Aboriginal Morals and Laws.--Anglo-Saxon Legislation.--Introduction of Christianity.--St. Augustine.--Prostitution in the Ninth Century.-- Court Example.--Norman Epoch.--Feudal Laws and their Influences.-- Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts.--General Depravity.--Effects of Chivalry.--Fair Rosamond.--Jane Shore.--Henry VIII.--Elizabeth.--James I. The first references to prostitution which we find in the works of the early British annalists are so vague that it is difficult to derive from them any very definite idea as to its extent and character. Among the crude efforts at legislation there are laws to enforce chastity among women, but whether the necessity for these enactments was owing to general licentiousness or to the existence of a regular class of prostitutes does not appear. At the period of the Roman invasion, the morals of the Britons were as low as might be expected from their nomadic habits. The population was divided into small communities of men and women, who appear to have lived promiscuously, no woman being attached to any particular man, but all cohabiting according to inclination, the carnal instinct being the feeling which regulated sexual intercourse. A sort of marriage was instituted, but with no idea that either of the parties to it should be restricted by its obligations. Its only object seemed to be to provide means for rearing the children, and to fix somewhere the responsibility of their nurture and support. A society constituted as this was can, of course, be considered scarcely a step removed from barbarism. The regulation to provide for the children was necessary to prevent depopulation; its tendency was to remove from the woman's path every obstacle to lust; over the man it exercised but very slight control. A still farther proof of the demoralized condition of the people is found in the gross ceremonies attending these marriages. The man appeared on his wedding day dressed in all the rude trappings of the time; the woman was entirely naked. A repulsive coarseness marked their licentiousness, and the rudeness of manners was nowhere more conspicuous than in the relations existing between the sexes.