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In my study on the terms for the plays, the players and the playing places
in the Netherlands (14th-16th c.) I've dealt shortly with the role and
treatment of women in the context of town recreation policy. The council of
Arnhem has paid a group of entertainers who were playing at the dancehouse
for some women (1),  entry was paid for women to see a spectacle at the
winehouse (2), entertainment (for women?) in a private house was paid(3)
(1) den vrouwen te spoelen opten danshuse 1 gulden
(2) ..voor die vrouwen in een kaepspil van Maryenborch 8s.
(3)...doe die gesellen mit her Dircks wyff van Arnhem dansten in her Dircks
huys 8 quarten wyns

There is one witness of a sort of performing by young girls, probably
doughters of burghers
die ioncferkens van de stat hair spill gespoilt (Hattem, 1470)

There are some question marks about the dancehouses, game- or playhouses
(speelhuus can mean both), they were frequented also by women (there is a
text of 1325 concerning workgirls in Brussels), and it is known that there
were winehouses which were also gamehouses and brothels.
I'm also still wondering if the >>anti-theatricalism [in] comparing actors
to whores<< could go so far as to put the word *fornices* on the picture of
a theater (Badius' Terentius-edition).

Reference to all iconography and texts in the last paragraphs of my article
(in German)
'Quando sagittari sagittaverunt papegay. Der Medienstreit im
mittelniederländischen Theaterbetrieb'
In: NEERLANDICA WRATISLAVIENSIA 1994.VII:77-96, available since April 1997
at:
"http://www.medianet.pl/~dab/and/quando.htm"

Dr Andrzej Dabrowka
Uniwersytet Warszawski, Instytut Germanistyki
Browarna 8, PL-00-311 Warszawa