f her womb,
was, as a rule, sentenced to suffer the most cruel death penalty; nobody
bothered about the unconscionable seducer himself. Perchance he even sat
on the Judge's bench, which decreed the sentence of death upon the poor
victim. The same happens to-day.[46] Likewise was adultery by the wife
punished most severely; she was certain of the pillory, at least; but
over the adultery of the husband the mantle of Christian charity was
thrown.

In Wuerzburg, during the Middle Ages, the keeper of women swore before
the Magistrate: "To be true and good to the city, and to procure women."
Similarly in Nuerenberg, Ulm, Leipsic, Cologne, Frankfurt and elsewhere.
In Ulm, where the "houses of women" were abolished in 1537, the guilds
moved in 1551 that they be restored "in order to avoid worse disorders."
Distinguished foreigners were provided with _filles de joie_ at the
expense of the city. When King Ladislaus entered Vienna in 1452, the
Magistrate sent to meet him a deputation of public girls, who, clad only
in light gauze, revealed the handsomest shapes. At his entry into
Brugges, the Emperor Charles V was likewise greeted by a deputation of
naked girls. Such occurrences met not with objection in those days.

Imaginative romancers, together with calculating people, have endeavored
to represent the Middle Ages as particularly "moral," and animated with
a veritable worship for woman. The period of the Minnesangers--from the
twelfth to the fourteenth century--contributed in giving a color to the
pretence. The knightly "Minnedienst" (service of love) which the French,
Italian and German knights first became acquainted with among the
Moriscos of Spain, is cited as evidence concerning the high degree of
respect in which woman was held at that time. But there are several
things to be kept in mind. In the first place, the knights constituted
but a trifling percentage of the population, and, proportionately, the
knights' women of the women in general; in the second place, only a very
small portion of the knights exercised the so-called "Minnedienst;"
thirdly, the true nature of this service is grossly misunderstood, or
has been intentionally misrepresented. The age in which the
"Minnedienst" flourished was at the same time the age of the grossest
right-of-the-fist in Germany,--an age when all bonds of order were
dissolved; and the knights indulged themselves without restraint in
waylaying of travelers, robbery and incendiarism. Su