Giving Birth in Jane Austen’s Day: Confinement, Lying-in, and Churching

by Maria Grace

Unlike women today who often give birth in hospitals or birthing centers, women of the regency era normally gave birth at home. Preparation for confinement fell almost exclusively to the mother--big surprise, I know. Among the most significant of those preparatory decisions was where she would be confined. (Vickery, 1998)

Confinements

The decision was a significant one. A woman's confinement, also called her lying-in, lasted a month to six weeks starting when the baby was born, through her subsequent recovery.  In some cases, women imminently due to give birth were also confined to the house and treated as invalids. (But only in cases where there was sufficient assistance available to take over the mother-to-be’s duties, of course.)   During confinement women were expected to stay indoors, preferably in bed. Most felt well enough to emerge from confinement after a month. (Honestly I think they’d have to be really ill not to be utterly stir-crazy by then. But then again, I get stir crazy confined by a day or two of rain.)

The medical community believed that an extended period of strict rest was necessary to help protect against the postnatal dangers threatening the mother and the baby.  Considering the number of women who died in childbirth and those who experienced complications including puerperal fever, hemorrhage, thrombosis and milk fever, the precaution made a great deal of sense.

Some women chose to return to their mother’s home to give birth. Others brought female relatives to their home for the event.  It was not unusual for rooms used for lying-in to be rearranged or redecorated in anticipation of the event. (Martin, 2004) Ideally, the mother would have two interconnected room. The inner, would contain the mother’s lying-in bed, usually kept dark though labor, delivery and at least the first week afterwards. The outer room would serve as a waiting room of sorts, a place for friends and relatives to gather.  (Lewis, 1986)

For those who could afford it, London, because of its reputation for skilled doctors, was regarded as the best place for a confinement, especially for the birth of an anticipated heir.  When a family went to town for a confinement, it could disrupt the household for weeks, even if the family maintained a house in London. And since delivery dates could not be accurately predicted, all this often happened at the very last minute. (I can’t think of anything I would less rather do at the very end of a pregnancy than be confined for hours on end in a bouncy-jolty carriage, moving households to somewhere else.) 

During the confinement, especially one with all the pomp and circumstance of a London confinement, the mother often received visits from friends and relatives. Sometimes a greate many of them, perhaps even more than she desired. Frequently these were women who had “shared in the drinking of caudle, the hot spiced wine mixture she had imbibed to ease her labor pains,” her ‘gossips.’ (Lewis, 1986) Country confinements had the advantage of fewer ‘drop-in’ sort of visitors. The new parents could exercise a little more control in who came to visit.

“The confinement itself was composed of a set of clearly defined stages in the recovery process. While these provided something of a guideline for the recovery of all women, they were flexible enough to allow for individual differences.  …  Generally, the stages …consisted of increasingly long forays from bed to sofa; thence to the outer or dressing room of the lying-in chambers; downstairs, possibly to dine with the family; and finally to take her first leave of the premises. The entire process lasted from four to six weeks.” (Lewis, 1986)

 Churching

A woman’s confinement ended when the mother had been "churched" and her child christened. Considering the very real risks to both mother and infant, it is not surprising that the Church had a special service of thanksgiving after (surviving) childbirth. The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, called it the Churching of Women. Traditionally, a woman paid her first visit upon leaving home to her church for this service which emphasized a woman's gratitude toward God for her full recovery. (Lewis, 1986)

Although sanctioned by the Old Testament (Leviticus 12), churching was a prickly issue within the Church. Some condemned it as a remnant of the Jewish religion or as a Catholic rite. Still, it continued as a pervasive practice, especially in rural areas. (Collin, 2001) This may have been because of superstitions about women bringing bad luck following childbirth unless ritual cleansing took place.  

The ceremony was generally sought after by women, a ceremony that focused on them and acknowledged the perils they had faced. It was also an opportunity to rejoin society after extended isolation and often an opportunity to feast with the friends who had helped her through her labor (her ‘gossips.’)  (Knöde, 1995)

Women who experienced a still birth or whose child died soon after were still churched. But, women who gave birth to illegitimate children were not until they publicly repented before the whole congregation.  “There are also records of a debate whether a woman who had died in giving birth should be buried in the church graveyard if she had died unchurched. Popular custom occasionally had another woman undergoing the ceremony for the woman who had died, but such practice was not favoured by the church. It was eventually decided that an unchurched woman could be buried, but in a number of cases they were buried in a special part of the graveyard and superstitious beliefs had it that women between 15 and 45 were not supposed to be going to that particular part of the graveyard.” (Knöde, 1995)

References

Adkins, Roy, and Lesley Adkins. Jane Austen's England. Viking, 2013. 

