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DOI: 10.1177/036319900202700202 2002 27: 92Journal of Family History

Becky R. Lee Men: Men's Recollections of Childbirth in Medieval EnglandandA Company of Women

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JOURNAL OF FAMILY HISTORY / April 2002Lee / A COMPANY OF WOMEN AND MEN

A COMPANY OF WOMEN AND MEN:MENS RECOLLECTIONS OFCHILDBIRTH IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

Becky R. Lee

The events that took place in medieval English birthing chambers were witnessedand assisted by a company of women. Although these events may have been iso-lated, they did not exist in isolation. Rather, they interacted in complex ways withthe lives and activities of the men in the manor hall. This article examines thoseinteractions as they are evidenced in proof-of-age inquests, legal documents thatrecord the recollections of husbands, fathers, and male relatives and neighborsregarding the events surrounding the birth of an heir to crown land. It concludesthat even though men rarely entered the birthing chamber, their dynastic interestsand social politics routinely penetrated its walls, blurring the boundary betweenprivate and public spheres, female and male space.

On February 30, 1390, William Asshelegh and William Orum were in the hall of themanor of Walton in Essex attending to some business with the lord of the manor, Wil-liam de Botreaux, when his newborn heir, a son also named William, was carried intothe hall by some of the women who had attended his birth.1 Like most medieval births,the birth of William de Botreauxs heir was witnessed and assisted by a company ofwomen in the chamber, removed from the everyday activities of the manor and fromprying male eyes. The female control of the medieval birthing chamber even now pro-tects women prevy sekenes2 from prying eyes. The silence in the historical record sur-rounding childbirth, because it was primarily the concern of women, continues toobscure our view of the events that took place there. Nevertheless, historians are mak-ing inroads into the silence surrounding the medieval birthing chamber by broadeningthe search to consider all the kinds of texts written and unwritten that might throwlight on the subject.3 For example, Gail McMurray Gibson has plumbed the mystery

92

Becky R. Lee is an assistant professor at York University, Toronto, Canada, cross-appointed to the Divisionof Humanities and the School of Womens Studies. Her publications include the following: The MedievalHysteric and Psychedelic Psychologist: A Revaluation of the Mysticism of Margery Kempe in the Light ofthe Transpersonal Psychology of Stanislav Grof (Studia Mystica, forthcoming), The Purification ofWomen after Childbirth: AWindow ontoMediaeval Perceptions of Women (Florilegium, 1995-1996), andThe Treatment of Women in the Historiography of Late Medieval Popular Religion (Method and Theoryin the Study of Religion, 1996). Her current research projects include an investigation of medieval attitudestoward the mothers of illegitimate children and a book-length study of churching in medieval England.Journal of Family History, Vol. 27 No. 2, April 2002 92-100 2002 Sage Publications


plays of early English drama for glimpses into the ceremonies of childbirth.4 RenateBlumenfeld-Kosinsky has examined the iconography of caesarian birth. And Jacque-line Made Musacchio has studied the decorative art created to commemorate child-birth in Renaissance Italy.5

Accompanying this examination of new sources has been a reexamination of famil-iar documentary evidence. The shift in emphasis, which has occurred over the past twodecades, from recovering womens history to gender analysis, with its focus on theinterrelationships between and among the various factors that shape identity andpower relations, has generated a new question, or a new perspective, from which toapproach those familiar sources for insight into medieval childbirth.6 Although notintended to document the ordinary activities of womens lives such as childbirth, manymedieval documentary sources allow glimpses into the birthing chamber because theevents that took place there, although isolated, did not exist in isolation but interactedin complex ways with the lives and activities of the men in the hall.7 When viewed fromthis perspective, records documenting mens lives and interests become potential ave-nues into the female world of the birthing chamber. For example, Peter Biller andMonica Green have reexamined medical treatises, legal statutes and ordinances, andcourt records to discover much more expanded roles for priests and medical men inmedieval birthing chambers than was previously assumed. Similarly, Fiona HarrisStoertzs reexamination of saints lives, miracle stories, and medical collections haschallenged our assumptions about medieval attitudes toward the women giving birth.8Another documentary source that allows glimpses into medieval English birthingchambers but has been overlooked by historians is proof-of-age inquests. These legaldocuments are even more amenable to this sort of reexamination, for they are a directproduct of the interaction between the events in the birthing chamber and the activitiesof the men in the hall.9

