Читать книгу Medicine in the Middle Ages. Extracts from "Le Moyen Age Medical" by Dr. Edmond Dupouy; translated by T. C. Minor онлайн

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The establishments known as vapor baths, as early as the time of Saint Louis, had already degenerated into houses of prostitution. The police, in defense of public morality, were finally obliged to forbid fast women and diseased men from frequenting such places.

In Italy, vapor baths were recognized officially and tolerated as places of public debauchery; this was also the case in Avignon. The Synodal statutes of the Church of Avignon, in the year 1441, bear an ordinance drawn by the civil magistrates and applicable to married men and also to priests and clergy, forbidding access to the vapor baths on the Troucat Bridge, which were set apart as a place of tolerated debauchery by the municipal authorities. This ordinance contained a provision that was very uncommon in the Middle Ages, i.e., a fine of ten marks for a violation of the law during day time and twenty marks fine for a violation occurring under cover of night.

In 1448 the city council of Avignon again tried its hand at regulating the vapor baths at the bridge; but the golden days of debauched women had long before passed away, and the previous century had witnessed the acme of the courtesans’ fortunes. The sojourn of the Popes at Avignon had gathered together from all over the Globe a motley collection of pilgrims and begotten a frightful condition of libertinage; we have the authority of Petrarch in saying that it even surpassed that of the Eternal City, and Bishop Guillaume Durand presented the Council of Vienna with a graphic picture of this social evil.