Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c9.20

v1.c9.20

As is well known, the vast numbers of prostitutes were in the Middle Ages also, and not least in Germany, well cared for by the State, looked on with favour by the townsfolk and the rulers, and the object especially of keen interest from the clergy and monks, and so forth. Cp. addition, 375.27 in my Kautilya, and as an explanation of Manu, x, 47, Agnipur., 151.14b: *strijivanam tu, tadrakshā, proktam vaidehakasya ca*. A visiting prince was entertained with the free entry into the houses of ill fame; the public women even went to meet such august lords outside the gates as his escort of honour, was done for King Sigismund at Ulm in 1434. References are to be found in Ploss-Bartels, i, 416 ff.; Günther, *Weib u. Sittlichkeit*, p. 197 ff.; Weinhold, *Die deutschen Frauen i. d. Mittelalter*, ii, 2 ff.; Schultz, *Das höfische Leben zur Zeit d. Minnesinger*, chap. vii; Max Bauer, *Die Dirne u. ihr Anhang*, pp. 94-100. Here we give only one more passage: "Everywhere at public festivities, especially the reception of princes, they (the public women) were represented as a separate class beside the rest of the people organized in corporations. When important persons were passing through, their (the women's) houses were specially ornamented and lighted to receive them; indeed sometimes on such occasions they were clothed at the town's expense. In Zürich it was still the custom in 1516 that the burgomaster, the servants of the court of justice, and the public women should eat together with the foreign envoys who came to the town" (Dr. C. Bücher, *Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter*, p. 46 f.).