Medieval Midwifery
This is a study (and a very interesting one) on the subject of midwives in western Europe during medieval times. The medieval period is widely calculated from the fifth century AD up to and including the fifteenth century AD. While the beginning of the medieval (i.e. Middle Ages) period is firmly set, and generally accepted by all as the fall of Rome under Odoacer (c. 433 – 493 AD) in 476, the end of the era is reckoned differently by various historians. Some choose 1453 when the Turks captured Constantinople. Others prefer 1492 when Columbus opened a new age of discovery. Still others focus on 1517 when Martin Luther launched what would become known as the Protestant Reformation by nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenburg Castle (All Saints’ Church)[1].
The term “midwife” is derived from the Old English preposition mid meaning “with” and wif which is the Old English term for “woman” (married or not). The compound word then takes the meaning “with woman” or one who stands with a woman. By itself, there is no suggestion of a role or gender other than presence. The French word for midwife (sage-femme) does present more inuendo, however, as it translates into a knowledgeable (e.g. wise or sagacious) and experienced woman. The German term for midwife (Hebamme) is derived from heben which means “to lift” and the word for nurse (Amme) and specifically a wet-nurse)[2]. So, we have a nurse that lifts an infant as it emerges from the birth canal. In Latin, the word for midwife comes from obstare meaning “to stand before/in front of,” compounded with the feminine suffix trix, from which we get the English word obstetric. The Latin word refers to a midwife facing the expectant mother, not just with the woman as the English term suggests.
The preferred pronunciation in Europe of the term “midwifery” is mid-wiff’-er-ree. In the U.S., it is often pronounced mid-wife’-er-ree with a long “i” rather than a short “i.”
There are in Western Europe today 120,000 to 130,000 registered midwives. In the U.S. there are currently 14,000 to 17,000. In the Middle Ages, when doctors were in scare supply and learning had stagnated, midwives were indispensable. Today, this is no longer true, though midwifes are still in demand when there are families that wish for a traditional or holistic child birthing experience with a practitioner that is as much a family member as a professional health care provider. More of this will follow near the end of this post.
Who did midwives answer to?
Midwives across Europe during the Middle Ages worked under the auspices of local governmental (i.e. secular) or ecclesiastical governing bodies. Qualifications to practice, standards of care and disciplinary measures for malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance evolved through the ages and varied from city to city (as well as in rural regions on the continent.)
Compensation
Midwives in the Middle Ages were not paid well. What a midwife earned was essentially whatever a family could give her. In rural areas, it might be flour, eggs or grain.
Perhaps honey, a goose, a goat, or milk, not necessarily as a lump sum, but perhaps six eggs per week for a year. It could also be wool, scraps of cloth, or labor provided for repairs on the midwife’s home or upkeep of her garden. In urban areas such as Nuremburg, Germany, they might receive a few coins, and a well-to-do family would almost certainly pay her with money. A poor family might not be able to pay her at all. Anticipating cases like this, some states or municipalities paid their midwives a guarantee in terms of an annual stipend. However, the subsidies were insulting. An unskilled male laborer might be paid more in a week by a Gemeinde (community or parish) than a midwife could earn in a year! Her workload might run between 5-25 births per month which certainly kept her busy.[3] And while an area might be serviced by several midwives, at least a third of all midwives could be expected to be unavailable at any given time.
Qualifications
A woman could not just wake up one day and call herself a midwife. There was an apprenticeship into the practice which might last between one to four years depending on where in Europe the aspiring midwife lived, the demand for midwives, and the community culture. Large metropolitan areas such as Nuremberg were more progressive (hence demanding in terms of qualifications) than less populated regions. During this apprenticeship a candidate was answerable to a more seasoned woman. In England during the sixteenth or possibly seventeenth century, an apprentice midwife was treated as a “deputy” to an accomplished midwife, sometimes for as long as ten years. Elsewhere, there was no formal training (at least as far as the historical record reveals).
Demographics
A midwife more often than not was widowed. Age however was not a formal factor in the selection of midwives. The more competent and preferred midwives had experienced childbirth in their own lives and their children were grown, else there would be an incumbrance to the midwife if she needed to leave unexpectedly in the middle of the night and had no one to watch her own children. In many cases she was more or less literate. She might have a husband, but if he was able-bodied and there was a reliable source of income, then a woman might not have an incentive to work outside of the home, especially for a demanding job with little income.
