HISTOEICAL EACES 269 



sidered a very venial offence.' 1 Finally in 374 Valentinian made 

 all infanticide a capital offence and particularly enjoined the 

 punishment of exposition. There is much evidence to show that 

 many centuries elapsed before the practice was finally suppressed 

 in Europe. It was apparently common in France up to the time 

 of Charlemagne, who made it a capital offence. A law of the 

 Spanish Visigoths in the seventh century punished both abortion 

 and infanticide with death. 2 



The disappearance of both these practices is connected with 

 the evolution of the typical conditions of mediaeval society which 

 are marked, as we saw, by postponement of marriage and religious 

 celibacy. As the former went out the latter came in, and we shall 

 find that numbers came to be regulated by the peculiar methods 

 of the latter period as they had previously been regulated by 

 those of the former. 



17. Mention may perhaps be made of the influence of venereal 

 disease. Gonorrhoea has long been prevalent ; there is some 

 reason to think that it was known in Assyria. Syphilis is of more 

 recent introduction into Europe and may be of more recent 

 evolution. Though syphilis is a frequent cause of abortions, 

 still-births, and infant mortality, it does not produce sterility. 

 The presence of gonorrhoea tends to prevent conception in 

 women and, if not cured within a certain time, it may cause 

 permanent sterility. A considerable proportion of the sterile 

 marriages at the present day may, as indicated in the Fourth 

 Chapter, be due to gonorrhoea. Though no great influence is to 

 be attributed to venereal diseases when the whole question is 

 broadly viewed, it may be remembered that within the third 

 period they have been prevalent and thus further distinguish 

 that period from the first two periods. 3 



1 Lecky, European Morals, vol. ii, p. 27. 



2 The fact that penance was imposed upon the mother who killed her child by 

 the Council of Mentz in 852 suggests that the practice was not uncommon at that 

 time (Westermarck, Moral Ideas, vol. i, p. 411). 3 See The Declining Birth- 

 rate, pp. 58-62. 



