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Post by Sir Didymous LaRoth on Sept 18, 2012 12:01:29 GMT -5
I was doing some research with my wife on the topic of medicine in the middle ages. We got to an area in one of our resources where it talked of child birth and found a couple of interesting things. The first was that it was considered prudent to have the mother-to-be's death shroud prepared in the case of the worst, which was all to common. The second was that according to this source, profesional midwives could gain training and the authority of the church to do baptisms in the case of still births or if they felt that the child was going to die soon after. This struck me as odd and I am currently looking to find some sources to validate these claims. Does anyone know of any good resources for this?
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Post by Frere Reynald de Pensax on Oct 2, 2012 9:02:22 GMT -5
I have some books on the more unusual aspects of medieval life, but I haven't been able to uncover anything about midwives other than they were instructed to keep their hands clean and their fingernails short (despite the pythonesque image that many have of life in the medieval period, their standards of cleanliness were higher than later generations; and they were not attained again until the later Victorian era). However, a couple of re-enacting friends are experts in medieval medicine so I will consult them on this subject.
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Post by Frere Reynald de Pensax on Oct 30, 2012 12:36:35 GMT -5
I've had a chat with Kevin Goodman who is an expert on all aspects of medieval medicine and he has said that the first instance of a midwife doing a baptism is from circa 1311 and this was performed on a stillborn baby. However, as only the rich could afford the services of a professional midwife, it was common for sickly babies born to ordinary people and who were not expected to live long enough for the parish priest to be summoned to be baptized either by the father or mother. It has to be remembered that the medieval Church was more flexible on many aspects of religion than we would automatically think. Ordinary people would attend Mass probably only once a year (you were regarded as being decidely suspect if you were a frequent attender) and only the wealthy would generally be married by a priest. The peasantry would simply agree to live together as husband and wife by arrangement with their respective families. Bearing this in mind, it doesn't seem so odd for someone other than a priest - even a woman - to perform a baptism in an emergency.
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Post by Sir Didymous LaRoth on Oct 31, 2012 0:36:41 GMT -5
Well that all seems to fit into line with the research I've been doing for the Booke of the Order project. I'm making very slow progress whereas I'm researching and re-researching the details. Though it's a work of fiction I want the technical details to be right. That's why i haven't been as active on here as normal.
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