The attacks didn’t stop at culture. Everything from the food on one’s plate (which should be plain and certainly not involve spices), through to what one got up to in bed (which should be likewise plain, and unspicy), began, for the first time, to come under the control of religion. Male homosexuality was outlawed; hair-plucking was despised, as too were makeup, music, suggestive dancing, rich food, purple bedsheets, silk clothes . . . The list went on.
