In place of actual potions, the Middle Ages at times used what were essentially visual erotic stimulants. These were lewd pictures and drawings that were in great vogue, extensively so in the reign of King François I. Many among the French nobility made private collections of such provocative and scatological sketches that produced, in some cases, marked inflammatory erotic reactions. In certain country châteaux, also, stained glass windows depicted salacious episodes, libidinous postures and embraces, just as the caves of Ajanta in India portrayed amatory contortions in which human and animal performers were involved. * * * * * The subject of erotic practices, including perversions, abnormalities, flagellation, as well as philtres and amatory brews, was not limited to professional physicians. Many demonographers, including Martin Delrio, mentioned erotic techniques in their discussions and investigations of witchcraft and the furtive operations of occultists. In 1520 there was published a Latin text entitled _Fustigationes_, which involves references to love philtres. The author was a certain Grillandus, a Florentine and also a member of the Inquisition at Arezzo. Through the centuries, there were sporadic appearances of pamphlets and miscellaneous pieces that had reference to amatory aids. For instance, _Le Jardin d’Amour_, published in 1798 by a certain Tansillo or Tanzillo. Every century, every country, every religious sect, had its own monstrous obscenities, its peculiar orgiastic ceremonials, its gross and bestial manifestations, and its most unhallowed erotic permutations. Some of these phenomena were of a seclusive nature, confined to initiates only. Others, more liberated or more daring, were associated with royal courts, or temple worship, or even conventual life. Erotic acts, bestial performances, tribadism and fellatio and every other abnormality were all depicted in caves and church windows, woven in tapestries, or represented in ornamental furniture, etched in books, moulded in statuary. The Middle Ages, in particular, were the milieu, but of course not exclusively so, of political cataclysms and internecine wars, of plagues and intrigues and famine, of splendor and tournaments, jousts and crusades, and also of servitude and witchcraft, gluttony and debauchery, monastic life and religious reforms, art and poetry and lewdness. All through the ages, notably during these middle eras, this dichotomy was prevalent and manifest. And pervading and transcending all civic conditions, all national issues, was the erotic life of the teeming, inarticulate populace and the highly literate and cultured minorities: wanton prelates and easy princesses, libidinous serving maids and poetic gallants, romantic crusaders, lechers, perverts.