London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

One example of good legislation was the pragmatic law of 1470 to protect the unfortunates against the cupidity, the extortion, and the fraud of tavern keepers and others, who grew rich upon their infamy. Men went into their places of entertainment with some single girls, contracted a heavy debt, and then left their victims to pay. These were then given the choice of a disgraceful whipping or an engagement in the house. They often consented, and usually spent the remainder of their lives in dependence on their creditor, without ability to liberate themselves. By the new law masters of taverns were forbidden to give credit to prostitutes for more than a certain sum, and this only to supply her with food and clothing absolutely necessary. If he exceeded this amount he had no legal means of recovering it.

The most remarkable feature in the Neapolitan legislation on this subject was, the establishment, at an unknown but early date, of the Court of Prostitutes. This tribunal, which sat at Naples, had its peculiar constitution, and had jurisdiction over all cases connected with prostitution, blasphemy, and some other infamous offences. Towards the end of the sixteenth century it had risen to extraordinary power and was full of abuses. It practised all kinds of exaction and violence, every species of partiality and injustice, and even presumed to publish edicts of its own. The judges flung into prison numbers of young girls, whom they compelled to buy their liberty with money, and sometimes dared to seize women who, though of lax conduct, could not be included in the professional class. This was discovered, and led in 1589 to a reform of the court. Its powers were strictly defined, and its form of procedure placed under regulation, while the avenues to corruption were narrowed. The institution itself existed for nearly a hundred years after that period—until 1768, when a royal edict declared the ruler’s resolution to abolish the infamous calling altogether. Vice, however, when widely spread in a nation, does not vanish at the breath of authority. Denounced by the law, prostitution continued to flourish and society to feel its influence.

Passing from the south to regions with a less voluptuous climate, we find Strasburgh as overflowing with vice as perhaps any other city in the world. Prostitutes were in the fifteenth century so numerous there that, though a distinct quarter was assigned for their residences, they invaded every locality, and swarmed in the finest streets. Speculators were accustomed to travel abroad and bring home unfortunate girls, whom they kidnapped and reduced to a state of slavery. Officers were appointed to visit the brothels and collect the tax imposed on them. More than fifty-seven of these places existed in six streets only. One contained nineteen, while other neighbourhoods were infested in an equal degree. At the commencement of the sixteenth century, so far were public manners demoralized that prostitutes horded in the clock towers and aisles of the great cathedral as well as in several smaller churches. In 1521 an ordinance appeared directing the “cathedral girls,” who were called “swallows,” to quit the sacred places of their retreat within fifteen days. To those who persevered in their libertine mode of life, various residences were assigned—in the suburbs. Strasburgh was now in the depth of demoralization; but the Reformation soon visited the city, awakened its people from sensual pleasures to an intellectual battle, and a speedy change was apparent. In 1536 there were only two brothels there. In 1540 public prostitution was effectually suppressed. Ten years after it was proposed to establish a house of legal debauch; but the attempt was resisted, though renewed in the third and fourth year after this.

It was little matter to the prostitutes to inhabit houses especially dedicated to their vile traffic. They cared not to wait passively at home for visitors. Wherever men congregated for pleasure or for the business of life, wherever there was any chance of provoking their desires, they thronged, sometimes impelled by the love of excitement, sometimes by the pains of hunger. They thus transformed into so many brothels wine houses, barber’s shops, and students’ rooms, and the perseverance of government against them was by no means equalled by their own tenacity. An edict of 1420 forbade prostitutes to enter the cabarets; another of 1558 prohibited tavern-keepers from entertaining them. Another denounced gambling, and prostitutes were only allowed when desirous of refreshment to stand without and drink what was handed to them from within. In England similar regulations was established, and barbers especially were made the object of very severe restrictions. Sempstresses and butchers were forbidden to employ any females of bad character, and others were restrained by similar laws.

All these efforts, however, to render the sisterhood of prostitutes a homeless, desolate, hopeless class—to deprive them of shelter, of comforts, and the honest means of life—failed in purifying the manners of the age. The baths became a regular resort of women belonging to this order—in Paris, in Geneva, in Venice, in Rome, in Naples, in Milan, in Ferrara, in Bologna, in Lucca, and in every other city of the Peninsula—so that there was scarcely the keeper of a bath who was not at the same time a brothel keeper, employing numbers of Ruffiani to procure attendance at his house. There were other cities in which baths were publicly tolerated and recognised as places of prostitution. Among these were Avignon and London. A statute of the Church of Avignon, dated 1441, interdicted the use of certain baths, known to be brothels, to the priests and clergy. An offence committed by day was not punished half so severely as one committed by night. There is only one other instance of a punishment inflicted during that age on men who violated the public law of morals. It was that of certain citizens of Anvers in Flanders, who were condemned to make a pilgrimage to expiate an offence of this kind. On one occasion, indeed, of which the date is lost, the magistrates of Bourdeaux caused a man to be hanged for forcibly violating a prostitute.