What midwives carried in their kit
Instruments
A midwife needed a sharp knife to cut the cord of course. Some had preferences for specially designed birthing stools. Some midwives may have carried some religious artifact or a talisman for good luck.
Urban nurses in particular may have had a perforator (used to evacuate or reduce the cranium of nonliving infant and/or a crochet (a hooked instrument sometimes used in a pair to remove a dead infant. But as instruments were in the process of being introduced and generally reserved for surgeons (in the Netherlands where midwives were akin to minor civil servants, they were forbidden to use instruments), she may have had to resort to the type of instruments used in animal husbandry to deliver stillborn lambs of calves.
These and other crude instruments were reserved for those occasions “. . . when the chyld comyth forth unkyndely”[4]But these instruments were originally imagined for grave circumstances, until the tenth century. Then a Muslim physician named Avicenna wrote a book called Canon of Medicine in which instruments might be used to deliver a healthy infant, rather than a dead infant.[5] Talk about a paradigm shift!
Medications
Midwives carried a number of medications with them. These medications of course were mostly dried extracts and occasionally unguents from plants and herbs, the powders of which were brewed with tea, mixed with wine or broth or administered as a cocktail with other medicinal ingredients. Many of the plants in the midwife’s kit were common to her locale and she harvested these plants herself. If she needed a plant she could not locate, often the herbalist at a nearby monastery had what she needed. The problem she faced was how much of an often, deadly plant was therapeutic without endangering the mother or complicating labor. Here is where her skill came to bear. The type of drugs midwives typically carried were anticholinergics to induce a deep sleep or stupor, certainly uterotonic agents, occasionally (when permitted) analgesics and anesthetics.
Analgesics were problematic. Some locations in Western Europe allowed midwives to administer substances with narcotic-like effects, while others considered it contrary to Scripture or even a form of witchcraft. This was based on the verse in Genesis (3:16) where Eve is promised increased pain in childbirth, hence the contemporary notion that God’s will should not be overturned. So, we read (for example)[6]:
In 1591, among the allegations against Agnes Sampson, a midwife and the first woman to be burned at the stake for witchcraft in Scotland, was that she had offered Euphemia Maclean [aka Euphame MacCalzean] pain relief during childbirth, in the form of “an unspecified powdered substance, a bored stone to be laid under her pillow and some ‘Inchantit mwildis’ (the finger, toe and knee joints of disinterred corpses).”
Nightshade was most frequently given preop to anesthetize patients before a surgeon cut on them (of there was a surgeon within a week’s ride from the patient). The urgency was partly to deliver the newborn if the mother’s life seemed lost and also partly to deliver a baby with little chance of being born alive so as to baptize them.
Some modern sources question the use of Nightshade among midwives, but the evidence of its use is well established. The International Museum of Surgical Science notes that:
midwives often used belladonna, deadly nightshade, and ergot... during the labor process.
Mandrake was an interesting plant because of the superstition associated with it. It was called mandrake because the root structures often suggested the shape of a person. The belief was that the mandrake would scream as it was pulled out of the ground, and that this scream would kill all who heard it. Dogs were occasionally tied to the stalk as a substitute for a person in harvesting the plant. The plant came in two “sexes” based on the root structure.
Childbirth
Childbirth has not changed much over the ages. Certainly, today we have fetal heart monitoring for dysrhythmias, and pudendal blocks to facilitate delivery—entire Intensive Care Nurseries to deal with complications either to the mother or infant. But we still have health challenges with preemies, maternal gestational hypertension and so on. It should then come as no surprise that delivery problems today were likewise problematic back ten centuries ago. In the West, perhaps today there is less cephalopelvic disproportion (CPD) than in the past because there are fewer cases of rickets in the mother, but otherwise a midwife today could function in the past and a midwife from 1200 AD who was hypothetically and magically transported to a delivery theater today would recognize a pregnant patient in the second stage of labor and could likely deliver a health baby.
Fetal distress
Stillbirth
(more commonly called “deadborn” or “unborn” during the Middle Ages)
My wife and I were watching a television series on the Brit Box app. Called The Royal, and set in rural England it is like a very lite version of The Pitt. In one episode, a woman with some sort of health issue herself delivered a still born infant. The doctor tried to establish a pulse without success, and he called it. Suddenly, the Anglican Sister who was also a nurse at The Royal snatched the infant and ran to the utility room, where they had two large sinks. She filled one fink with tepid water and the other with cold water. Once filled, the dipped the infant in the sink with warm water and ten seconds later she dipped the baby into the adjoining sink with the cold water. After cycling the infant four or five times, the baby started to cry lustily. The obstetrician and other nurse heard the baby and poured in completely astounded. They asked her what she had done. She said she knew that this was an old trick that midwives did in her home in Ireland. Everyone was happy. Never mind that the infant was pulseless and breathless for a good ten minutes (not counting the annoying and intervening two-minute commercial break featuring flea collars for dogs and thick crust pizza.)