Collins, Irene. Jane Austen and the Clergy. London: Hambledon and London, 2001. 

Collins, Irene. Jane Austen, the Parson's Daughter. London: Hambledon Press, 1998. 

Knödel, Natalie. The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, commonly called The Churching of Women. University of Durham. April 1995   http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mikef/church.html   

Lane, Maggie. Jane Austen's World: The Life and times of England's Most Popular Novelist. 2nd ed. London: Carlton Books, 2005.

Lewis, Judith Schneid. In the Family Way: Childbearing in the British Aristocracy, 1760-1860. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986. 

Martin, Joanna. Wives and Daughters: Women and Children in the Georgian Country House. London: Hambledon and London, 2004. 

Selwyn, David. Jane Austen and Children. New York City: Continuum Books, 2010.

Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.

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Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful. 

After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.

Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, or follow on Twitter.

The Life of a Queen Bee - or doing your royal duty

by Anna Belfrage

One of the things a medieval queen was expected to provide her husband with was a male heir. Plus, preferably, a spare. For a medieval king to have only female heirs caused a number of problems, primarily that of convincing the male barons to swear allegiance to a woman. Plus, from a purely dynastic perspective, whatever children the female ruler had would belong to their father’s house.

To not have male heirs was a problem Henry I of England faced. When his only (legitimate) son died in the White Ship disaster of 1120, this powerful king was left with a mere daughter as his legitimate heir. Not that Matilda was in any way a mere anything, but as per the mind-set of the times, being a woman did not exactly make her the self-evident choice as next ruler of England. Henry knew this, which was why he had his barons swear allegiance to Matilda while he was still alive. Didn’t help much, because no sooner was Henry dead, but the majority of the Anglo-Norman barons turned to Matilda’s cousin, Stephen of Blois instead.

What followed was a period known as the Anarchy, several decades of civil war that ravaged the country. No future king wanted a repeat on that. Ever.

Matilda - as per a 15th C chronicle

No matter that ultimately Matilda’s side “won”, she never became queen. Instead, the crown passed from Cousin Stephen to her son, Henry II, a vigorous young man whom the nobles gladly acclaimed. Henry wasn’t about to risk ending up in the same pickle as his grandfather. Once wed to Eleanor of Aquitaine – several years his senior, and judged incapable of producing a son for her first husband, king Louis of France – they did some serious begetting which resulted in many sons. Too many, one could say, as all those haughty young princes were soon to become Henry II’s major headache – and heartache. But at least he didn’t leave his vast lands without a male heir: upon his death, Richard Lionheart was ready to take over. When Richard died, baby brother John picked up the pieces, rid himself permanently of the competition in the form of his nephew Arthur, and settled down to rule – and beget heirs of his own.

By the time John’s grandson Edward was old enough to wed, the Plantagenet kings had established themselves firmly on the English throne, the crown passing safely from father to son. Edward was only fifteen when he married Eleanor of Castile in 1254, and as always when it came to royalty, this wedding had a political purpose at heart – in this case, to keep Alfonso X of Castile from invading Gascony.

Edward & Eleanor - not the most flattering
of likenesses

The happy couple only met a few days before being married. He was already inordinately tall – if lacking in bulk, I imagine. She was not quite thirteen. Was she fair? Dark? No idea. She did, however, come with a good pedigree. Her mother, Jeanne de Dammartin, had once been considered by Henry III as a wife for himself, but due to political reasons this was not to be. Instead, Jeanne was wed to Fernando III of Castile (the future St Fernando) as his second wife. With her husband came an entire brood of step-children, first and foremost the future Alfonso X of Castile.

Eleanor not only had a saint for a father, but also had Plantagenet blood, in that her great-grandmother was Henry III’s aunt, Eleanor of England, who wed Alfonso VIII. (I know: it does get a bit complicated with all these Eleanors and Alfonsos). Plus – and this was a major point in her favour – she came from a notably fertile family. Her mother had given Fernando five children, four of whom were sons. Her paternal grandmother, Berenguela, had produced five children during seven years of marriage. And as to Eleanor of England, well she had presented her husband with twelve children – one every other year or so. However, very few of the sons survived – in fact, once the youngest was killed by a falling tile, the Castilian crown passed through Berenguela to Fernando. (Berenguela was wise enough to understand the Castilian nobles would not accept her as queen – but they readily accepted her son as king.)