In Avignon, however, the licence of prostitution was shortly taken away. The residence of the popes in that city had attracted a concourse of strangers from all parts of the globe, and brothels sprung up in profusion in the neighbourhood of churches, at the door of the Papal palace, and side by side with prelatical residences—a display of libertinism so gross that the public acts of encouragement at once ceased, and an edict drove all the prostitutes out of the city.

In London, as we have said, as at Avignon, prostitution took refuge in the public baths—a practice of very ancient date. These places were situated in the borough of Southwark, which was not included in the city until 1550. It was a miserable quarter, full of inhabited ruins, to which some public gardens, dedicated to dog and bear baiting, alone attracted the people of the neighbourhood. In this general preliminary sketch it is not necessary to say more of London.

In various parts of Europe a continual stream of edicts was poured out against the system of prostitution; but it was only persecuting the victims, instead of eradicating the causes. In some States, as in Lombardy, men were forbidden to give them an asylum; they were prohibited from appearing among honest citizens; they were prevented from purchasing food or clothes, or borrowing money by the hire of their persons; in fact, fines, prisons, whips, still continued to attempt the reform of morals.

Hitherto, however, we have seen prostitution in some places protected, but in all restrained, though everywhere freely exercised by those persons who would brave its perils and its disgrace. It was now sought, by the direct and continuous intervention of the law, to transform it into a public institution, organized, watched, disciplined, by particular officers, and subjected to special authority. In France, and especially in Languedoc, these principles were, during the middle ages, firmly established. Louis XI. proclaimed, that from the remotest antiquity it was the custom in Languedoc to have a house and asylum for public women. The most celebrated of these were at Toulouse and Montpellier. That at Toulouse was known to exist during the twelfth century, and by an abuse of terms, not uncommon at that period, was called the Great Abbey. The Commune and the University divided the expense, and were proprietors of the building, and a good revenue was derived from it for municipal purposes. But in 1424 the receipts diminished considerably, to the great regret of the governors. The turbulent youth of Toulouse behaved to the poor girls, whom they sacrificed to their lust, with the utmost violence and brutality—beating them and their children, breaking up the furniture, and wrenching off even the doors of the house. Many attempts were made to repress these outbreaks, but the prostitutes were at length compelled to take refuge in the interior of the city. Severe regulations were imposed upon them. All who were diseased were compelled to live in solitude until cured, and some were whipped for disobedience. On one occasion, when a famine prevented the inhabitants from indulging in their ordinary pleasures, the prostitutes emigrated, but returned to their post in 1560. The magistrates, shamed by public outcry, which accused them of purchasing their robes from the tax on debauched women, abandoned the money, at this time, to the hospitals; but the administrators of these afterwards made them some compensation. In 1566 a council was called to deliberate on the best means of ridding the city from the profligacy and wickedness which had grown up through the immense licensed brothels it contained. To increase the scandal, four prostitutes were discovered in a monastery of Augustine friars. Three of these unhappy girls were hung. Shortly afterwards three others were found in a convent, and they also were sent to the gallows.

It appears that in 1587 prostitution was almost eradicated from Toulouse, though it flourished in the rural districts around. Many of the girls were forced to labour at cleansing the streets as a punishment. Two decrees of Louis XI. and Charles VIII. indicate the history of prostitution at Montpellier in the fifteenth century. A man named Panais possessed and governed the place devoted to this purpose, and dying, left a dynasty of brothel keepers—two sons, who associated with a banker. They embellished the edifice, furnished it luxuriously, constructed beautiful baths, and obtained a legal monopoly in their infamous traffic, by engaging to pay a certain tax. However, in 1458, another individual was permitted to establish himself, which he did with éclat, and the women deserted their old quarters for the new “hotel.” A public cause was made of the quarrel, and it was decided that the original promoters should continue to enjoy their privilege. The two brothel keepers, who gained the titles of “Friends and faithful Councillors of the King of France,” grew wealthy, and their trade of prostitution became one of the most important branches of enterprise in the city.