Woman in the Mediaeval Age.
1.--The Position of Women among the Germans.
The robust, physically healthy, coarse but unsophisticated peoples
that during the first centuries after Christ came from the North and
East, flooding like mighty ocean waves the enervated Roman empire in
which Christianity had gradually come into power, vehemently resisted
the ascetic teachings of the Christian preachers, who were obliged to
make allowances for these healthy natures. The Romans were surprised
to find that the customs of these peoples differed considerably from
their own. Tacitus takes note of this fact in regard to the Germans,
of whom he thus expresses his approval: “Their marriage laws are
severe and none of their customs are more laudable than this one, for
they are practically the only barbarians who content themselves with
one wife. Among this numerous people one rarely hears of adultery,
and when it does occur, it is promptly punished, the men themselves
being permitted to inflict the punishment. Naked, her hair clipped,
thus the man drives the adulteress out of the village before the
eyes of her relatives, for a sin against virtue is not condoned.
There nobody laughs over vice and to seduce and being seduced are
not considered a sign of good breeding. The youths marry late;
therefore they maintain their strength. The maidens, too, are not
married off hastily, and they are of the same stature as the men,
and present the same healthful glow of youth. Of equal age, equally
strong, they wed, and the strength of the parents is transmitted to
the children.”
Evidently Tacitus depicted the matrimonial relations of the ancient
Germans in a somewhat too rosy hue, to set them before the Romans as
an example. They indeed severely punished the woman who committed
adultery, but the punishment was not inflicted upon the man who
committed adultery. At the time of Tacitus, the gens still flourished
among the Germans. Tacitus, being accustomed to the more advanced
Roman conditions that made the old gentile organization and its
foundations seem strange and incomprehensible to him, wonderingly
relates that among the Germans a mother’s brother regards his nephew
as a son, and that some considered the bond of blood relation between
an uncle on the mother’s side and his nephew as being even more
sacred than the bond between father and son. For this reason, so he
furthermore relates, when hostages were asked for, it was considered
a stronger security when a man gave his sister’s son instead of his
own. Upon this subject Engels remarks: “When the member of a gens
gave his own son as a hostage and he was sacrificed by a breach of
the agreement, it was the father’s own concern. But if his sister’s
son had been sacrificed a sacred gentile right had been violated.
The nearest gentile relation by duty bound to protect the boy or
youth, had caused his death. He should either not have pledged him,
or should have kept his agreement.”[30] Engels shows that in other
respects among the Germans at the time of Tacitus, the matriarchate
had already been replaced by the patriarchate. The children inherited
from their father. In the absence of children, brothers and uncles on
both the father’s and mother’s side were the lawful heirs. That the
mother’s brother was admitted to a share in the inheritance, although
inheritance was determined by descent on the father’s side, can be
explained by the fact that the old law had but recently disappeared.
Memories of the old law also caused that profound respect of the
German for the female sex, which so greatly surprised Tacitus. He
also observed that the courage of the men was kindled to the utmost
by the women. The thought of seeing their women led into captivity
and servitude was most terrible to the ancient Germans and impelled
them to the utmost resistance. But the women also were animated by
a spirit that greatly impressed the Romans. When Marius would not
permit the captured Teuton women to become priestesses of Vesta (the
goddess of virgin chastity) they committed suicide.
At the time of Tacitus the Germans possessed fixed abodes. There was
an annual division of the soil, which was determined by lot, and
the wood, the streams and the pasture-ground were considered common
property. Their mode of life was extremely simple; their wealth
consisted mainly of cattle; coarse woolen cloaks or the hides of
animals constituted their clothing. Women and some men of rank wore
linen under-garments. Metal tools and weapons were manufactured only
by those tribes who lived in too remote parts for the importation of
Roman products of industry. In minor matters decisions were rendered
by the council of chiefs; in more important matters by the popular
assembly. Originally the chiefs were elected, though usually from
one particular family. But the transition to the patriarchal system
favored the heredity of the position, and finally led to the formation
of a hereditary nobility that later on developed into kingship. As
in Greece and Rome, the German gens perished by the rise of private
property, the development of industry and commerce, and intermarriage
with members of foreign tribes and nations. The gens was replaced
by the mark community, a democratic organization of free peasants
that constituted a firm bulwark against the encroachments of church
and nobility for many centuries, and did not quite disappear even
then when the feudal state had come into power and the free peasants
had been forced into a condition of servitude. The mark community
was represented by the heads of the families. Wives, daughters and
daughters-in-law were excluded from the council. The times had passed
in which women conducted the affairs of the tribe--an incident
which greatly amazed Tacitus, and which he describes with remarks
of scorn. In the fifth century the Salic law repealed the right of
inheritance of women to patrimonial estates.