Anyway, with all these fertile females up Eleanor of Castile's family tree, no one was particularly worried about the mandatory male heir. In the fullness of time, Edward’s new wife would surely present him with a healthy, squalling son.

The young couple seem to have taken an immediate liking to one another. This resulted in a stillborn (or dead shortly after its birth) baby in 1255, the first of sixteen (at least fourteen) children. At the time, Eleanor was not yet fourteen, so I imagine this was a traumatic experience. There was a gap of some years – years in which the affection and love between Edward and Eleanor grew, making them almost inseparable. Whether or not there were miscarriages, we don’t know. I hold it likely: Edward and Eleanor not only liked each other but also desperately needed to produce an heir. Besides, throughout their marriage, Eleanor did not seem to have a problem conceiving – it was more a matter of the viability of the children she gave birth to.

There was probably quite some rejoicing and relief when, in 1261, Edward and Eleanor welcomed a daughter, Katherine, into this world. Their joy was short-lived. Little Katherine died at three, and one year later, in 1265, Eleanor was delivered of yet another daughter, Joanna, who died some months later. I imagine that by now, Eleanor and Edward were beginning to become quite concerned. More than ten years married, and no living children – that did not bode well.

Fortunately, in 1266, little John arrived, and he was miraculously healthy. Prayers of gratitude rang in the royal solar, even more so when in 1268 yet another son, Henry, saw the light of the day. Two boys, albeit that little Henry was sickly.  To round things off, a healthy daughter, Eleanor, was born in 1269.

Edward I

In 1270, Edward took the cross. As a matter of course, Eleanor decided to accompany him, leaving her babies in the care of their grandmother and, in the case of the precious heir, their great-uncle. In 1271, there was a stillborn child. In 1272, while in Palestine, Edward and Eleanor welcomed yet another daughter, Joan. By then, they would have heard that their son John had died and what little joy they experienced at the birth of their daughter soured into fear when Edward was almost murdered. Clearly, they weren’t welcome in the Holy Land, and they set off for home. On the way, they learnt Henry III was dead. Edward was now king, and the pressing matter of a male heir became even more pressing – little Henry was not expected to live long.

In 1273, son number three, Alphonso, was born. A fine, lusty son, and Eleanor must have wept in relief. It was therefore with great happiness Edward and Eleanor celebrated their coronation in 1274. By then, they’d been married almost twenty years, and even if little Henry died some months later, they did have their lovely Alphonso – and two healthy little girls. Does not seem much, given that Eleanor had carried nine babies to full term. Nine. As she was only thirty-three, she could look forward to several more pregnancies. I wonder if there were times when this thought filled her with trepidation.

1275, 1276, 1277, 1279 – four pregnancies, four births, resulting in four little girls of whom two died. But at least Alphonso, this apple of his parents’ eyes, still thrived.

1281 – a little boy came and went like a shadow in the night. But still, they had Alphonso.

1282 – Elizabeth of Rhuddlan was born. A healthy child, and now there were five daughters – plus the precious Alphonso.

In April of 1284, a heavily pregnant Eleanor accompanied her husband to Wales. And there, in the building site that was Caernarvon Castle, Eleanor was delivered of a boy. A boy! Yes, a miracle baby, a strong little prince, and Eleanor smiled and wept as she presented her husband with the much-desired spare. And as to Alphonso, their sweet son was now old enough to wed, and a marriage had been arranged for him with Margaret, daughter of the Count of Holland. For a little while there, everything was perfect in the Eleanor-Edward household. Until Alphonso fell ill, dying in August of 1284.

Alphonso

Alphonso lived the longest of all those children who died. Long enough for his parents to pin hopes on him, long enough to grow from an anonymous baby into an adored boy. And then, just like that, he died.  It must have been utterly devastating. Yes, they had Prince Edward, but both Eleanor and Edward knew just what frail things children were – after all, with Alphonso they buried a tenth child.

Eleanor was not to have any more children. After sixteen births, I guess she was worn out, and besides, her health was failing. So all hopes for a surviving male heir now rested on baby Edward, and even if he was a robust child, there were concerns that he too would die young. On a daily basis, Eleanor did not see much of her youngest son. In fact, she rarely saw much of any of her children, seeing as she was always travelling from one place to the other.

