disease. The act of 1161 forbade the bordell-keepers to have women suffering from the “perilous infirmity of burning”; and by an order of 1430 they were forbidden to admit men suffering from an infirmitas nefanda. Probably it was by virtue of this order that in 1439 two keepers were condemned to eleven days' imprisonment and banishment from the city. In 1473, again, it is recorded that bawds and strumpets were severely handled by Lord Mayor Hampton.
Elsewhere in Europe much the same state of things prevailed during the same period. Prostitution was both protected and regulated, and in many places it constituted a source of public revenue. In France prostitutes were distinguished by a badge, and forbidden to wear jewels and fine stuffs and to frequent certain parts of the town. Public brothels on a large scale were established at Toulouse, Avignon and Montpellier. At Toulouse the profits were shared between the city and the university; at Montpellier and Avignon the trade was a municipal monopoly, and farmed out to individuals; at Avignon, where the establishment was kept up during the whole period of the popes' residence, the inmates were subjected to a weekly examination. In 1254 Louis IX. issued an edict exiling prostitutes and brothel keepers; but it was repealed two years later, though in this and the succeeding century procuration was punished with extreme severity. In some parts of France prostitutes paid a tax to the seigneur. In Germany, according to Fiducin, the public protection of Lust-Dirnen was a regular thing in all the large towns during the middle ages. “Frauenhäuser,” similar to those in London and in France, existed in many places. They are mentioned in Hamburg in 1292; and from later records it appears that they were built by the corporation, which farmed them. So also in Ulm, where special regulations were issued in 1430. We find them existing at Regensburg in 1306, at Zürich in 1314, at Basel in 1356 and Vienna in 1384. According to Henne-am-Rhyn, admission to these houses was forbidden to married men, clergy and Jews, and on Sundays and saints' days they were closed. The laws of the emperor Frederick II. in the 13th century contain some curious provisions. Any one convicted of a criminal assault on a prostitute against her will was liable to be beheaded; if she made a false accusation she was subject to the same penalty. Any one not going to the assistance of a woman calling for help was liable to a heavy fine. In these ordinances the influence of chivalry may be detected. At the same time prostitutes were forbidden to live among respectable women or go to the baths with them. Hospitality to important guests included placing the public Frauenhäuser at their disposal. So King (afterwards Emperor) Sigismund was treated at Bern in 1414 and at Ulm in 1434, so much to his satisfaction that he publicly complimented his hosts on it. Besides the municipal Frauenhäuser, there were “Winkelhäuser,” which were regarded as irregular competitors. In 1492 the licensed women of Nuremberg complained to the mayor of this unfair competition, and in 1508 they received his permission to storm the obnoxious Winkelhaus, which they actually did. In Italy and Spain the system appears to have been very much the same. At Bologna prostitutes had to wear a distinctive dress, in Venice they were forbidden to frequent the wine-shop, and in Ravenna they were compelled to leave a neighbourhood on the complaint of other residents. At Naples a court of prostitutes was established, having jurisdiction over everything connected with prostitution. It led to great abuses, was reformed in 1589, and abolished about a century later.
Such was the state of things in the middle ages. In the 15th and 16th centuries a great change took place. It was due to two very different causes: (1) fear of disease; (2) the Reformation. With regard to the first, there can be little doubt that both the slighter and graver forms of venereal disease existed in very remote times, but until the 15th century they attracted comparatively little attention. The constitutional character of syphilis was certainly not understood—which is by no means surprising, since its pathology has only recently been elucidated (see Veneral Diseases)—but one would still have expected to find more notice taken of it by historical, moral and medical writers in classical and medieval times. Nor is it possible to explain their reticence by prudery, in view of the unbounded literary licence permitted in those ages. One can only conclude that the evil was less widely spread or less virulent than it afterwards became. At the end of the 15th century it attracted so much notice that it was supposed to have originated then de novo, or to have been brought from the West Indies by Columbus—both untenable hypotheses; and, as usual, each country accused some other of bringing the contagion within its borders. To speculate on the cause of this increased prevalence would be idle; it is enough to note the fact and its consequences. It was immediately followed by the Reformation, and the two together led to a general campaign against the system of licensed prostitution. The last Frauenhaus was closed in Ulm in 1531, in Basel in 1534 and in Nuremberg in 1562. In London, as already noted, the bordells were abolished in 1546. In Paris an ordinance was issued in 1560 prohibiting these establishments, and later all prostitutes were required to leave the city within twenty-four hours. These instances will suffice to show the general character of the movement. Nor were municipal brothels ever tolerated again. It is observed by Henne-am-Rhyn—no friend of toleration—that their suppression was followed by the appearance of the crime of infanticide, by the establishment of hospitals for foundlings and for syphilis. This suggests an indictment against humanity which is hardly justified by the facts. Infanticide was no new thing, and foundling hospitals date from the beginning of the 13th century. Their marked increase and the establishment of syphilitic hospitals came a century later than the Reformation campaign against the Frauenhäuser. The suppression of the latter did not affect the prevalence of prostitution. In the 17th century another spasm of severity occurred. In 1635 an edict was issued in Paris condemning men concerned in the traffic to the galleys for life; women and girls to be whipped, shaved and banished for life, without formal trial. These ordinances were modified by Louis XIV. in 1684. The Puritan enactments in England were equally savage. Fornication was punishable by three months' imprisonment, followed by bail for good behaviour. Bawds were condemned to be whipped, pilloried, branded and imprisoned for three years; the punishment for a second offence was death. In Hamburg all brothels were pulled down and the women expelled from the town. If these measures had any effect, it was speedily lost in a greater reaction; but they have some historical interest, as the present system was gradually evolved from them.
It would be tedious and unprofitable to follow all the steps, the shifts and turns of policy, adopted in different countries during the 18th century for the suppression or control of an incurable evil. They involve no new principle, and merely represent phases in the evolution of the more settled and more systematic procedure in force at the present time. Its chief feature, as compared with the past, is the establishment of an organized police force, to which the control of prostitution is entrusted, coupled with a general determination to put the subject out of sight and ignore it as far as possible. The procedure on the continent of Europe is virtually a return to the old Roman system of registration and supervision, except that there is no state tax, and names can be removed from the register. The objects are the same, namely, public order and decency, with one important addition, which has given rise to much controversy. This is the protection of health. From what has gone before, the reader will have gathered that it is not, as frequently supposed, a new thing. Already in the middle ages the question occupied the attention of parliament in England, and a weekly examination of public women by the barber (the surgeon of that time) was instituted at Avignon. The practice was adopted in Spain from about 1500, and later in many other places. But the abolition of licensed brothels, and the consequent growth of private prostitution, rendered it a dead letter. To meet the difficulty, registration was devised. It was first suggested in France in 1765, but was not adopted until 1778. The present regulations in France are based on the ordinances of that year and of 1780 which in their turn were borrowed from
