chastity which they did not always accept for themselves. Adultery, and, in certain cases, fornication, they punished capitally; but, if the early ecclesiastical writers are to be believed, these rude warriors were addicted to coarse debaucheries, in which intoxicating liquors and promiscuous intercourse with females played a prominent part. The feasts which followed victories in the
field, or commemorated national anniversaries, bore some resemblance to the Roman commessationes, though, of course, they lacked[Pg 94] the refinement and the wit which occasionally strove to redeem those disgraceful banquets. So far as the females were concerned, there is no doubt the Roman writers judged correctly. Whether the severity of the climate tempered the ardor of northern sensuality, or the harshness of the law kept the passions in check, the female population of Gaul, from the time of the Roman conquest for at least two or three centuries, was undoubtedly virtuous. Prostitution was comparatively unknown. An old law or usage directed that prostitutes should be stoned, but we do not hear of this law being carried into effect.
Simultaneously with the consolidation of the kingdom of the Franks, we note that concubinage was an established institution, recognized by the law and sanctioned by the Church. All the Frank chiefs who could afford the luxury kept harems, or, as they were called in that day, gynecea, peopled by young girls who ministered to their pleasures. The plan, as it appears, bore some resemblance to that which is at present in use in Turkey and some other Mohammedan countries. The chief had one lawful and proper wife, a sort of sultana valide, and other wives whose matrimonial rights were less clearly defined, but still whose condition was not necessarily disreputable. How the people lived we are not so well qualified to say, but no doubt prostitution prevailed to some extent among them, though in all probability the public morals were purer than they became toward the tenth and eleventh centuries. Perhaps the first authentic legislative notice of prostitution in France is to be found in the Capitularies of Charlemagne. That monarch, who seems to have seen no mischief in the system of gynecea, was severe upon common prostitution. He directed vulgar prostitutes to be scourged, and a like penalty to be inflicted on all who harbored them, kept houses of debauch, or lent their assistance to prostitutes or debauchees. In other words, Charlemagne treated the same act as a crime among the poor, and as an excusable habit among the rich. Our information regarding society in the Middle Ages is necessarily obscure and scanty, but we have enough to learn that immorality prevailed to an alarming degree during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Probably the rich men who had their gynecea were the most virtuous class in the nation. Most of the kings set an example of loose intercourse with the ladies of the court. The armies of the time were noted for the[Pg 95] ravages they committed among the female population of the countries where they were quartered. Both of these classes seem to have yielded the palm of debauchery to the clergy. It is a fact well known to antiquaries, though visual evidence of it is becoming scarce, that most of the great works of Gothic architecture which
date from this period were profusely adorned with lewd sculptures whose subjects were taken from the religious orders. In one place a monk was represented in carnal connection with a female devotee. In others were seen an abbot engaged with nuns, a naked nun worried by monkeys, youthful penitents undergoing flagellation at the hands of their confessor, lady abbesses offering hospitality to well-proportioned strangers, etc., etc. These obscene works of art formerly encumbered the doors, windows, arches, and niches of many of the finest Gothic cathedrals in France. Modesty has lately insisted on their removal, but many of the works themselves have been rescued from destruction by the zeal of antiquaries, and it is believed some have still escaped the iconoclastic hand of the modern Church. When such was the condition of the clergy, and such the notoriety of that condition, it would be unjustifiable to expect purity of morals among the people.
Louis VIII. made an effort to regulate prostitution. It proved fruitless, and it was left to the next king of the same name, Louis IX., to make the first serious endeavor to check the progress of the evil in France. His edict, which dates from 1254, directed that all prostitutes, and persons making a living indirectly out of prostitution, such as brothel-keepers and procurers, should be forthwith exiled from the kingdom. It was partially put in force. A large number of unfortunate females were seized, and imprisoned or sent across the frontier. Severe punishments were inflicted on those who returned to the city of Paris after their expulsion. A panic seized the customers of brothels, and for a few months public decency was restored. But the inevitable consequences of the arbitrary decree of the king soon began to be felt. Though the officers of justice had forcibly confined in establishments resembling Magdalen hospitals a large proportion of the most notorious prostitutes, and exiled many more, others arose to take their places. A clandestine traffic succeeded to the former open
debauchery, and in the dark the evils of the disease were necessarily
aggravated. More than that, as has usually been the case when prostitution has been violently and suddenly suppressed,[Pg 96] the number of virtuous women became less, and corruption invaded the family circle. Tradesmen complained that since the passage of the ordinance they found it impossible to guard the virtue of their wives and daughters against the enterprises of the military and the students.
