Particularly detrimental to the moral condition of the age were the crusades, that kept tens of thousands of men away from their homes for years, and led them to become acquainted with customs in the Eastern Roman empire that had until then been unknown in Western Europe. The position of women became especially unfavorable, not only as a result of the many hindrances to marriage and permanent residence, but also because their numbers by far exceeded the male population. The chief cause of this was the numerous wars and the fact that commercial traveling in those days was a dangerous undertaking. Moreover the death rate among men was higher than among women, as a result of their intemperate living, which was especially manifested during the plague that frequently ravaged the population in the middle age. Thus there were 32 plague years in the period from 1326 to 1400; 41 from 1400 to 1500, and 30 from 1500 to 1600.[34]
Hosts of women roamed about on the highways as musicians, dancers, magicians, in the company of wandering scholastics and priests, and flooded the markets and fairs. They formed special divisions in the troops of foot-soldiers where they were organized in guilds according to the spirit of the age, and were assigned to the different ranks according to age and beauty. By severe penalty they were forbidden to yield to any man outside of the prescribed circle. In the camp they had to help the baggage-carriers to gather in hay, straw and wood, to fill up holes and ditches and to clean the camp. During sieges it was their task to fill up the ditches with brushwood, branches and tufts of grass to facilitate the attack; they helped to place the guns in position and to drag them along when they became stuck in the muddy roads.[35] To give some relief to these numerous helpless women, so called beguinages, that were maintained by the municipality, were erected in many cities from the middle of the thirteenth century on. Here the women were given homes and were encouraged to lead decent lives. But neither their institutions nor the nunneries could shelter all those who sought help and protection.
The hindrances to marriage, the journeys of noblemen and other worldly and spiritual lords who came into the cities with their hosts of knights and attendants, the young men within the cities and, last but not least, the married men who were not troubled much by moral scruples but believed that variety was the spice of life,—all these created a demand for prostitutes in the medieval towns. As every trade in those days was organized into guilds and submitted to definite regulations, so also was prostitution. In all the larger cities brothels were maintained that were municipal, state or church property and whose profits went to fill these respective treasuries. The women in these houses had a senior-mistress elected by themselves, whose duty it was to maintain order and who was especially charged with the task of seeing to it that no competitors outside of the guild harmed the legitimate trade. If such competitors were caught, they had to pay a legal fine. Thus the inhabitants of a brothel in Nuremberg complained to the magistrate about the competition of women who were not members of their guild: “that other keepers also maintain women who go upon the streets at night and harbour married men and others, and who ply their trade in a much coarser way, and that such were a disgrace and should not be permitted in this praiseworthy town.”[36] The brothels enjoyed special protection; breach of the peace in their vicinity was punished more severely than elsewhere. This female guild was also entitled to appear at festivals and in processions in which it was customary for all the guilds to participate. They were even sometimes invited as guests to princely and official banquets. The brothels were considered desirable “for the protection of married women and the honor of virgins.” This was the same argument which was resorted to in order to justify the maintenance of brothels by the state in Athens. Nevertheless barbarous persecutions of the prostitutes were met with, that came from the same men whose demand and whose money maintained the prostitutes. Thus Charlemagne decreed that a prostitute should be brought nude upon the market place and be flogged there. He himself, the “most Christian” king and emperor had no less than six wives simultaneously. His daughters, evidently following their father’s example, were not models of virtue either. Their mode of life gave him many unpleasant hours, and they brought several illegitimate children into his house. Alkuin, a friend and advisor to Charlemagne, warned his pupils of “the crowned doves who fly thru the Palatinate at night,” meaning the emperor’s daughters.
The same communities that officially organized and protected the brothels and granted all sorts of privileges to the prostitutes inflicted the hardest and most cruel punishments upon a poor forsaken girl who had gone wrong. The infanticide who, driven to despair, had killed her own offspring was subjected to cruel death, while no one bothered about the unscrupulous seducer. Perhaps he sat among the judges who pronounced the death sentence on the unfortunate victim. The same is possible still.[37] Adultery of wives was also severely punished; to be put in the pillory was the least she might expect. But adultery of husbands was concealed by the cloak of Christian forbearance.
In Wuerzburg it was customary for the brothel-keeper to take an oath before the magistrate, pledging faith and allegiance to the city and that he would diligently enlist women. Similar oaths were taken in Nuremberg, Ulm, Leipsic, Cologne, Frankfort, and others. In Ulm the brothels were abolished in 1537; but in 1551, the guilds moved to reinstate them “to avoid a worse state of affairs.” When strangers of note visited a city, prostitutes were placed at their disposal at the city’s expense. When King Ladislaus entered Vienna in 1452, the magistrate sent a committee of public prostitutes to meet him, clad in transparant gauze that disclosed their beautiful shapes. Emperor Charles V, upon entering Antwerp, was also received by a committee of nude girls, a historic scene that Hans Makart depicted in a large painting which is now on exhibition in the museum at Hamburg. Such occurrences created no scandal in those days.
Would he not be fickle
Who would choose to have a second wife
Beside his virtuous one? Speak, Sir, would you?—
Let it to men be granted but to women not!
[34] Dr. Charles Buecher: “The Woman Question in Mediæval Times.”
[35] Dr. Charles Buecher: “The Woman Question in Medieval Times.”