Proof-of-age inquests are the legal proceedings conducted to ascertain if a feudalheirthat is, an heir to land held in knight-service to the crownwas of age and couldtherefore take control of her or his estate. If a feudal heir was underage, she or hebecame a ward of the lord, the tenant-in-chief, who not only administered the wardslands until she or he came of age but also assumed responsibility for her or his educa-tion and marriage.10 These legal records comprise mens recollections of their activi-ties at the time of the heirs birth, solicited and recorded in support of patrilineal con-trol over the family estate. As such, they provide an unprecedented view of theinteraction between the company of women in the birthing chamber and the society ofmen in the hall. The glimpse of medieval childbirth these mens recollections providesuggests that even though men rarely entered the birthing chamber, they were notexcluded from the events that took place there.

In England, there was no official system for recording births until 1538.11 Instead,living memory was called on to prove the age of heirs to property.12 At the end of thetwelfth century, Glanvill prescribed a jury of male neighbors to determine the age ofsuch heirs.13 By the reign of Edward I (1272-1307), it had become customary for thosejuries to include the testimony of the jurors along with their verdict in the records oftheir proceedings. These proceedings were both entered on the plea rolls of the KingsBench and returned into the Chancery.14

At proof-of-age inquests, only men were permitted to testify, normally neighborsfrom the county of the heirs birth, albeit the testimony of women such as midwiveswas admitted secondhand.15 Although their testimony pertains to the births of feudal

Lee / A COMPANY OF WOMEN AND MEN 93


heirs, a very select group within the population, jurors were not limited to a particularsocial stratum. They came from all walks of life, chosen for their knowledge of the ageof the heir in question rather than their social standing. The testimony of the jurorsincludes a wide assortment of memories comprising significant events that served tofix the date of an heirs birth in the jurors minds. Some of the events recalled tookplace around the time of the heirs birth, such as accidents, historic events, marriages,and appointments to office. Others are events connected with the heirs birth itself. It isthose recollections that are of particular interest here.16

These mens recollections confirm that men were not normally admitted to thebirthing chamber during labor and delivery.17 For example, Simon de Seyles ofSpaldyngton recounts that on the day of the birth of John, son and heir of John de Yorkin 1401, he dared not enter the house for the cries of the said Johns mother in childbirth.18 Evidence in the proofs-of-age also confirms that husbands were not normallypresent in the birthing chamber.19 There is some evidence of expectant fathers waitingout the labor with male friends and acquaintances. For example, Thomas Dodyngton,John Holbech, John Clerc, John Assheley, and Geoffrey Sutton all recall dining inLondon with Guy de Briene in a house close to that in which Elizabeth [his daughter]was born in 1381.20 Similarly, Henry Seint Jon recounts having been at lunch withPeter de Bratton of Somerset when a servant came and announced the birth of his sonThomas in 1378.21 There is more evidence to suggest that expectant fathers carried onwith business as usual while their wives were in labor. William de Botreaux, men-tioned above, was in the hall conducting business with two neighbors when his heirwas born.22 John Pope recalls walking with John atte Hull . . . in a field calledWeryscroft to look at some oxen which he was buying when a man came to announcethe birth of his son Nicholas in 1368.23 Jahn Yaweyn, Nicholas Boughton, RichardFoxeley, and John Wheolar remember being in the company of John de Awre atGloucestre before the justices of assize when the news of the birth [of his daughterJoan] was given him in 1372.24 And Thomas Hileyerd of York was at a funeral whenhe learned of the birth of his daughter Elizabeth in 1318.25

The proofs-of-age also confirm that men could be called into the birthing chamberto assist in extraordinary circumstances such as a difficult or a precipitous labor.26 In1353, for example, Simon de Folifayt of York is reported to have revived his newborndaughter.27 Proofs-of-age also testify that priests were allowed into the birthing cham-ber when the life of the mother was in danger. Thomas Bell of Croft remembers accom-panying Robert Rukeby, chaplain, carrying a lantern with a candle, to see the newlydelivered mother of Robert, son of Robert de Stodhowe, who was very ill.28

