Doctors are to be believed in matters of hygiene before barbers or
     sorcerers.

     Bigamy was punished by the culprit being whipped through the town,
     riding naked on a donkey.

If a person to whom the training of young girls was confided corrupted and betrayed them to licentious men, hot lead was to be poured down his (or her) throat until it reached his heart (sic), ‘for it was from thence that the seductive counsels had proceeded.’

     A slave or paid serf who committed rape was not put to death as
     were others, but he was burned alive.

     Torture was evidently quite common, for judges are forbidden to
     torture innocent persons even by order of the prince.

Nobility clearly gave immunity to crime—­at least it mitigated the punishment; for ’neither nobles nor boyards nor their sons could be condemned to the galleys nor to the mines, but they might be banished for a longer or shorter period; they might not be hung, nor impaled, nor dragged through the streets like ordinary malefactors, but they should be decapitated.’

A wise and good Prince of Wallachia was Serban II. (Cantacuzene), 1679-1688, who built and improved churches and monasteries, and erected factories and workshops for the people.  He also encouraged education and literature, founded the first Roumanian seminary, translated the Bible into Roumanian, and, so far as it was possible in the unfortunate condition of the country, he diminished the taxes of the poor.[148] He was compelled to join the Turks in their wars against Germany, but, summoning courage at a critical moment, he turned his arms against—­or perhaps it would be more honest to say he betrayed—­those of whom he was the unwilling ally.  This happened during the siege of Vienna in 1683, where Serban was at the head of a contingent of four thousand Wallachians in the army of Cara Mustapha, and the duty was entrusted to him of constructing bridges and works.  He took advantage of his position to communicate with the Germans, facilitated the destruction of the works which he himself had raised, and it is said that he loaded his guns with straw.  He is said also to have erected a high cross opposite his tent, on which an inscription was graven capable of bearing a double interpretation, and which gave courage to the besieged.  After the defeat of the Turks before Vienna through its relief by Sobieski, King of Poland, Serban fostered the idea of asserting his independence of Turkish rule; but before he was able to carry his plans into execution, he died (1688), it is said, poisoned by his brother and nephew.[149]

[Footnote 145:  Vaillant (chronological table, vol. ii. p. 444) gives nineteen distinct princes, some of whom reigned twice in Wallachia, and twenty-eight, of whom one reigned three times in Moldavia, between 1601 and 1714.  His dates and names must not, however, be regarded as authoritative.]