English Birth Girdles

Download or read book English Birth Girdles written by Mary Morse and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-05-06 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.