The testimonies in the proofs-of-age also suggest more routine interaction betweenthe lying-in chambers of the mothers of heirs to crown land and the company of men inthe hall. The purpose of proof-of-age inquests was to ensure continued family controlover the family estate. As Sue Sheridan Walker points out, Since a minors successionto a feudal estate in medieval England meant wardship and the familys loss of theprofits of the estate, the heirs right to be considered an adult was a matter of the utmostlegal, social, and economic significance.29 To ensure a later successful proof-of-ageinquest, parents of feudal heirs attempted to fix the date of their heirs birth in theminds of potential jurors by making the birth memorable. To this end, they wrote thedate of birth in a parish service book or chronicle and planned elaborate baptismal cer-emonies and churching celebrations. It was also customary for them to present poten-

94 JOURNAL OF FAMILY HISTORY / April 2002


tial jurors with gifts on the occasion of the birth. For example, in 1335, Thomas Cary ofDorset distributed bows to the servants and retainers of a neighbor on the birth of hisson so that they might have a testimony and memorial of [his] heir.30

Proofs-of-age reveal that not only the father of an heir but also the newly deliveredmother of an heir distributed gifts to potential jurors. John Michel testifies that on theThursday following the birth (of Margaret Blount in 1346), he held a court atChildefrome, and after the court he visited Agatha, mother of the same Margaret, in herlying-in (puerperio), and she gave him a silk purse to remember the birth of her daugh-ter.31 In Somerset, William White, Thomas Dynham, William Major, and Walter Davysay that on the day of John (Denbouds) baptism (in 1348), they visited Joan hismother, then in childbed, and she gave each of them a silk purse that they mightremember and bear witness to her sons age.32 These cryptic accounts are not evidencethat those male friends and neighbors were welcomed into the lying-in chamber. Theydo indicate, however, that even when considering the enclosed space of the birthingchamber, at least for the mothers of heirs to crown land, the division between privateand public spheres, or female and male space, is ambiguous.33

Although medieval English wives did not enjoy the economic, legal, and politicalprerogatives of their husbands, the wives of the nobility and the gentry wielded sub-stantial, if informal, influence and power. Also, noble and aristocratic wives wouldhave been no less intent on ensuring continued family control over the family estatesthan their husbands. As Rowena Archer notes,

Nowhere can the partnership between men and women be more consistently viewedthan in the preservation of the landed inheritance which had been created by the unionof husband and wife and bonded by the birth of an heir. A common interest in expand-ing and maintaining the property in their charge promoted a sense of common purposein which both parties played complementary and overlapping roles.34

Noble and aristocratic wives not only shared in the management of the affairs of theirlarge households and families but also took over the management of family estates andthe running of the household from their husbands during the frequent absencesrequired of those in the kings service.35 Those responsibilities entailed establishingand maintaining networks of other landholders and their servants and retainers, trades-men,36 lawyers, and various civic officials.37 Hospitality, patronage, and gift exchangewere the vehicles through which those networks were established and maintained.38The evidence in the proof-of-age inquests suggests that those interactions crossed thethreshold of the birthing chamber, figuratively if not literally. Men not only testify thatwomen friends and neighbors visited newly delivered mothers,39 but they also testify tohaving visited them themselves. Besides the accounts of men having received gifts thathave already been mentioned, Alexander de Scalebrok of Oxford recounts that on theday in 1295 that Fulk, son and heir of Fulk de Rucote, was born, he went with LadyCecily de Scalebrok his mother, daughter of Fulk de Rucote the father, and saw the saidFulk (the younger just) born.40 And William Vaux recalls that in 1346, he among oth-ers rode to comfort [the mother of Richard de Kirkebride of Cumberland] because shewas in peril of death after the birth.41 The servants and retainers of Thomas Carysneighbor, mentioned earlier, testify to having begged leave of . . . their lord, to go tothe house of Thomas Cary, . . . to visit Alice his wife . . . who was lying in childbirth.42



Although these records do not indicate that those men entered into the birthing cham-ber, they do suggest that male relatives, friends, and neighbors went to be in attendanceto the mother after the birth of an heir to crown land.