Every male member of the mark community was entitled, upon marriage,
to share in the common soil. Usually grandparents, parents and
children lived under one roof in a household community, and so it
frequently occurred that for the purpose of obtaining an additional
share, a son who had not yet attained the marriageable age was joined
in wedlock with some maiden of marriageable age by proxy, the father
acting as husband in place of the son.[31] Newly married couples
were given a cartload of beachwood and wood to build a log cabin.
Upon the birth of a daughter, parents also received one cartload
of wood; upon the birth of a son they received two. The female sex
accordingly was considered worth only half as much as the male sex.
The marriage ceremony was simple. Religious rites were unknown. A
mutual agreement was sufficient, and as soon as the couple had entered
the nuptial bed, the marriage was contracted. Only in the ninth
century that custom arose according to which a religious ceremony
was necessary to legalize a marriage, and as late as the sixteenth
century, marriage was made a sacrament of the Catholic Church by a
decision of the council of Trent.
[30] Engels: “Origin of the Family.”
[31] The same custom was met with in Russia during the rule of Mir.
2.--Feudalism and the Right of the First Night.
With the rise of the feudal state the position of a great many
commoners became considerably worse. The victorious leaders of the
army abused their power by taking possession of large tracts of land.
They considered themselves entitled to the common property, and did
not hesitate to distribute it among their followers, slaves, serfs or
freed men, either for temporary use or with the right of inheritance.
Thereby they created for themselves a court and military nobility,
devoted to them in all things. The establishment of a large realm
of the Franks destroyed the last traces of gentile organization.
The council of the chiefs was replaced by the leaders of the army
and the newly created nobility.
Gradually the great mass of the commoners were driven into a condition
of exhaustion and pauperism, as a result of the continuous wars of
conquest and the disputes of their rulers, for which they had to bear
the heaviest burdens. They could no longer serve in the militia.
In their place the lords and noblemen recruited vassals, and the
peasants placed themselves and their possessions under the protection
of a worldly or spiritual lord--for the church had succeeded in
becoming a great power within a few centuries--in return for which
they paid rent and taxes. Thus the free farms were transformed into
leased property, and as time went by new duties were constantly
imposed. Having once come into this dependent position, it was not
long before the peasants were deprived of their personal liberty as
well. Bondage and serfdom expanded more and more. The feudal lord
held almost unrestricted sway over his serfs. His was the right to
compel any man who had attained the eighteenth and any girl who had
attained the fourteenth year, to become married. He could prescribe
to both men and women whom they were to marry, even in the case of
widows and widowers. As lord of his subjects, he considered himself
entitled to sexual intercourse with his female serfs, and his power
was expressed in the “jus primae noctis” (the right of the first
night). This right might also be practiced by his representative
(major domo) unless the right were waived upon payment of a tax. The
terms “bed-tribute,” “virgin’s tribute,” etc., betray the nature of
these taxes.
It has frequently been denied that this right of the first night
existed. The knowledge of its existence is uncomfortable to some
people, because it was still practiced at a time that they like to
represent as a model for virtuousness and piety. We have already shown
that this right of the first night was a custom which had its origin
in the time of the matriarchate. When the old gentile organization
disappeared, the custom of surrendering the bride in the bridal
night to the members of her kinship was still maintained. But in the
course of time the right was restricted and finally practiced only
by the chief or priest. It was transferred upon the feudal lord as
a result of his power over the people who lived upon the land owned
by him, and he might practice this right if he so chose, or waive
it in return for a payment in kind or in money. How real was this
right of the first night may be seen by the following passage from
a tale by Jacob Grimm: “The groom shall invite the manager of the
estate to the wedding and he shall also invite the manager’s wife.
The manager shall bring a cartload of wood to the wedding, and his
wife shall bring a quarter of a roasted pig. When the wedding is
over, the groom shall let the manager lie with his wife for the first
night, or he shall redeem her with five shillings and six pence.”