I was astounded. How much more did I not know about unconventional medicine as it applied to childbirth? That television scene prompted me to research this very post.
Breeches
Midwives were taught to turn babies as long ago as 100 A.D. (cf Soranus of Ephesus, 1st–2nd century in his treatiseGynecology (Gynaikeia) Much later and according to an historical account of midwife Jane Sharp who wrote the Midwives Books in 1671:
If the head comes first, the birth is natural, but if it come any other way, the Midwife must do what she can to bring it to this posture. Sometimes the infant comes with the legs forwards, and both arms downwards close to the sides, this way the Midwife may endeavor to take it forth if it continue in the same posture by anointing and gently handling the place. But if it is safer, if she can, to turn the legs upwards again by the belly, that the head may first come down by the back of the womb for that is the natural way.” pg 155 The Midwives Book.
We all know that the most common (as much as 97% of births today) and desirable presentation is Cephalic vertex occiput anterior position (called Left Occiput Anterior). There is no reason evolutionary or otherwise that the presentation might have changed over the centuries. This was also the preferred position two thousand years ago. Midwives also knew how to turn a fetus with a reasonable degree of skill if a breech seemed likely. And in the case of a breech presentation, some midwives knew how to perform an “ersatz” or de facto epistiotomy[7]. Other midwives of fainter heart might administer more uterotonic meds at the mother’s peril if not their own.
Cephalopelvic disproportion (CPD)
There were certainly more instances of CPD during the Middle Ages than now (and least in the First World countries) because of the prevalence of rickets and other development deficiencies affecting the mother. All the midwife could do is try placing the mother in different birthing positions, or trying to somehow rotate the infant in an attempt to deliver its head. Sometimes even more ergot was administered in an attempt to “pop” the baby’s head past the pelvis. As this was unfolding, a silent clock was ticking inside the midwife’s head. If at all possible, the infant must be delivered alive for the sake of baptism. Did this mean sacrificing the mother in the process. Absolutely not. The moral dilemma was that one should not take a life in order to save one. But there is an interesting case where that exact same thing happened[8], though the accuracy may be in doubt.
Maternal bleeding
Placental retention, uterine atony, pulling on the cord inadvisably and blood dyscrasias as far as coagulation was concerned were the most common reasons for hemorrhage in medieval times. Fortunately, a well taught and experienced midwife carried ergot with her. A thimble’s worth of ergot mixed with wine, broth or water brought relieve perhaps fifteen minutes later. Or, it could be placed under the tongue for an even faster response. Another midwife approach that often worked was to massage the fundus. The midwife knew that this would be helpful if somewhat counter-cultural. Many expectant families believed that childbirth would go smoothly if they “unfastened” things around the house, starting with the mother’s hair, and then proceeding to untie knots, open doors and unfastening buttons on clothing.
The midwife, however, had very little understanding of blood loss itself, in terms of chemistry or volume, thus post-partum bleeding often took the life of the mother.
Midwife malpractice
Midwives were occasionally reported during medieval times to authorities. The University of Cambridge maintains a searchable index called Casebooks available for your perusal here. A typical complaint might read:
About 3 years since delivered of a child which by means of an unskillful midwife perished & rent the woman that she ever after continued lame & could never since hold her water.
The complaint paraphrased says that the petitioner’s wife was three years earlier in labor and attended to by an incompetent midwife. As a result, the infant died during birth. In the process and absent an episiotomy (which would not enter practice until the eighteenth century), the midwife tore the perineum (or the adjoining urethra), causing the mother a degree of debilitation and urinary incontinence. Elsewhere the petitioner adds that three years following the incident, his wife is now “mad” (i.e. mentally ill).
Three sample entries from the Casebooks are listed below
Case #11088 — “matrix rent by unskillful midwife.” (“Matrix” is the period medical term for the womb.) A separate documented case of a torn uterus attributed directly to midwife error.