Similarly, proof-of-age inquests record male relatives, friends, and neighbors send-ing or taking gifts to a newly delivered mother on the occasion of the birth. Those rec-ollections are very specific about these being gifts to the mother. Most telling in thisregard is the proof-of-age inquest for Edmund Holand, brother and heir of Thomas,earl of Kent, born in 1382. At that inquest, Thomas Colyngton and John Polaynrecount having taken gifts to the father of the child. Thomas Colyngton broughttwelve partridges to the father, and John Polayn presented a wild boar to the father.Whereas John Wallop and John Harryes report having taken gifts to the mother of thechild, John Wallop says he took two swans to Brockenhurst and gave them to Alice,countess of Kent, the mother. John Harryes also reported having presented twelvecapons and twenty-four hens to the mother.43 Other men recall having taken gifts tonew mothers on their own behalf or on behalf of their masters or mistresses. Theseinclude lampreys, cartloads of hay, venison, and braces of pheasants.44 Several recordseven describe men delivering or sending wine for the caudel imbibed by the women inthe birthing chamber. For example, when John Watts heard that Margaret, wife of Johnde Wauton, knight, had delivered a son, he sent her a gallon of sweet wine.45

These recollections of gifts and visits paid to newly delivered mothers of heirs tocrown land attest that even though men rarely stepped foot into the birthing chamber,their dynastic interests and social politics routinely penetrated its walls, blurring theboundary between private and public spheres, female and male space. This boundarywas further obfuscated by traffic going the other way. Female attendants oftenannounced the birth to the father of the heir and his companions. For example, whenMargaret de Bovill was born in 1311, the midwives came into the hall, and announcedthe birth to [her father] and [the] others [with him].46 Female attendants also spreadnews of a birth as they carried the newborn child off to be baptized. William Smith andJohn Rother of Essex remember that Joan, the wife of William Seman, was with Eliza-beth Pekenham in 1378 when she gave birth to her son Robert. Joan carried Robert tothe church, and coming from the church told them of [the birth].47 In that same year,John Delasis recalls having met a group of women carrying William de Carnaby ofNorthumberland to the church for baptism. Among them was his niece Katharine, whotold him that Isabel mother of William was in danger of dying.48

In telling of a birth to the males excluded from the birthing chamber, these womenplayed an essential role in furthering the dynastic interests shared by both the fatherand the mother of an heir to crown land by attesting to the birth of a legitimate heir andensuring a later successful proof-of-age. As John Delasiss testimony reveals, theyalso shared the secrets of the birthing chamber. At another inquest, Nicholas deKingesmulle and William de Mertok both remember their wives tales of having spenteight days and nights with Pernell, wife of Thomas de Sancto Omero, as she laboredwith her daughter Alice in 1340.49 Gail McMurray Gibson suggests that male interestin the news from the birthing chamber was self-interested in that it was focused onthe production of an heir and the maintenance of patrilineal control.50 Proof-of-ageinquests confirm that was of considerable importance to the men and women of thenobility and gentry. However, Fiona Harris Stoertz warns against portray[ing] medi-eval women in childbirth as victims whose sufferings were meaningless to society, or



as baby machines.51 As important as dynastic concerns and male networking mayhave been, simple human interest and human concern ought also to be read betweenthe lines of these records.

