English Birth Girdles: Devotions for Women in “Travell of Childe”

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ISBN: 9781501518140
Author : Mary Morse
Published: 2024
Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
Number of pages: 479
Language: English
Format: Hardback
Format: 230×155

Description

In medieval England, women in labor wrapped birth girdles around their abdomens to protect themselves and their unborn children. These parchment or paper rolls replicated the "girdle relics" of the Virgin Mary and other saints loaned to queens and noblewomen, extending childbirth protection to women of all classes. This book examines the texts and images of nine English birth girdles produced between the reigns of Richard II and Henry VIII. Cultural artifacts of lay devotion within the birthing chamber, the birth girdles offered the solace and promise of faith to the parturient woman and her attendants amid religious dissent, political upheaval, recurring epidemics, and the onset of print.

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