Judging by moral standards, this behaviour does not make a good mother. After all, we expect mothers to spend time with their children. As per the standards of her time, Eleanor was a conscientious mother, ensuring her children were in good, competent hands and lived relatively stable lives while she accompanied her husband from one end of his kingdom to the other. Did she love her children? I’d say yes – as much as she dared to, given all those losses. But no matter that she loved them, she loved her husband much, much, more. It was with him she wanted to be, it was at his side she belonged, as his loyal and supporting spouse. And he, I believe, agreed.

Edward I with Prince Edward

In 1290, Eleanor died. Edward was numb with grief – so much so that for three whole days all royal business was suspended. But life goes on, and Edward had a duty to the crown – and his dynasty – to ensure there was more than one little boy in line to the throne. So in 1299, Edward married a second wife, the pretty and vivacious sister of the king of France. At the time, he was sixty and she was twenty – and fertile enough to present him with two beautiful and healthy sons.

In the event, these little spares would not be needed. In 1307, Eleanor’s lastborn, Edward of Caernarvon, became king after his father. I daresay she would have been mightily pleased. She had done her duty – she had birthed the next king.

Eleanor's life consisted of more than having babies - much more. In fact, this is an intriguing lady who surprisingly often surfs just under the radar, despite building up a considerable real estate fortune and being a proactive member of Edward's court. But that side of her will have to wait for another day, another post.

All pictures in public domain and/or licensed under Wikimedia Creative Commons

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Had Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does not exist, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing.

Presently, Anna is hard at work with The King’s Greatest Enemy, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer’s rise to power. The first book, In The Shadow of the Storm was published in 2015, the second, Days of Sun and Glory, was published in July 2016.

When Anna is not stuck in the 14th century, she's probably visiting in the 17th century, specifically with Alex(andra) and Matthew Graham, the protagonists of the acclaimed The Graham Saga. This is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was born three centuries after him.

More about Anna on her website or on her blog!

To Sacrifice a Prince: King Charles I's harrowing choice

by Ella March Chase

History is filled with tales of the lengths kings will go to secure an heir to the throne. King Henry VIII risked hell for a son, splitting with the pope in Rome, killing his advisors and his friends to secure a divorce from the wife who had given him only one living daughter.

Even reformer Martin Luther said women should bear children until they died of it. That was what God had created them for. To love.

Harsh as this sounds to modern sensibilities, in the brutal world of royal politics, a king's legitimate son staved off the horrors of war.

A queen's first duty was to bear healthy princes to carry on the royal dynasty. A wife-- even a much-loved one-- was an expendable commodity. Europe was full of princesses eager to be queens should a monarch's wife die.

Henrietta Maria

That is why what happened in the confinement chamber in Greenwich Palace, May 12, 1629 is one of the most remarkable moments in the history of royal marriage. After three years without conceiving, and talk from council member of annulling the marriage and sending her back to France as barren goods, French Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, went into labor for the first time.

The marriage had a rocky beginning largely due to Charles I's charismatic, divisive favorite, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. But after the Duke's assassination, the queen had run to her husband to comfort him. The aloof, agonizingly shy king then turned all of the love he had given Buckingham to his wife.

Charles I and Henrietta Maria

Soon after--possibly because the tension Buckingham fostered between the couple had eased-- Henrietta Maria gave the king the news they had prayed for. She was carrying the king's child. The couple rejoiced. The kingdom was divided in opinion-- many concerned about the influence the Catholic queen had on the king. France was at war with England, Henrietta Maria's brother England's great enemy. When England received news that a peace treaty had been struck, the Queen's happiness overflowed. Her joy was shattered when she went into premature labor, an event her doctors attributed to the shock of having been attacked by a pair of large dogs while walking in the gallery at Greenwich.

Old Palace of Greenwich

None of the preparations for a royal birth had been completed. Even the French royal midwife her mother promised to send hadn't arrived yet. In fact, there were no royal midwives at Greenwich at the time.

As the terrified young queen labored to give birth, Charles defied custom and never left her side. When a midwife was found and brought to the queen's chamber, the woman discovered that the baby-- obviously as surprised as everyone else by the onset of labor-- was turned "athwart" in her belly. The midwife fainted at the idea of tending the queen in such extremis.

Realizing that his wife and child were both in deadly danger, the king sent for a famous surgeon, Dr. Peter Chamberlen. Most surgeons of the time would have performed a caesarean section, fatal to the mother, or used a hook to drag the child from the mother's womb, killing the child if it were, by chance, still alive. But Chamberlen had actually delivered babies alive with the aid of the tools he had developed and that his family would keep secret for a hundred more years: a forceps, a fillet (a long pole with a noose attached to the end) and the vectis, a lever used to turn the baby into a better position for birth.

