The enormous effect of vice upon the women of the Renaissance and Reformation periods cannot be ignored in any true picture of the time. Man's lust was an accepted factor of everyday life. Very early, as we have noted in a preceding chapter, houses of prostitution were established and regulated by law. The woman superintendent put in charge of such a house was required to swear formally that she would "serve the best interests of the city" loyally; _i. e._, she must increase the revenues. She swore to "induce to come in as many girls as possible." The inmates of a house of prostitution continued to wear a distinctive dress whenever they appeared on the streets. This uniform served a double purpose. It was a convenience to the men, and it prevented the girls from escaping easily. When a distinguished visitor came to town, he was, even during the Reformation period, sometimes taken, soon after his arrival, to one of these houses by the chief magistrate, and the prettiest girls sometimes richly dressed, sometimes naked were brought before him for choice. Even in some private houses a similar form of hospitality was shown to male visitors, the prettiest maids of the house being detailed to "attend" such visitors. The lot of a German workingwoman in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was very hard. Her hours of work were from sunrise to sunset. If she lived in the country, she did all the ordinary housework for a large family; she planted and harvested, she attended to the cattle, she sheared the sheep, gathered the flax, spun and wove the linen and wool, bleached or dyed the finished cloth, and with her needle fashioned it into garments for her husband, her children, and herself. In the country, grand ladies often had workrooms where as many as three hundred girls were employed. A city workingwoman was shut out by the guilds from any remunerative labor. She could seldom earn more than her board, no matter how hard she might work. Women's wages, except for sin, were pitifully meagre. That the majority of German workingwomen did remain chaste in spite of the ever present temptations toward vice speaks volumes in praise of the German feminine character. In both city and country, spinning was looked upon as woman's natural occupation. "She was pious and spun" is a common epitaph upon sixteenth century tombstones in Germany. "Let men fight and women spin," preached Berthold von Regensberg. Almost as soon as a girl baby could walk she was taught to spin. Little Gertrude Sastrow, at the age of five, asked one day what the princes at the Diet did. Her brother replied: "They determine what shall be done in the empire." "Then," her brother relates, "the little maiden at her distaff gave a deep sigh and said dolefully, 'Oh, good God, if they would only decree that little girls should not spin!"