Sugenheim[32] holds the opinion that the right of the first night
was given to the feudal lord because his serfs, in order to marry,
needed his consent. In Béarn this practice led to the custom that all
first-born children of marriages in which the “jus primae noctis”
had been practiced, were regarded as of free estate. Later on this
right was generally redeemable by the payment of a tax. According
to Sugenheim, the bishops of Amiens stubbornly maintained this tax
until the beginning of the fifteenth century. In Scotland the right
of the first night was declared redeemable by payment of a tax by
King Malcolm III at the close of the eleventh century. In Germany it
existed much longer. According to the records of the Swabian monastery
Adelberg of the year 1496, the serfs living in the community of
Boertlingen, could redeem the right if the groom gave a bag of salt
and the bride gave 1 lb 7 shillings in a dish “large enough that she
might sit in it.” In other localities the brides might redeem it by
giving the feudal lord so much butter or cheese “as was the size of
their seat.” Elsewhere they had to give a dainty leather chair “in
which they just fitted.” According to a description of the Bavarian
judge of the court of appeals, Mr. Welsh, a tax for redeeming the jus
primae noctis still existed in Bavaria in the eighteenth century.
Engels furthermore reports that among the Scots and Welsh the jus
primae noctis was maintained thruout the middle age, but since here
the gentile organization continued to exist, it was not the feudal
lord or his representative who practiced this right, but the chieftain
of the clan, and by him it was practiced as representative of all
the husbands unless a tribute was paid.
So there can be no doubt as to the existence of the right of the
first night, not only in medieval days, but even down to modern
times, and that it held a place in the feudal code of laws. In Poland
noblemen arrogated the right to deflour any maiden who chanced to
please them, and if someone protested against this usage, they
condemned him to receive one hundred blows with a cane. Land-lords
and their employees still consider the sacrifice of virginal honor
to their lust a matter of course, not only in Germany, but in the
entire southern and south eastern portion of Europe, as is asserted
by those who are acquainted with the land and the people.
During feudalism it was in the interest of the feudal lord that
his serfs should become married, for the children became his serfs
also, adding to the number of his workers and increasing his income.
Therefore both worldly and spiritual masters encouraged marriage
among their subjects. The question assumed a different aspect tho
as far as the church was concerned, when an unmarried person was
likely to will his property to the church. But this only applied to
free men of low estate, whose conditions grew steadily worse as a
result of the conditions described herein, and who gave over their
possessions to the church to seek protection and peace within the
walls of the monasteries. Others again placed themselves under the
protection of the church by paying a tax or by rendering services.
But in this way the fate they had sought to escape frequently befell
their descendants; they gradually came into bondage or were made
novices for the monasteries.
[32] History of the abolition of serfdom in Europe until the middle
of the nineteenth century.
3.--The Rise of Cities.--Monastic Affairs.--Prostitution.
The cities which had begun to flourish with the eleventh century,
favored the increase of population in their own interest by
facilitating residence and marriage. They became places of refuge
to the rural population seeking to escape unbearable oppression,
and to fugitive serfs. But at a later day these conditions changed
again. As soon as the cities had obtained power, and a class of
mechanics in comfortable circumstances had come into existence,
a feeling of hostility manifested itself against new-comers who
tried to settle down as mechanics, since they were regarded as
undesirable competitors. Barriers were erected against the new-comers;
heavy taxes were levied upon them if they would obtain the right
of residence and become qualified as master-workmen. Trades were
limited to a certain number of master-workmen and their journeymen,
thereby forcing thousands into a condition of servitude, celibacy
and vagabondage. When during the sixteenth century the cities began
to decline,--owing to conditions that will be discussed later
on,--it was quite in keeping with the narrow views of the time that
residence and the right to independently practice a trade were made
still more difficult. The tyranny of the feudal lords constantly
increased, until many of their subjects preferred to abandon their
miserable lives for the freer life of beggar, tramp or robber, the
latter being favored by the large forests and the poor condition of
the highways, or, making the most of the numerous warfares of the
time, they became mercenary soldiers, selling their services wherever
the pay was highest and the booty most promising. Male and female
rabble flooded the country, becoming a public nuisance. The church
helped to increase the general depravity. The forced celibacy of the
clergy alone led to sexual debauchery, and this was still heightened
by the constant association with Italy and Rome.
