Lucerne valley in Piedmont; and, as I read, it was practised in Scotland amongst Christians themselves, until King Malcolm’s time, the king or the lord of the town had their maidenheads.  In some parts of [6224]India in our age, and those [6225]islanders, [6226]as amongst the Babylonians of old, they will prostitute their wives and daughters (which Chalcocondila, a Greek modern writer, for want of better intelligence, puts upon us Britons) to such travellers or seafaring men as come amongst them by chance, to show how far they were from this feral vice of jealousy, and how little they esteemed it.  The kings of Calecut, as [6227]Lod.  Vertomannus relates, will not touch their wives, till one of their Biarmi or high priests have lain first with them, to sanctify their wombs.  But those Esai and Montanists, two strange sects of old, were in another extreme, they would not marry at all, or have any society with women, [6228]"because of their intemperance they held them all to be naught.”  Nevisanus the lawyer, lib. 4. num. 33. sylv. nupt. would have him that is inclined to this malady, to prevent the worst, marry a quean, Capiens meretricem, hoc habet saltem boni quod non decipitur, quia scit eam sic esse, quod non contingit aliis.  A fornicator in Seneca constuprated two wenches in a night; for satisfaction, the one desired to hang him, the other to marry him. [6229] Hierome, king of Syracuse in Sicily, espoused himself to Pitho, keeper of the stews; and Ptolemy took Thais a common whore to be his wife, had two sons, Leontiscus and Lagus by her, and one daughter Irene:  ’tis therefore no such unlikely thing. [6230]A citizen of Engubine gelded himself to try his wife’s honesty, and to be freed from jealousy; so did a baker in [6231] Basil, to the same intent.  But of all other precedents in this kind, that of [6232]Combalus is most memorable; who to prevent his master’s suspicion, for he was a beautiful young man, and sent by Seleucus his lord and king, with Stratonice the queen to conduct her into Syria, fearing the worst, gelded himself before he went, and left his genitals behind him in a box sealed up.  His mistress by the way fell in love with him, but he not yielding to her, was accused to Seleucus of incontinency, (as that Bellerophon was in like case, falsely traduced by Sthenobia, to King Praetus her husband, cum non posset ad coitum inducere) and that by her, and was therefore at his corning home cast into prison:  the day of hearing appointed, he was sufficiently cleared and acquitted, by showing his privities, which to the admiration of the beholders he had formerly cut off.  The Lydians used to geld women whom they suspected, saith Leonicus var. hist.  Tib. 3. cap. 49. as well as men.  To this purpose [6233]Saint Francis, because he used to confess women in private, to prevent suspicion, and prove himself a maid, stripped himself before the Bishop of Assise and others:  and Friar Leonard for the same cause went through Viterbium in Italy, without any garments.