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WITHIN AND WITHOUT:
THE SOCIAL AND MEDICAL WORLDS OF THE MEDIEVAL MIDWIFE
1000-1500
by
GINGER LEE GUARDIOLA
B.A.. University of California. San Diego. 1992
M.A.. Colorado State University. 1994
A thesis submitted to the
Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Colorado for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of History
2002
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This thesis entitled:
Within and Without: The Social and Medical Worlds
Of the Medieval Midwife, 1000-1500
written by Ginger Lee Guardiola
has been approved for the Department of History
Steven A. Epstein
7 (/ Scotit G. Bruce
The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the
signatories; and we find that both the content and the form
meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in
the above mentioned discipline.
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Guardiola. Ginger Lee (Ph.D.. History)
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I Within and Without: The Social and Medical Worlds of the Medieval Midwife,
j 1000-1500
Thesis directed by Professor Steven A. Epstein
| The medieval midwife was at once a part of the social community in
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! which she lived, and on the margins of it. She straddled several roles: not only
; social, but also medical, economic, and religious. The world of the medieval
: midwife was a complex one. and it was necessary for her to use a wide variety of
tools that she had at her disposal to perform her craft, including complex medical
procedures, herbs and drugs, charms and prayers, and "sympathetic magic."
Medieval midwives also occupied important roles in both "male" and
"female" society in Europe. In addition to the traditional role they had as experts
of prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal care, and the social leader of the events and
spaces surrounding the birth, they were also viewed as experts in certain "male"
areas of the community. Medieval midwives in England offered expert legal
testimony in a variety of court cases involving pregnancy and lactation, rape, and
even male impotence. In addition, in late medieval Italy midwives performed the
important social role o{comare, or "godmother." to the babies they delivered.
' Using the extant sources, includinu written obstetrical treatises, laws and
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court transcripts, recipes and charms, as well as a variety of visual sources, such
as manuscript illustrations, mosaics, and paintings, this dissertation argues that
medieval midwives learned their craft empirically through succeeding
generations, and that they were not as unskilled and dangerous as the medieval
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church and cities feared them to be. or that male medical writers and practitioners
of the early modem period believed. The regulation of medieval midwives,
therefore, was a process that had little to do with the actual practices of the
medieval midwife, but rather, was integral to a larger process in the late Middle
Ages of regulation and of subverting socially powerful people who had
traditionally been outside of institutional control to that position.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have a great many people to thank for their help in this endeavor.
Certainly 1 want to give sincere thanks to my committee, and especially to my
advisors: Steven A. Epstein and Boyd H. Hill. Jr. Boyd, you were the one with
whom I started this project, and the person who helped me to understand the
nature and the very specific problems inherent in writing the history of medieval
medicine. Steven, you were the one with whom I finished, and I thank you for the
many drafts you read, and the suggestions you made. I also want to thank Scott
Bruce. Susan Jones. James Jankowski, and James Andrew Cowell for your astute
comments and suggestions. I also wish to thank the Department of History and the
Center for British Studies for giving me the funding necessary to do research
abroad. And. of course. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Scott Miller for all of
your tireless assistance, with a smile no less.
In addition to my professors. I wish to thank my second academic family
at Colorado State University for their support and their faith in me. especially
Harry Rosenberg. It was you. as my first graduate advisor, who helped me to
develop the idea of studying medieval midwifery. Thank you Harry for your
support, mentorship. and affection.
There are many friends without whom I would not be at this stage. Russ
and Kerry, for sticking by me when loyalties were tested-I love you guys. And of
course. Tracy Brady, my alter-ego. who has sweated and agonized through every
page along side me-thank you so much. To Russ and Tiegan. thank you for your
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love and support. And of course, thanks to my mother. Glenda Andresen. who
gave me great advice, love, and the will to persevere, and to triumph.
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To Mom:
' For vour undving support and love.
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