Case #38861 — “bladder perished by midwife’s negligence” — this is the Goody Parker case we already had, now with an actual case number if you want to track down the fuller entry.
Case #21977 — simply logged as “was hurt by a bad midwife,” suggesting a shorter or less detailed complaint.
Midwifery and the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church’s main interest in childbirth had to do with the administration of the sacrament of baptism, which required a live child and a midwife who could reach the infants forehead if it was lodged in the birth canal. Midwives had their own patron saint, St. Raymond Nonnatus (1204–1240). Those readers who enjoy the popular British television series Call the Midwife, will immediately notice the significance of that name. What’s more, his name means literally “not born” as he entered this world via postmortem Caesarean section, after his mother died in labor, in Catalonia, Spain.
Midwifery and allegations of witchcraft
Older women scurrying in the woods at night on an errand to who knows where? While during the day walking alone in the forest picking plants people knew were poisonous if consumed. It was only a matter of time before someone accused them of being witches. In fact, this happened in Malta in May 1599. Isabetta Caruana was a midwife in her fifties and a lay person in the Catholic Church which in her case meant she had access to young girls who she helped catechize. While talking to another woman, Isabetta was reported to have remarked “men chobiha guelditu” which in the context of their conversation on the Virgin Mary meant “From her breast she gave birth to him [i.e., Jesus.]” This casual and perhaps confused or careless remark attracted unfavorable attention to Isabetta. Not long after, Isabetta’s neighbor Valerio Cauchi who had a grudge against Isabetta involving his stepdaughter reported to the authorities of having seen “two nude women riding, like mad, on broomsticks in the air” four years earlier. He identified the two women as Isabetta and her daughter Romana, a public prostitute. Cauchi was so sure of what he saw that he named several other witnesses of the event in order to confirm this hearsay. Isabetta explained her nocturnal errands:
Io soglio andare di qua e di là nelle case perché son mammana e servo alle donne quando partoriscono" [which is to say] "I am accustomed to going here and there in houses because I am a midwife and serve women when they give birth.
Isabetta was tortured repeatedly but refused to admit to riding on a broomstick or practicing witchcraft. But her life was spared.
Isabetta was made to admit her faults, abjure and declare that she would change her lifestyle. She was further humiliated by being forced to attend High Mass at the Matrix Church in Gozo – during which she had to remain kneeling down with a candle in hand, as a sign of repentance – on the Sunday following the publication of her sentence. Furthermore, she was also given spiritual penance entailing that she had to confess six times a year for two consecutive years, and on the suggestion of her confessor, receive holy communion on Easter day, Pentecost, St John the Baptist, the Assumption of the Virgin, All Saints’ Day and Christmas. Finally, Isabetta was obliged to recite the rosary of the Virgin once a week for a year.
Isabetta’s daughter Romana who had been tortured herself, got off with a fine.
Elsewhere in Europe, especially in France focused on Catherine “La Voisin” Deshayes Monvoisin there were midwives unabashedly caught up in witchcraft, or sorcery, perhaps selling potions that acted along the lines Ecstasy, Rohypnol (Roofies) or Midazolam (Dazzle) today. These could be used to drug unsuspecting females as they do, or perhaps to temporarily disable intended victims of a kidnapping.
You can read details of this case here.
An example of a midwives’ oath
You shall sweare, First, that you shall be diligent and faithfull, and readie to helpe every Woman labouring of Childe, as well the poore as the riche; and that in time of necessitie, you shall not forsake or leave the poore woman, to go to the Rich.
2. Item, You shall neither cause nor suffer any woman to name, or put any other Father to the childe, but onely him which is the very true Father thereof indeed.
3. Item, you shall not suffer any woman to pretend, faine, or surmise herselfe to be delivered of a Childe, who is not indeed; neither to claime any other womans Childe for her owne.
4. Item, you shall not suffer any Womans Childe to be murdered, maimed, or otherwise hurt, as much as you may; and so often as you shall perceive any perill or jeopardie, either in the Woman, or in the Childe, in any such wise, as you shall be in doubt what shall chance thereof, you shal thenceforth in due time send for other Midwifes and expert women in that facultie, and sue their advice and counsell in that behalf.
5. Item, that you shall not in any wise use or exercise any manner of Witchcraft, Charme; or Sorcery, Invocation, or other Prayers than may stand with Gods Laws and the Kings.
6. Item, you shall not give any counsel, or minister any Herbe, Medicine, or Potion, or any other thing, to any Woman being with Childe whereby she should destroy or cast out that she goeth withal before her time.
