03/15/2021
Magical Birthing girdles
Birthing belts are attested from various places, including Europe; they don't identify where this one comes from, but contextually it must be Britain: "a team led by Sarah Fiddyment of the the University of Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research has found evidence confirming a long-held theory: that medieval women relied on “birthing girdles,” or long parchment scrolls, not only during pregnancy but also during delivery. These patterns look like snakes to me; snakes show up in birth charms in the Lacnunga, an Anglo-Saxon medical text circa 1000 CE.
"As the researchers write in the journal Royal Society Open Science, bodily fluids recovered from a late 15th- or early 16th-century girdle made out of four pieces of sheepskin parchment proved key to the study. Housed in the London-based Wellcome Collection, the artifact features many religious symbols, including a cross and inscribed invocations, notes Agence France-Presse. It measures nearly 4 inches wide and 10 feet long. [So wrapped around the body multiple times]
“This girdle is especially interesting as it has visual evidence of having been used and worn, as some of the images and writing have been worn away through use and it has many stains and blemishes,” says Fiddyment in a statement. Experts theorize that women would have positioned these accessories around their wombs during labor as a protective measure.
Researchers used erasers to gently collect proteins from the parchment’s fragile surface. Later, they contrasted these findings with residue from another scrap of paper and a separate 18th-century parchment to gauge whether the types of proteins present varied, writes Andrew Curry for Science magazine. Scholars had previously used this technique to extract collagen proteins from parchments and identify which animal species they were made out of. ... study co-author Natalie Goodison says, “I think, on one level, we thought there would be blood, and, on another level, we thought there might be mouse poop.” Instead, when experts evaluated the data, they found traces of honey, milk, eggs, cereals and legumes, as well as vaginal fluids likely linked to childbirth. Signs of wear on the girdle’s surface suggest that someone felt, caressed or kissed it, according to the study.
"... historians posit that childbirth was the main cause of death for English women between the late 5th and 11th centuries; the study notes that the neonatal mortality rate during this period was between 30 and 60 percent. ... Because labor was so perilous, women often chanted religious litanies or used amulets to aid the process. In addition to birthing belts, some women held objects like cheese or butter tins etched with charms [!], as historian Sarah Bryson wrote for the Tudor Society in 2015. English monks likely created the recently analyzed girdle during the 15th century, when medical practitioners started paying closer attention to women’s health in the wake of the bubonic plague, per Science."
Thanks to Mary Condren. More in comments.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-study-shows-medieval-women-used-birthing-belts-180977207/
