English Birth Girdles : : Devotions for Women in “Travell of Childe” / / Mary Morse.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2024 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Morse, Mary,
• Place / Publishing House: Kalamazoo, MI : : Medieval Institute Publications, , [2024]; ©2024
• Year of Publication: 2024
• Language: English
• Series: Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture ; 38
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (VIII, 471 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 Philadelphia, Redemptorist Archives, olim Esopus -- Chapter 2 London, British Library, Harley Charter 43.A.14 -- Chapter 3 New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Takamiya Depository, Takamiya MS 56 -- Chapter 4 New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Beinecke MS 410 -- Chapter 5 New York, Morgan Library & Museum, Glazier MS 39 -- Chapter 6 London, British Library, Additional MS 88929 (Prince Henry’s roll) -- Chapter 7 London, British Library, Harley Roll T.11 -- Chapter 8 London, Wellcome Collection, Wellcome MS 632 -- Chapter 9 London, British Library, STC 14547.5 -- Conclusion From Orthodoxy to Heresy -- Appendix 1 Two Childbirth Units in the Birth Girdles -- Appendix 2 New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Takamiya Depository, Takamiya MS 56 -- Appendix 3 New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Beinecke MS 410 -- Appendix 4 London, British Library, STC 14547.5 -- Bibliography -- Index