Hosts of women roamed about on the highways as musicians, dancers, magicians, in the company of wandering scholastics and priests, and flooded the markets and fairs. They formed special divisions in the troops of foot-soldiers where they were organized in guilds according to the spirit of the age, and were assigned to the different ranks according to age and beauty. By severe penalty they were forbidden to yield to any man outside of the prescribed circle. In the camp they had to help the baggage-carriers to gather in hay, straw and wood, to fill up holes and ditches and to clean the camp. During sieges it was their task to fill up the ditches with brushwood, branches and tufts of grass to facilitate the attack; they helped to place the guns in position and to drag them along when they became stuck in the muddy roads.[35] To give some relief to these numerous helpless women, so called beguinages, that were maintained by the municipality, were erected in many cities from the middle of the thirteenth century on. Here the women were given homes and were encouraged to lead decent lives. But neither their institutions nor the nunneries could shelter all those who sought help and protection. The hindrances to marriage, the journeys of noblemen and other worldly and spiritual lords who came into the cities with their hosts of knights and attendants, the young men within the cities and, last but not least, the married men who were not troubled much by moral scruples but believed that variety was the spice of life,--all these created a demand for prostitutes in the medieval towns. As every trade in those days was organized into guilds and submitted to definite regulations, so also was prostitution. In all the larger cities brothels were maintained that were municipal, state or church property and whose profits went to fill these respective treasuries. The women in these houses had a senior-mistress elected by themselves, whose duty it was to maintain order and who was especially charged with the task of seeing to it that no competitors outside of the guild harmed the legitimate trade. If such competitors were caught, they had to pay a legal fine. Thus the inhabitants of a brothel in Nuremberg complained to the magistrate about the competition of women who were not members of their guild: “that other keepers also maintain women who go upon the streets at night and harbour married men and others, and who ply their trade in a much coarser way, and that such were a disgrace and should not be permitted in this praiseworthy town.”[36] The brothels enjoyed special protection; breach of the peace in their vicinity was punished more severely than elsewhere. This female guild was also entitled to appear at festivals and in processions in which it was customary for all the guilds to participate. They were even sometimes invited as guests to princely and official banquets. The brothels were considered desirable “for the protection of married