Wet nursing is one more aspect of childbirth documented in the proof-of-ageinquests that also occasioned interaction between the birthing chamber and the men inthe hall. Proofs-of-age confirm that it was customary for the children of the Englishnobility and gentry to be wet-nursed throughout the period covered by these records,the late twelfth to the late fifteenth centuries.52 And just as Christiane Klapisch-Zuberhas demonstrated for Renaissance Florence,53 the testimonies in the proof-of-ageinquests reveal that men played an important role in the hiring and supervision of wetnurses in medieval England. However, unlike Florence, where wet nursing was mensbusiness, the responsibilities surrounding wet nursing appear to have been shared byEnglish men and women, once again blurring the boundary between the company ofwomen in the birthing chamber and the society of men in the hall. Most explicit in thisregard are two records in which men recount having consulted with the midwife andthe other women who were present at the birth to locate a good wet nurse for the heir.Another record, wherein a man recalls attending the baptism of a child for whom hehad found a nurse, confirms that those men were responsible for finding the wetnurse.54 However, the records just cited do not indicate on whose behalf those menwere actingthe father, the mother, or another relative. Other testimonies suggest thatthey were acting as agents for the mother of the heir. In his testimony on behalf of JohnAlkham, who was born in Guston by Dover in 1354, Thomas Marigge recalls havingentered the house of Johns father while exercising his office as borsholder of Guston.55While there, the childs mother complained to him that she had no milk to nourish herchild, and asked him to provide a nurse.56 In two other records, the mother of the heiris named as the one who hired the wet nurse.57 An heirs father is never named as theone hiring the wet nurse, although two witnesses recall being sent by the father to fetchthe wet nurse on the day of the birth.58 The one record documenting the supervision of awet nurse also attests to the male-female interaction that characterizes these mens rec-ollections of the activities associated with the birthing chamber. Thomas Turvyllerecounts being sent by the aunt of a young heir to the home of the wet nurse to see howthe heir was kept and nursed.59

Although proof-of-age inquests add little to our knowledge of women prevysekenes, they do reveal some of the ways in which the events within the birthing cham-ber interacted with the activities of the males in the hall. While men may not haveentered the birthing chamber literally, these mens recollections suggest that we can-not therefore assume that they were excluded from the events that took place there.Proof-of-age inquests reveal much awareness of and involvement with the women andthe activities within the birthing chamber on the part of medieval English men. Fromthe perspective of the mens recollections recorded in proof-of-age inquests, it was acompany of women and men that surrounded a puerperal woman.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI am indebted to Katherine L. French for introducing me to proof-of-age inquests.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 36th International Congress onMedieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 2001.



NOTES1.Calendar of Inquisitions PostMortem andOther AnalogousDocuments Preserved in the

Public Record Office, 20 vols. (London: HMSO, 1904-1995), 19:999.2. B. Rowland, ed., Medieval Womans Guide to Health: The First English Gynecological

Handbook (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1981), 58.3. G. McMurray Gibson, Scene and Obscene: Seeing and Performing Late Medieval

Childbirth, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29, no. 1 (1999): 10.4. See Gibson, Scene and Obscene; see also Blessing from Sun and Moon: Churching as

Womens Theater, in Bodies and Disciplines: Intersections of Literature and History in Fif-teenth-Century England, ed. B. A. Hanawalt and D. Wallace (Minneapolis: University of Min-nesota Press, 1996), 139-54; and her forthcoming book, Texts, Talismans, and Cultural Perfor-mances of Medieval Pregnancy and Childbirth.

5. See R. Blumenfeld-Kosinsky, Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean BirthinMedieval and Renaissance Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), and J. MadeMusacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, CT: Yale Uni-versity Press, 1999).

6. See J. Murray, Thinking about Gender: The Diversity of Medieval Perspectives, inPower of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women, ed. J. Carpenter and S.-B. MacLean (Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1995), 1-3.

7. See Gibson, Scene and Obscene, 10; M. Green, Womens Medical Practice andHealth Care in Medieval Europe, in Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, ed. J. M. Bennett(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 64; and U. Rublack, Pregnancy, Childbirth andthe Female Body in the Early Modern Germany, Past & Present 150 (1996): 84-111.

8. See Green, Womens Medical Practice; P. Biller, Childbirth in the Middle Ages,His-tory Today 36 (1986): 42-49 and Birth-Control in the West in the Thirteenth and Early Four-teenth Centuries, Past & Present 94 (1982): 3-26; F. Harris Stoertz, Suffering and Survival inMedieval English Childbirth, in Medieval Family Roles: A Book of Essays, ed. C. JorgensenItnyre (New York: Garland, 1996), 101-20.