Rome was not only the capital of Christianity, being the residence
of the popes, it was also, true to its traditions under the heathen
emperors, a new Babel, the European high-school of immorality, and
the papal court was its most distinguished center. The Roman empire
at its dissolution had left to Christian Europe all its vices. These
were cultivated in Rome and from there penetrated into Germany,
favored by association of the clergy with Rome. The numerous
clergy, consisting to a great extent of men whose sexual desires
were increased to the utmost by a lazy and luxurious life, and whom
enforced celibacy drove to illegitimate or unnatural satisfaction
of their desires, transmitted this immorality to all strata of
society. The clergy became a pestilential danger to the virtue of
women in cities and villages. Monasteries and nunneries,--and there
were countless numbers of them,--frequently differed from public
brothels only inasmuch as life within them was still more licentious
and dissolute. Crimes, especially infanticide, were frequently
committed there with impunity, because only those were permitted to
pass judgment who were more often than not connected with the crimes.
Sometimes peasants tried to protect their wives and daughters from
being seduced by clergymen, by refusing to accept as pastor any one
who would not consent to keeping a concubine. This circumstance led
a bishop of Constance to impose a concubine tax upon the clergy of
his diocese. Such conditions explain the historically authenticated
fact, that during the mediæval age described by one writer of romance
as a pious and virtuous age, for instance in 1414, at the council
of Constance, no less than 1500 prostitutes were present.
But these conditions by no means made their appearance only at the
decline of the middle age. They appeared at an early date and gave
cause for constant complaints and ordinances. Thus Charlemagne issued
an ordinance in the year 802, in which it says: “the nunneries shall
be closely guarded. The nuns shall not roam about but shall be
carefully watched, neither shall they live in discord and quarrels
with one another, and under no circumstances shall they disobey
their mothers superior. Where they have monastic rules they shall
absolutely abide by them. They shall not be given to covetousness,
drunkenness and prostitution, but shall lead a just and temperate
life. Neither shall any man enter their convent except to attend
mass, and then he shall immediately depart again.” Another ordinance
of the year 869 declared: “if priests keep ~several~ wives or shed
the blood of Christians or heathens, or break the canonical law, they
shall be divested of their priesthood because they are worse than
the laity.” The fact that in those days the priests were forbidden
to have several wives, shows that in the ninth century polygamy
was not rare. Indeed there were no laws forbidding it. Even later,
at the time of the minnesingers, during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, it was not considered objectionable to have several wives.
In a poem by Albrecht of Johansdorf in the collection “Love-songs’
Springtime,” we find the following stanza:[33]
Particularly detrimental to the moral condition of the age were the
crusades, that kept tens of thousands of men away from their homes
for years, and led them to become acquainted with customs in the
Eastern Roman empire that had until then been unknown in Western
Europe. The position of women became especially unfavorable, not
only as a result of the many hindrances to marriage and permanent
residence, but also because their numbers by far exceeded the male
population. The chief cause of this was the numerous wars and the fact
that commercial traveling in those days was a dangerous undertaking.
Moreover the death rate among men was higher than among women, as a
result of their intemperate living, which was especially manifested
during the plague that frequently ravaged the population in the
middle age. Thus there were 32 plague years in the period from 1326
to 1400; 41 from 1400 to 1500, and 30 from 1500 to 1600.[34]
Hosts of women roamed about on the highways as musicians, dancers,
magicians, in the company of wandering scholastics and priests, and
flooded the markets and fairs. They formed special divisions in the
troops of foot-soldiers where they were organized in guilds according
to the spirit of the age, and were assigned to the different ranks
according to age and beauty. By severe penalty they were forbidden
to yield to any man outside of the prescribed circle. In the camp
they had to help the baggage-carriers to gather in hay, straw and
wood, to fill up holes and ditches and to clean the camp. During
sieges it was their task to fill up the ditches with brushwood,
branches and tufts of grass to facilitate the attack; they helped to
place the guns in position and to drag them along when they became
stuck in the muddy roads.[35] To give some relief to these numerous
helpless women, so called beguinages, that were maintained by the
municipality, were erected in many cities from the middle of the
thirteenth century on. Here the women were given homes and were
encouraged to lead decent lives. But neither their institutions nor
the nunneries could shelter all those who sought help and protection.