7. Item, You shall not enforce any woman being with childe by any paine, or by any ungodly ways or meanes, to give you nay more for your paines or labour in bringing her a bed, then they would otherwise do.
8. Item, you shall not consent, agree, give, or keepe counsell, that any woman be deliverd secretly of that which she goeth with, but in the presence of two or three lights readie,
9. Item, you shall be secret, and not open any matter appertaining to your Office in the presence of any man, unless necessity or great urgent cause do constrain you to do so.
10. Item, if any childe bee dead borne, you yourselfe shall see it buried in such secret place as neither Hogg nor Dogg, nor any other Beast may come unto it, and in such sort done, as it may not be found or perceived, as much as you may; And that you shall not suffer any such childe to be cast into the Jaques or any other inconvenient place.
11. Item, if you shall know any Midwife using or doing any thing contrary to any of the premises, or in any other wise than shall be seemely or convenient, you shall forthwith detect open to shew the same to me [the bishop] or my chancellor for the time being.
12. Item, you shall use yourself in honest behaviour unto the woman being lawfully admitted to the roome and Office of a Midwife in all things accordingly.
13. Item, That you shall truly present to myselfe, or my Chancellor, all such women as you shall know from time to time to occupie and exercise the roome of a Midwife within my foresaid Diocese and jurisdiction of [name of Diocese] without my License and admission.
14. Item, you shall not make or assigne any Deputie or Deputies to exercise or occupie under you in your absence the Office or roome of a Midwife, but such as you shall perfectly know to be of right honest and discreet behaviour, as also apt, able, & having sufficient knowledge and experience to exercise the said roome and Office.
15. Item, you shall not be Privie, or consent, that any Priest, or other partie, shall in your absence, or in your companie, or of your knowledge or sufferance, Baptise any child, by any Masse, Latine Service, or Prayers, than such as are appointed by the Lawes of the Church of Englande; neither shall you consent, that any child, born by any woman, who shall be delivered by you, shall be carried away without being Baptised in the Parish by the Ordinarie Minister, where the said child is borne unless it be in the case of necessitie, Baptised privately, according to the Booke of Common Prayer; but you shall forthwith upon understanding thereof, either give knowledge thereof to me the said Bishop, or my Chancellour for the time being. All of which Articles and Charge you shall faithfully observe and keepe, so help you God and by the contents of this Booke [the Bible].
Extracurricular activities for midwives
While a midwife might be rudely aroused at 2:30 a.m. on a cold, rainy night to deliver a baby to a mother she never met and then sent home afterwards, ideally a family would plan ahead, contracting with a midwife at least during the third trimester. That contract would also involve the midwife in the life of the mother and child for weeks after the birth of the baby. Anticipating the delivery, midwives provided the expectant mother with information on diet and exercise, especially concerning foods and activities to stay healthy. Linseed and fenugreek oil were prescribed, and the mother encouraged to take warm baths to widen and soften her pelvis. Occasionally, postnatal care was provided under a separate agreement in terms of pay. Mothers were expected to stay in bed forty to sixty days after delivery as she was carefully monitored for lochia. At the end of this period, the mother walked to church according to guidance under the heading “The Churching of Women.”
However, many midwives were just too busy delivering babies to find time for postnatal or postpartum care. And because some of the midwife’s medications included aborticides, she likely had clients who desired to miscarry and problems post miscarriage.
Besides attending to a pregnant woman about to give birth, midwives also were involved in forensics as far as females in society were concerned. In countries such as England and Scotland, they served on “Juries of Matrons” and were subject to be served with writs known as de ventre inspiciendo (or, for the purpose of “inspecting the belly”). In these cases, midwives and other jurors would inspect a woman who claimed to be pregnant, either with an infant who would be heir to an estate or in the case of a woman condemned to death for a capital crime. In these latter cases, the law (which was first introduced in 1140 AD and only in the twentieth century phased out) postponed the execution until after the baby was born.
Midwives were also expert witnesses if a woman was suspected of having an illegitimate pregnancy or if she was involved in a case of rape. If a dead infant were discovered and a specific woman was accused of being its mother, a midwife would be summoned to examine the woman for signs of a recent delivery.
Not every matron on a jury of peers was necessarily a midwife, but there were cases where a midwife would singularly provide the best testimony. In France, however, it seems that similar panels of women were made up entirely on midwives based on the word choices “sworn matron” (matrone jurée) and “midwife” (obstetrix) which were used interchangeably.
