Droit du seigneur saw 150x more Wikipedia readers than usual

What this article is

Droit du seigneur, also known as jus primae noctis, was a supposed legal right in medieval Europe, allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with any female subject, particularly on her wedding night. There are many references to the alleged custom throughout the centuries but little evidence that it actually existed.

Summary text from the Wikipedia article "Droit du seigneur", available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article.

Where editors were working

Wikipedia editors made 1 edit to this article on 2026-07-04, concentrated in these sections. This is evidence about the surge, not an explanation of it.

• Ancient times

How this was measured

Views are Wikimedia's own pageview counts for en.wikipedia, filtered to agent=user so automated traffic is excluded. The baseline is the median of the previous 60 days, which is used instead of the mean so that an earlier surge cannot flatten a later one. The multiple is the day's views divided by that median.