At last, complaints of the evil effects of the ordinance became so general and so pressing that, after a lapse of two years, it was repealed. A new royal decree re- established prostitution under rules which, though not particularly enlightened or humane, still placed it on a sounder footing than it had occupied before the royal attention had been directed to the subject. Prostitutes were forbidden to live in certain parts of the city of Paris, were not allowed to wear jewelry or
fine stuffs, and were placed under the direct supervision of a police magistrate, whose official or popular title was Le roi des ribauds (the king of ribaldry). The duties of this officer appear to have been analogous to those of the Roman ædiles who had charge of prostitution. He was empowered to arrest and confine females who infringed the law, either in their dress, their domicil, or their behavior. It was afterward urged against the maintenance of the office of Roi
des ribauds that it was usually filled by reckless, depraved men, who
discharged its duties more in view of their private interests and the gratification of their sensuality than from regard to the public morals. Instances of gross tyranny were proved against them, and, in the absence of evidence to show that their appointment had been beneficial to the public, but little regret was felt when the office was abolished by Francis I.
To return to Louis IX. In his old age he repented of what he had done, and returned to the spirit of his early ordinance. In his instructions to his son and successor, he adjured him to remove from his country the shameful stain of prostitution, and indicated plainly enough that the best mode of attaining that end would be by re-enacting the ordinance of 1254. Philip dutifully fulfilled his father’s request. Prostitution was again declared a legal misdemeanor, and a formidable array of penalties was again brought to bear against offending females and their accomplices. But, like many a legislative act in more modern times, Philip’s ordinance was too obviously at variance with public policy and popular sentiment to be carried into effect. It was quietly allowed to remain a dead letter, and, with probably few exceptions, the prostitutes of Paris pursued their calling unmolested.
[Pg 97]A few years afterward, its nullification was authoritatively sanctioned by fresh sumptuary laws. A royal edict directed courtesans to wear a shoulder-knot of a particular color as a badge of their calling. The whole force of the government was rallied to enforce this rule, and also those which had been enacted by Louis IX. The records of the court contain innumerable reports of the arrests of prostitutes for violating these enactments. When they had taken up their abode in a prohibited street, they were imprisoned and dislodged; when their offense was wearing unlawful garments or jewelry, the forbidden objects were seized and sold, the constable apparently sharing the proceeds of the sale. Pimps and procurers were dealt with more severely. As usual, the statute-book contained a variety of conflicting enactments on this subject, and menaced them with all kinds of penalties, from burning alive to fine and imprisonment. It appears beyond a doubt that, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, several notorious procuresses were burned alive at Paris. Others were put in the pillory; were scourged, and had their ears cropped; while many of the richer class escaped with a fine. There are records of cases in which the procuress was
exposed naked to the insults of the mob for a whole day, and toward evening the hair on her body was burned off with a flaming torch. Others again were chased through the city in a state of nudity, and pelted with stones. These barbarous penalties appear to have been very much to the taste of the people. Procuresses have always been an odious class, and it is not surprising to find that the punishment of a notorious wretch of the class was observed as a joyous holiday by the populace of the French capital. On the other hand, the prostitutes themselves were often subjects of public sympathy.
Peculiar reasons operated at this period to produce a favorable sentiment with regard to prostitutes. The horrible depravities of the Templars were becoming known. Society was horror-struck at the symptom of a revival of the worst vice of the ancients. There have been, as is known, ingenious and eloquent efforts made, in comparatively recent times, to throw a veil over the corruptions of the Templars, and to prove that they fell victims to royal jealousy, but the argument is not sustained by the facts. Documents on whose authenticity and credibility no possible suspicion can be cast, establish incontrovertibly that the sect of the Templars was tainted with unnatural vices, and that one of the chief secrets of its maintenance was the facility it afforded to [Pg 98]debased men for the gratification of monstrous propensities. That this was the opinion which prevailed in Paris at the time of the outburst which finally led to the suppression of the order, there is no room to question. It is easy to understand how the horror such discoveries must have awakened would lead men to entertain more lenient views with regard to a vice which had at least the merit of being in conformity with natural instinct.
Thus far of Paris only. During the Middle Ages, as is well known, most of the provinces of France were self-governing communities, which administered their own affairs, and received no police regulations from the crown. A complete examination of the subject throughout France would therefore involve as many histories as there were provinces. Our space, of course, forbids any thing of the kind, and we can only glance at leading divisions.