The hindrances to marriage, the journeys of noblemen and other worldly
and spiritual lords who came into the cities with their hosts of
knights and attendants, the young men within the cities and, last
but not least, the married men who were not troubled much by moral
scruples but believed that variety was the spice of life,--all these
created a demand for prostitutes in the medieval towns. As every trade
in those days was organized into guilds and submitted to definite
regulations, so also was prostitution. In all the larger cities
brothels were maintained that were municipal, state or church property
and whose profits went to fill these respective treasuries. The women
in these houses had a senior-mistress elected by themselves, whose
duty it was to maintain order and who was especially charged with the
task of seeing to it that no competitors outside of the guild harmed
the legitimate trade. If such competitors were caught, they had to
pay a legal fine. Thus the inhabitants of a brothel in Nuremberg
complained to the magistrate about the competition of women who were
not members of their guild: “that other keepers also maintain women
who go upon the streets at night and harbour married men and others,
and who ply their trade in a much coarser way, and that such were a
disgrace and should not be permitted in this praiseworthy town.”[36]
The brothels enjoyed special protection; breach of the peace in their
vicinity was punished more severely than elsewhere. This female guild
was also entitled to appear at festivals and in processions in which
it was customary for all the guilds to participate. They were even
sometimes invited as guests to princely and official banquets. The
brothels were considered desirable “for the protection of married
women and the honor of virgins.” This was the same argument which
was resorted to in order to justify the maintenance of brothels by
the state in Athens. Nevertheless barbarous persecutions of the
prostitutes were met with, that came from the same men whose demand
and whose money maintained the prostitutes. Thus Charlemagne decreed
that a prostitute should be brought nude upon the market place and
be flogged there. He himself, the “most Christian” king and emperor
had no less than six wives simultaneously. His daughters, evidently
following their father’s example, were not models of virtue either.
Their mode of life gave him many unpleasant hours, and they brought
several illegitimate children into his house. Alkuin, a friend and
advisor to Charlemagne, warned his pupils of “the crowned doves who
fly thru the Palatinate at night,” meaning the emperor’s daughters.
The same communities that officially organized and protected the
brothels and granted all sorts of privileges to the prostitutes
inflicted the hardest and most cruel punishments upon a poor forsaken
girl who had gone wrong. The infanticide who, driven to despair, had
killed her own offspring was subjected to cruel death, while no one
bothered about the unscrupulous seducer. Perhaps he sat among the
judges who pronounced the death sentence on the unfortunate victim.
The same is possible still.[37] Adultery of wives was also severely
punished; to be put in the pillory was the least she might expect.
But adultery of husbands was concealed by the cloak of Christian
forbearance.
In Wuerzburg it was customary for the brothel-keeper to take an oath
before the magistrate, pledging faith and allegiance to the city and
that he would diligently enlist women. Similar oaths were taken in
Nuremberg, Ulm, Leipsic, Cologne, Frankfort, and others. In Ulm the
brothels were abolished in 1537; but in 1551, the guilds moved to
reinstate them “to avoid a worse state of affairs.” When strangers
of note visited a city, prostitutes were placed at their disposal
at the city’s expense. When King Ladislaus entered Vienna in 1452,
the magistrate sent a committee of public prostitutes to meet him,
clad in transparant gauze that disclosed their beautiful shapes.
Emperor Charles V, upon entering Antwerp, was also received by a
committee of nude girls, a historic scene that Hans Makart depicted
in a large painting which is now on exhibition in the museum at
Hamburg. Such occurrences created no scandal in those days.
[33]
Would he not be fickle
Who would choose to have a second wife
Beside his virtuous one? Speak, Sir, would you?--
Let it to men be granted but to women not!
[34] Dr. Charles Buecher: “The Woman Question in Mediæval Times.”
[35] Dr. Charles Buecher: “The Woman Question in Medieval Times.”
[36] Joh. Scherr, History of the German Woman, 4th ed. Leipsic, 1879.
[37] Leon Richter in “La femme libre” reports a case where a servant
girl was convicted of infanticide by the father of her child, a pious
lawyer, who was a member of the court. After the girl’s conviction
it became known that the lawyer himself was the murderer and that
she was innocent.
4.--Knighthood and the Veneration of Women.
