later the promiscuous bathing of men and women was prohibited in some of the Penitentials. (The custom was, however, preserved here and there in Northern Europe, even to the end of the eighteenth century, or later.  In Rudeck’s Geschichte der oeffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland, an interesting chapter, with contemporary illustrations, is devoted to this custom; also, Max Bauer, Das Geschlechtsleben in der Deutschen Vergangenheit, pp. 216-265.)

“Women,” says Clement again, “should not seek to be graceful by avoiding broad drinking vessels that oblige them to stretch their mouths, in order to drink from narrow alabastra that cause them indecently to throw back the head, revealing to men their necks and breasts.  The mere thought of what she is ought to inspire a woman with modesty....  On no account must a woman be permitted to show to a man any portion of her body naked, for fear lest both fall:  the one by gazing eagerly, the other by delighting to attract those eager glances.” (Paedagogus, Book II, Chapter V.)

James, Bishop of Nisibis, in the fourth century, was a man of great holiness.  We are told by Thedoret that once, when James had newly come into Persia, it was vouchsafed to him to perform a miracle under the following circumstances:  He chanced to pass by a fountain where young women were washing their linen, and, his modesty being profoundly shocked by the exposure involved in this occupation, he cursed the fountain, which instantly dried up, and he changed the hair of the girls from black to a sandy color.  (Jortin, Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iii, p. 4.)

Procopius, writing in the sixth century after Christ, and narrating how the Empress Theodora, in early life, would often appear almost naked before the public in the theatre, adds that she would willingly have appeared altogether nude, but that “no woman is allowed to expose herself altogether, unless she wears at least short drawers over the lower part of the abdomen.”  Chrysostom mentions, at the end of the fourth century, that Arcadius attempted to put down the August festival (Majuma), during which women appeared naked in the theatres, or swimming in large baths.

In mediaeval days, “ladies, at all events, as represented by the poets, were not, on the whole, very prudish.  Meleranz surprised a lady who was taking a bath under a lime tree; the bath was covered with samite, and by it was a magnificent ivory bed, surrounded by tapestries representing the history of Paris and Helen, the destruction of Troy, the adventures of AEneas, etc.  As Meleranz rides by, the lady’s waiting-maids run away; she herself, however, with quick decision, raises the samite which covers the tub, and orders him to wait on her in place of the maids.  He brings her shift and mantle, and shoes, and then stands aside till she is dressed; when she has placed herself on the bed, she calls him back