Yet even Chamberlen could not perform the miracle Charles needed. After examining the queen, Chamberlen told the king he must choose: He could save the mother or the child. In any case, the trauma to the queen would be such that it was unlikely she would bear another child.

Henrietta Maria's enemies must have rejoiced at the prospect of ridding themselves of the troublesome French catholic queen. No one could have doubted what the king's decision must be. Save the child. Yet, Charles said there could be other children. Henrietta Maria was irreplaceable.

The children of Charles I

Chamberlen delivered a tiny prince who lived only one hour. Charles was devastated by the loss of his son, but Henrietta Maria surprised everyone, regaining her health swiftly, showing courage that heartened her husband. Though she grieved the loss of her child, she had gained proof her husband loved her enough to forget his royal duty. He had put her survival before that of a royal heir with no guarantee she could ever produce another one. In time, Henrietta Maria would present Charles with seven children, including the bright, merry "black eyed boy" who would become Charles II. The royal family would share ten years of familial bliss despite the unrest beyond the palace walls that presaged civil war.

It is possible Charles I loved his wife too well, listening to her advice that he not bow to the demands of his courtiers and subjects, rigidly holding him to James I's dictates on the divine right of kings.

But no English royal couple faced more treacherous times with such a united front. Known as 'the she-generalissima', Henrietta Maria braved skirmishes, pawned the royal jewels and rallied royalist troops to support her husband's war efforts. She fled to France at his command, yet when she learned of his imprisonment and upcoming trial, she wrote a letter to his captors, begging to be allowed to join Charles and share his fate. The letter was not opened until long after the king's execution. We will never know how the course of history might have been changed if Charles I had told Dr. Chamberlen to save the unborn prince that fateful day in 1629 and Henrietta Maria had died. We do know that Charles I and Henrietta Maria loved with uncommon devotion and that Henrietta Maria grieved for her beloved husband until the day she died.

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Ella March Chase cannot remember a time she did not want to write historical fiction. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. She lives in a house filled with books and music and is lovingly herded by a loyal Shetland sheepdog named Oliver. Chase is the author of The Virgin Queen’s Daughter and Three Maids for a Crown, a story of the Grey Sisters. She invites you to visit her at her website: www.ellamarchchase.com



The Queen's Dwarf
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Coming soon: Crown of Mist, Gather the Stars and Angel's Fall by Ella March Chase, writing as Kimberly Cates.

Of Midwives and Childbirth

by Sam Thomas

In a post from last month I made the case that – contrary to popular perception and two different groups of historians – midwives were not decrepit crones from the edges of society. But once we’ve established that, we still need to learn more about the work that midwives did in the delivery room. Given the limited medical tools at their disposal, what could they do?

It is first important to note that in the pre-modern world midwifery was midwifery was not a science in the modern sense of the world. Rather, practitioners described their work as an “art” and, significantly, a “mystery.” The 1689 testimonial for the wife of James Phillips noted that she was “a Civill & discreet Matron & one well skilled & knowing in the Art & Mistery of Midwifery.” A few years later, Elizabeth Arrandell was described as “well skild in the Mystery of Midwifery…”

In keeping with its status as an art, there was much room for variation in the delivery room, but a midwife would check the cervix to see how far along the labor was, and prepare the mother for delivery by lubricating the birth canal, usually with oil or animal fat. She might give the mother an enema, rub liniment on her belly, and give the mother ‘caudle,’ a hot drink somewhere between gruel and spiced wine.

In the day of modern anesthetics, such work might seem (to some) to be of questionable value, but in the early modern period a good midwife made labor less painful, moved it along more quickly, and could be the difference between life and death. In the midst of her labor, Susanna Watkin cried out, “Godsake either fetch Ellin Jackson (being a midwife) or else knock me on the head.” Another woman – complaining when her desired midwife was late – claimed that she “might have been delivered two houres sooner if she had had...helpe when they desired it.”

Once the child was born, the midwife had the honor of cutting the umbilical cord, and it was she who washed and swaddled the child before returning it to the mother. She then made the decision whether to deliver the placenta manually or to let nature take its course.

While it would be a mistake not to acknowledge the importance of this work, as one historian noted, “majority of births…were uneventful whether attended by a physician, a midwife or a stork.” So what made one midwife better than another? I would argue that a midwife’s skill lay less on the medical side of the equation, and more on the social side. A good midwife could effectively manage the mother and the delivery room.