Most of the northern people had adopted, partly from the old Germanic constitutions and partly from the Roman law, severe provisions against prostitution, but they were nowhere, apparently, put in force. Occasionally a notorious brothel-keeper or professional procuress was severely punished, but prostitutes were rarely molested. In the north and west of France, indeed, toleration was obviously the natural policy, for we are not led to believe that in that section of country the evil was ever carried to great excess. In Normandy, Brittany, Picardy, and the great northern and western provinces, a virtuous simplicity was the rule of life among the peasants, and even the cities did not
present any striking contrast. In many provinces, usage, not fortified by the text of any custom, allowed the seigneur to levy toll upon prostitutes exercising their calling within the limits of his jurisdiction. Some old titles and records refer to this practice. One sets down the tax paid by each prostitute at four deniers to the seigneur. Others intimate that the tax may be paid in money or in kind, at the option of the seigneur. In many seigniories this singular tax was regarded with the contempt it deserved.
In the south of France we meet with a different spectacle. There prostitution had long been a deeply-seated feature of society. The warm passions of the southerners required a vent, and, in the absence of some safety-valve, it was obvious to all that the ungovernable lusts of the men would soon kindle the inflammable passions of the dark southern women. Public houses of[Pg 99] prostitution were therefore established in three of the largest cities of the south—Toulouse, Avignon, and Montpellier.
That of Toulouse was established by royal charter, which declared that the profits of the enterprise should be shared equally by the city and the University. The building appropriated for the purpose was large and commodious, bearing the name of the Grand Abbaye. In it were lodged not only the resident prostitutes of the city, but any loose women who traveled that way, and desired to exercise their impure calling. It would appear that they received a salary from the city, and that the fees exacted from the customers were divided between the two public bodies to which the enterprise was granted. They were obliged to wear white scarfs and white ribbons or cords on one of their arms, as a badge of their calling.
When the unfortunate monarch Charles VI. visited Toulouse, the prostitutes of the Abbaye met him in a body, and presented an address. The king received them graciously, and promised to grant them whatever largess they should request. They begged to be released from the duty of wearing the white badges, and the king, faithful to his promise, granted the boon. A royal declaration specially exempted them from the old rule.[171] But the people of Toulouse, no doubt irritated by the want of some distinguishing mark between their wives and daughters and the “foolish women,” by common consent mobbed the prostitutes who availed themselves of the king’s ordinance. None of them could venture to appear in public without being liable to insult, and even bodily injury. Resolutely bent on carrying their point, the women shut themselves up in the Abbaye, and did their best to keep customers at a distance. Their calculation was just; the city and the University soon felt the effects of the diminution of visitors at the Abbaye. The corporation appealed to the king; and when, during the disorders which distracted France at that time, Charles VII.
visited Toulouse, a formal petition was presented to him by the capitones, praying that he would take such steps as his wisdom might seem fit to mediate between the prostitutes and the people, and restore to the Abbaye its former prosperity. The king acted with energy. He denounced the assailants of the prostitutes in the severest language, and planted his own royal fleurs de lis over the door of the Abbaye as a protection to the occupants.[172] But the people did not respect the royal arms any more than they did[Pg 100] the “foolish women.” On the contrary, assaults on the Abbaye became more numerous than ever. The prostitutes complained incessantly of having suffered violence at the hands of wild youths who refused to pay for their pleasures; and the civic authorities proving incompetent to check the disorder, the prostitutes found themselves compelled to seek refuge in a new part of the city, where, it is to be presumed, they enlisted adequate support among their own individual acquaintances. For a hundred years they inhabited their new domicil in peace and quiet. The University then dislodging them in order to occupy the spot, the city built them a new abbaye beyond the precincts of the respectable wards. It was called the Chateau vert, and its fame and profits equaled that of the old abbaye.
About the middle of the sixteenth century the city yielded to the scruples of some moralists of the day, and ceded the revenues of the Chateau vert to the hospitals; but the grant being made on condition that the hospitals should receive and cure all females attacked by venereal disease, it was found, after six years’ trial, that it cost more than it yielded. The hospitals surrendered the chateau to the city. It happened, just at this time, that many eminent philosophers and economists were advocating a return to the old ecclesiastical policy of suppressing prostitution altogether. After a discussion which lasted several years, the city of Toulouse adopted these views, and closed the Chateau vert. A magistrate, high in authority, left on record his protest against this course, founded on the scenes of immorality he had himself witnessed in the suburbs, and the country in the neighborhood of Toulouse; but the city authorities adhered to their opinion, and contented themselves with arresting some of the most shameless of the free prostitutes.[173] From that time forth, prostitution at Toulouse was subject to the same rules as in the rest of France. The history of prostitution at Montpellier was analogous. At an early period,