Pregnancy and Childbirth in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century French and English Law

Pregnancy and Childbirth in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century French and English Law Fiona Harris-Stoertz (bio) Through most of the Middle Ages, childbirth was an event attended and controlled largely by women. Men, while they might wait anxiously outside the birthing chamber and sometimes conveyed their wishes to the women inside, were rarely present at births and had little direct impact on the birth process.1 Nevertheless, male contemporaries could not and did not ignore entirely something as vital to society as childbirth. An examination of French and English law codes written before 1325 shows that secular authorities throughout the Middle Ages wrote laws concerning pregnancy and childbirth and that these laws became more prevalent and more intrusive in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Although these forms of intervention were limited in scope and would have had little real effect on most women, it can be argued that they represent part of the “thin end of the opening wedge” of male control of pregnancy and childbirth and helped pave the way for the greater loss of female hegemony in later centuries. Still, the development of such laws should not be seen merely as [End Page 263] a product of misogyny; it also, among other factors, resulted from greater attention paid to matters of inheritance and from the expansion of literacy, the study of Roman law, and the bureaucratization of medieval society, all of which increasingly touched all aspects of human existence. What follows here contributes to a growing body of work on male intervention in matters relating to pregnancy and childbirth during the Middle Ages. It has long been argued that it was only at the end of the Middle Ages or especially in the early modern period that male clerical and secular authorities gradually gained authority over childbirth, as church officials and municipal authorities began to supervise and regulate midwives more intensively, and male “experts” gained prestige in the birthing chamber.2 In recent years, however, several medieval historians have suggested that certain forms of male intervention occurred earlier, particularly in the thirteenth century and later. Becky Lee, examining proofs of age produced from the thirteenth century onward, suggests that while men were rarely present at births, they were to some extent aware and interested in them, with news and gifts penetrating the walls of the birthing chamber.3 Kathryn Taglia finds that northern French church authorities began to pass legislation regarding emergency baptism during childbirth from the very late twelfth century onward, something that I view as a kind of official intrusion into some births, although the baptisms were often performed by midwives.4 Jacqueline Musacchio argues that Italian men from the fourteenth century attempted to influence birth through their selection of decorative objects for bedrooms and birthing chambers.5 Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski suggests men entered the field of obstetrics through the performance of caesarean sections, which were described in medical literature from the early fourteenth century onward and performed on living women from about 1400.6 The [End Page 264] most important work on male intervention in women’s health care is that of Monica Green, who has explored this subject in a number of books and articles. She argues that female control of childbirth was never absolute. Certainly by 1300 some women were turning to male medical practitioners in obstetrical emergencies and in cases of sterility, a trend that was encouraged by the increasing identification of men with learned obstetrical literature, among other factors. Likewise, Green demonstrates that after the thirteenth century obstetrical and gynecological literature became less focused on helping women and more oriented toward understanding women’s secrets.7 While the most overt and widespread forms of male involvement in childbirth, such as the licensing of midwives and the creation of what have been called man-midwives, may be products of later centuries, one can certainly find an increased willingness on the part of men to intervene in childbirth matters in a number of significant ways as early as the twelfth century. In some respects, law codes are not ideal sources for the study of medieval pregnancy and childbirth. Most were probably authored by men, who, as I have suggested...

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