Naturally enough, a midwife’s social work focused on the mother. She ruled the delivery room, deciding assigning tasks to the other women present, and managing any conflicts between the mother and her birth attendants, or among the gossips themselves. The midwife also encouraged the mother in the last stages of labor, as in 1739 when a midwife assured her patient that “in less than Two Minutes the Child would be in the World.” 

The midwife also would have reassured anxious fathers during labor and consoled them in the event that the birth ended in the death of mother or child. In performing these tasks, from calming a panicky mother to controlling quarrelling gossips, a midwife would have had to project a great deal of authority – this was not a profession for a shrinking violet!

A good midwife thus had to have the ability to take control of difficult and dangerous situations, and convince her friends and neighbors to do as they were told. She was as authoritative a woman as you’d find. But a midwife’s role in the neighborhood went well beyond labor and delivery, and took her into the world of law enforcement as she investigated and helped to prosecute a variety of crimes.

But more on that next month...

Further reading:

David Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997). (An excellent book full of great stories!)

Laura Gowing, Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, 2003).

Mary Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1999).

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Sam Thomas is the author of  The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery from Minotaur/St.Martin's. Want to pre-order a copy? Click here. For more on midwifery and childbirth visit his website. You can also like him on Facebook  and follow him on Twitter.

Of Witches and Midwives

by Sam Thomas

For many years, historians knew one of two things about midwives in pre-modern Europe. If you asked medical historians, they were decrepit old crones, with no medical training. They were untrained, lived on the margins of society, and probably dabbled in witchcraft.

If you asked (some) women’s historians, they would agree that midwives practiced witchcraft, but in this account, they were the distant heirs to a pre-Christian religion, practitioners in an early modern Earth-Mother cult. These rebellious figures rejected the Church’s authority, and for their trouble were often burned at the stake.

Both of these accounts are complete bunk.

Malleus Maleficarum

The connection between midwives and witchcraft dates back to the notorious Malleus Maleficarum (Latin for Hammer of Witches), written in 1486 by two Dominican inquisitors, Jacob Spernger and Heinrich Kramer. In Malleus, Sprenger and Kramer offer lurid accusations that midwives murdered newborn children and sacrificed them to the Devil.

While Malleus has influenced generations of historians, it is less clear that it had much influence on its readers. Kremer’s behavior at a witch trial in 1485 so outraged his fellow-inquisitors and a local bishop that they came to the defense of the accused witch, and the Spanish Inquisition(!) warned its inquisitors not to take it too seriously. More significantly, when historians have studied witch trials, they find midwives not among the women accused, but testifying for the prosecution! While thousands of women were tried for witchcraft, only the tiniest handful were in any way connected to midwifery.

If midwives weren’t witches, who were they? Just because the medical historians were wrong about the witchcraft, were they right that midwives were poor old women who lived on the margins of society?

Wrong again.

It turns out, they were not much different than women in England. Many midwives were quite well-off, often referred to with the honorific “Mrs.”, and we know that the wife of the Lord Mayor of Chester practiced midwifery. Letters written on behalf of Martha Baker describe her as “a Gentlewoman of great Judgement & skill,” and the will of Bridget Hodgson of York includes large cash gifts and refers to her family’s coat of arms. It is not uncommon to find midwives married to Anglican ministers, which is hardly the mark of poverty and disdain.

That said, poor midwives did exist. Court documents describe Anne Doughty as “very poore & hath very small employment,” and say that Johanna Thompson “is very low and poore in the world.” In some cases, there is evidence that women receiving poor-relief were encouraged to take up midwifery in order to reduce their reliance on public funds.

It thus seems that midwives were young and old, rich and poor, married, widowed, and even spinsters.

Once we have figured out who midwives were, the question then becomes What did midwives do? Sure they delivered children, but in a world before anesthetics and instruments, how did they do this? What was it that made midwives different from the other women who helped mothers when they were in labor? For that and more, you’ll have to come back next month! (Cue cliff-hanger music.)

Further reading:

David Harley, “Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-witch,” Social History of Medicine 3, no. 1 (1990): 1-26.
 
Hilary Marland, ed., The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe (London, 1994).

________________

Sam Thomas is the author of The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery from Minotaur/St.Martin's. Want to pre-order a copy? Click here. For more on midwifery and childbirth visit his website. You can also like him on Facebook  and follow him on Twitter.