9. I am indebted to Katherine French for introducing me to these records.10. Knights came of age at age twenty-one; women of that order came of age at age fourteen

if married, age sixteen if single.11. Thomas Cromwell ordered parish registers to be kept in 1538. W. Coster, Popular Reli-

gion and the Parish Register 1538-1603, in The Parish in English Life 1400-1600, ed. K. L.French, G. Gibbs, and B. Kmin (Manchester, 1997), 97, notes that a number of surviving regis-ters antedate Cromwells injunction, suggesting that the keeping of registers had alreadybecome customary in some localities. On the other hand, S. S. Walker, Proof of Age of FeudalHeirs in Medieval England, Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973): 323, points out that due to faultykeeping of parish registers, living memory continued to be relied on into the nineteenth century.

12. I am indebted to Walker, Proof of Age, 306-23, and J. Bedell, Memory and Proof ofAge in England 1272-1327, Past & Present 162 (1999): 6-12, for the background informationon proof-of-age inquests in this section. J. Hurstfield, The Queens Wards: Wardship and Mar-riage under Elizabeth I (London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1958), esp. 157-72, also dis-cusses proofs-of-age.

13. Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie qui Glanvilla vocatur, ed. G.D.G.Hall (London: Nelson, 1965), 7.9: 82-83. Cited in Walker, Proof of Age, 308, note 7.

14. The Chancery records are calendared inCalendar of Inquisitions PostMortem andOtherAnalogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office, 20 vols. (London: HMSO,1904-1995), which covers the period from 1 Henry III (1216) to 5 Henry V (1418) inclusively(hereafter cited as IPM). Proofs-of-age from the reign of Henry VII (1486-1509) are publishedin IPM, Second Series, 3 vols. (1898-1955). The proofs-of-age recorded during the years 6



Henry 5 to 2 Richard 3 (1418-1483) have yet to be published. These are held at the Public RecordOffice, London (hereafter cited as PRO).

15. For example, IPM 6/188: John le Carpentir, aged 41, says the like [agrees that the heir isof age], as appears certain to him by the statements of Christine her mother and of near neigh-bours, on the day of the feast of her purification. See also IPM 3/429.

16. When considering the evidence provided by proofs of age, it must be noted that there aresome suspiciously similar testimonies to be found among these records. It is likely that as theprocedure for taking proofs of age became routine, a tradition of stock recollections graduallydeveloped. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this discussion, while some of the memoriesrecounted by the jurors may have been invented, proofs of age do reveal the kinds of activitiesnormally associated with the birth of a feudal heir, thus affording some insight into mens partic-ipation in the customs surrounding childbirth in England in the thirteenth to the fifteenth centu-ries. See Bedell, Memory and Proof of Age, 6-12; L. R. Poos, A Rural Society after the BlackDeath: Essex 1350-1525 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 190; Hurstfield,TheQueensWards, 159-63; R. C. Fowler and M. T. Martin, Legal Proofs of Age,EnglishHis-torical Review 22 (1907): 101-2, 526-27.

17. See Gibson, Scene and Obscene, 9; Stoertz, Suffering and Survival, 110-11. See alsoJ. Glis,History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy and Birth in EarlyModern Europe, trans. R.Morris (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1991), 101-2; A. Wilson, The Making of Man-Midwifery:Childbirth in England, 1660-1770 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 1.

18. IPM 7/485. Other men also recall hearing the cries of women laboring in childbirth fromoutside the birthing chamber. See IPM 5/228, IPM 6/754, IPM 7/245, and IPM 9/125.

19. The exception to this rule was royal birth (e.g., according to Glis,History of Childbirth,102); the king of France was always present at the confinement of the queen.

20. IPM 18/314.21. IPM 17/1317. See also IPM 18/1178.22. IPM 19/999.23. IPM 20/272. See also IPM 19/999; IPM 2:1/1250.24. IPM 16/1054. See also IPM 10/196; IPM 16/75.25. IPM 7/544. Similarly, Elias Martel of Lincoln was at a wedding when his son was born;

see IPM 8/64.26. See Blumenfeld-Kosinsky, Not of Woman Born, 91; Green, Womens Medical Prac-

tice; Biller, Childbirth in the Middle Ages, 47-49; Glis, History of Childbirth, 101-2.27. This testimony is found in a York consistory court record of a hearing called to determine

if the principals in a marriage were old enough to contract marriage. It is, in effect, a proof of age.See P.J.P. Goldberg, ed., Women in England c. 1275-1525 (Manchester, UK: Manchester Uni-versity Press, 1995), 3, 64-65. I am indebted to Shannon McSheffrey for this reference.