Phantastic writers of romance and scheming persons have endeavored
to depict the mediæval age as an especially virtuous one, and as
one imbued with a profound veneration of women. The time of the
minnesingers, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, is dwelt
upon to furnish proof to this assertion. The poetic courtship of
the knights, that was first introduced by the Moriscos in Spain, is
supposed to prove that women were highly honored at that time. But
let a few facts be remembered. Firstly, the knights only constituted
a very small portion of the population, and in the same way their
ladies constituted a small portion of the women. Secondly, only a
very limited number of the knights practiced this knightly courtship;
and thirdly, the true nature of this custom has been considerably
misunderstood or distorted. The time when knighthood was in flower,
was the age of the rule of brute force in Germany; it was the age
in which all bonds of law and order were broken, and the knights
practiced extortion, plundering and highway-robbery without restraint.
Such an age of brute force is not one in which mild and poetic
sentiments predominate. On the contrary. This age was destined
to shatter the respect for the female sex that might still have
remained. The knights, in the country as well as in the towns, were
mostly coarse, brutal fellows, whose chief passion, besides warfare
and excessive drinking, was the unrestricted satisfaction of their
sexual desires. The chroniclers of that time tell of incessant acts
of violence and ravishment committed by the nobility of town and
country, who controlled the municipal governments throughout the
thirteenth, fourteenth and into the fifteenth centuries. Because
the knights conducted the courts in the towns, and the feudal lords
passed judgment in the rural districts, the injured persons rarely
obtained redress of their grievances. It is a great exaggeration
then to assume that their customs of courtship caused the ancient
nobility to treat women with special respect and to regard them as
superior beings.
A small minority of the knights seem to have been enthusiastic over
feminine beauty, but their enthusiasm was by no means platonic but
pursued very material aims. Even that clown among the romantic
admirers “of lovely women,” Ulrick of Lichtenstein of ridiculous
memory, was a platonic lover only so long as he was compelled to
be. In the main, this romantic worship of woman was nothing but
deification of the mistress at the expense of the legitimate wife;
it was nothing but courtesanship, as it has existed in Greece at the
time of Pericles, transplanted into medieval Christianity. The mutual
seduction of wives was frequently practiced among the knights also,
as it is still practiced in certain circles of our bourgeoisie.
The open manifestation of sensuality, characteristic of that age,
constituted a frank recognition of the fact that the natural desires
implanted in every healthy, adult human being rightfully seek
satisfaction. In that respect it expressed a victory of healthy
nature over the ascetic teachings of Christianity. But on the other
hand it must again be emphasized, that this recognition came into
consideration for the one sex only, while the other sex was treated
on the assumption that it could not and dare not have the same
impulses. The slightest transgression by women of the moral laws
laid down for them by men, was punished with unmerciful severity.
Women, as a result of constant oppression and a singular education,
have become so accustomed to the conception of their rulers, that
they still consider this condition quite natural. Were there not
also millions of slaves who considered slavery a natural condition
and who would never have liberated themselves had not the liberators
sprung from the slave owning class? When Prussian peasants were to
be emancipated from serfdom, they petitioned the government not to
emancipate them, “for who should provide for them when they were aged
or ill?” And do we not meet with the same situation in the modern
labor movement? How many workingmen still permit their exploiters
to influence them and lead them at will!
The oppressed needs some one to animate and inspire him, because he
lacks the initiative for independence. It was thus in the present
day movement of the proletariat, and it is the same in the struggle
for the emancipation of women. Even the bourgeoisie, that enjoyed a
relatively more favorable position in its struggle for independence,
found its leaders and spokesmen among the nobility and clergy.
Whatever the shortcomings of the middle ages may have been, it
possessed a healthy sensuality which sprang from the strong, buoyant
nature of the people, and which Christianity could not suppress.
The hypocritical prudery and concealed lasciviousness of our day,
that fears to call a spade a spade and to speak of natural things
in a natural way, was foreign to that age. Neither was it familiar
with that piquant ambiguity to which we resort in speaking of what
we dare not name, because to be prudish and unnatural has become
customary with us, and which is all the more dangerous because such
language allures, but does not satisfy, allows us to surmise but does
not express clearly. Our social conversations, our novels and our
theaters abound with these piquant ambiguities, and their effect is
manifested. This spiritualism of the roué, concealed by religious
spiritualism, has a powerful influence.