SEX IN OXFORD
SLR,—Mr. Bernard Miles, you, sir, as the pub- lisher of his letter, and perhaps some of your readers, might be interested in the following judgment delivered by a Court of Love in the twelfth century: A certain knight basely spread abroad the intimate details of love. In camp all the chevaliers demanded that this offence against love be severely condemned, lest the precedent of freedom from punishment for so great a transgression should influence others when the situation arose. Therefore. a court of ladies having been summoned in Gascony, it was established • by everlasting decree, with the whole-hearted consent of the Court, that the knight be deprived of every hope of love, and that in every court of ladies or chevaliers, he be always considered opprobrious and con- temptible to all. If, indeed, any woman should venture to violate these decrees, for example, by bestowing her love upon him, let her re- main liable to the same punishment, and, thence- forth. be altogether abhorrent to every honest woman.
5 Dartmouth Grove, Greenwich, .5E10
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