28. IPM 18/953. Biller, Childbirth in the Middle Ages, 47-48, suggests priests wereallowed into the birthing chamber not only to administer the sacraments and spiritual comfortbut also for their medical knowledge. See also Stoertz, Suffering and Survival, 110. I havefound no mention in the proofs of age of a medical man being present at a birth.

29. Walker, Proof of Age, 306.30. IPM 10/399.31. IPM 11/129. See also IPM 11/379.32. IPM 13/67. See also IPM 12/178.33. Cf. B. A. Hanawalt, At the Margin of Womens Space in Medieval Europe, in Matrons

andMarginal Women in Medieval Society, ed. R. R. Edwards and V. Ziegler (Woodbridge, UK:Boydell, 1995), 1-18.

34. R. E. Archer, How Ladies . . .Who Live on Their Manors Ought to Manage TheirHouseholds and Estates: Women as Landholders and Administrators in the Later MiddleAges, in Women in Medieval English Society, ed. P.J.P. Goldberg (Phoenix Mill, UK: Sutton,



1997; reprint, Woman Is a Worthy Wight, 1992), 149-50. See also J. C. Ward, The EnglishNoblewoman and Her Family in the Later Middle Ages, in The Fragility of Her Sex? Medi-eval Women in Their European Context, ed. C. R. Meek and M. K. Simms (Portland, OR: FourCourts, 1996), 133-34.

35. See Archer, How Ladies ; M. E. Mate,Daughters,Wives andWidows after the BlackDeath: Women in Sussex, 1350-1535 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 1998), 154-78; J.C. Ward, English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (London: Longman, 1992); A. S.Haskel, The Paston Women on Marriage in Fifteenth-Century England, in Five Papers onMarriage in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Leyerle (Los Angeles, 1972), 459-71; B. A. Hanawalt,Lady Honor Lisles Networks of Influence, in Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. M.Erler and M. Kowaleski (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), 203.

36. For example, see IPM 3/483; IPM 5/152.37. For example, see IPM 14/300.38. See Ward, English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages, 70-79; Hanawalt, Lady

Honor Lisles Networks, 192-9; K. Mertes, The English Noble Household 1250-1600 (Oxford,UK: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 75-139; C. Carpenter, Gentry and Community in Medieval Eng-land, Journal of British Studies 33, no. 4 (1994): 340-80.

39. For example, see IPM 6/123, IPM 12/262, IPM 20/130, and IPM 20/142.40. IPM 6/123.41. IPM 12/381.42. IPM 10/399.43. IPM 18/979.44. IPM 6/434, IPM 8/670, IPM 10/399, and IPM 18/999.45. IPM 18/310. See also IPM 17/1319; IPM 17/1320.46. IPM 7/169.47. IPM 18/309.48. IPM 19/1003.49. IPM 10/336. See also IPM 18/673.50. Gibson, Scene and Obscene, 14.51. Stoertz, Suffering and Survival, 102. See also Ward, The English Noblewoman and

Her Family, 135.52. See Goldberg, Women in England, 3; S. Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages, trans. C.

Galai (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1990), 62-63. Valerie Fildes has studied wet nursing inEngland after 1500 in detail, but there has been little study of wet nursing in medieval England.See V. Fildes, The English Wet Nurse and Her Role in Infant Care, 1538-1800, Medical His-tory 32 (1988): 142-73 and Wet Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present (New York:Basil Blackwell, 1988), 32-48, 79-100, 159-89.

53. C. Klapisch-Zuber, Blood Parents and Milk Parents: Wet Nursing in Florence,1300-1530, in Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chi-cago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 132-64.

54. See IPM 18/998, IPM 18/1140, and IPM 19/666.55. The chief of a tithing or frank-pledge.56. IPM 14/300. See also Goldberg, Women in England, 73, 78.57. IPM 6/192; Goldberg, Women in England, 73, 78.58. IPM 2:2/204; IPM 2:2/208.59. IPM 19/343.



Journal of Family History 2002 Lee 92 100

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