How were midwives accepted in society
Midwives were indispensable. There is at least circumstantial evidence that in some places in Western Europe midwives were exempt from taxes and may have received modest pensions after a career in midwifery. Certainly the more successful midwives might be recruited and hence advanced to serve the aristocracies or royal families. There was a trust in society that arose from the dependability of midwives, though in some places such as Paris, some prominent midwives seemed to run amuck and find themselves involved in scandal.
Nor did midwifery every achieve the same professional status that were granted to other occupations and guilds, though it certainly deserved such recognition and protection.
Perseptions of midwives
Sexism
One needs not to research deep into the subject of midwifery to realize that while midwifery was a more-or-less a vocation for women, what a midwife could do was determined by males. Certainly, then as now, there were men in prominent places who felt threatened by assertive and independent women which may have been “witchcraft” to them in and of itself. Most men did not dare to venture into the birthing process[10].
Intrusion of a man into the birth chamber was unthinkable, as illustrated by the fate of Dr. Wertt of Hamburg in 1522. Being anxious to study the process of birth first hand, he disguised himself as a woman and attended a confinement. During the course of labor a midwife recognized this subterfuge and raised a storm of protest. Wertt was promptly burned at the stake, observed by other physicians who quickly realized the hazards of try to usurp the authorities of the midwives.
Extra curricular activities
Midwives often trafficked in aborticides, potions and poisons as well as the dark arts. Midwives during the Middle Ages were often as likely to end a pregnancy as they were to deliver and infant. But certainly not every midwife was agreeable to that. Others used their knowledge of plants and amoral nature to prepare poison. A midwife named Catherine Lepère of Paris, France was sentenced to death 11 August 1679 for conspiring with another midwife, Catherine “La Voisin” Deshayes Monvoisin during the “Affair of the Poisons[11]” (affaire des poisons)from 1677 through 1682. La Voison was burned at the stake and Catherine Lepère was hung[12].
The continued need for midwives
In Europe today, the total numbers of OB-Gyn physicians are generally adequate for the continent as a whole. However, they are not evenly distributed according to need, which leave some areas on the continent in need of midwives. In the U.S., the need for midwives correlate with the tragic fact that the U.S ranks high in the number of perinatal deaths among Western nations. The prestigious American Journal of Obstetrics and Gyneocology frankly admits:
National and international evidences consistently report that births attended by midwives have fewer interventions, cesarean deliveries, preterm births, inductions of labor, and more vaginal births after cesarean delivery. In addition, midwifery care is consistently associated with respectful care and high patient satisfaction.
And, midwives today are not confined to just the act of childbirth. There are involved in reproductive health issues, patient teaching, and lasting relationships with their clients. Last October (2025), the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) launched a program called “One Million More Midwives”. They noted in this call:
Every two minutes, a woman dies from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth. Every 17 seconds, a baby is lost before birth. Each year, 2.3 million newborns die within the first 28 days of life. Many of these deaths are preventable with timely, respectful, evidence-based care.
My own family can attest to the continued need for midwives. My wife and all four of her siblings were born during the 1950’s in their home in Albany, NY. They were all delivered by the same midwife.
Footnotes
[1] The actual doors were destroyed by a fire in 1760.
[2] As a point of information, the first letter of nouns in German are capitalized.
[3] This is figure is extrapolated form sources including Hanawalt, Barbara. Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe. Indiana University Press, 1986. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/113363; Wiesner-Hanks, Merry. “Midwives of South Germany, Pt. 1.” The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe, 1983..” The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe, 1983 passim. Twenty-five births per month might be a stretch, however.
[4] Hibbard, B. (2000). The obstetrician’s armamentarium: Historic obstetric instruments and their inventors. Novato, CA: Norman Publishing.
[5] This comment located in https://hekint.org/2025/09/08/childbirths-hidden-revolution-the-origins-of-obstetric-forceps/
[6] The patient (Euphame MacCalzean) went on to be subsequently arrested later in life and charged for the following three crimes: Scheming to kill her own husband, Patrick Moscrop, “in order to get another man”; Conspiring with the other accused to kill King James by destroying a wax image of him; Conspiring to drown a boat between Leith and Kinghorn, in which 60 people allegedly died. She was convicted and burned as a witch. Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North Berwick Witches(Liverpool University Press, 2000; also available via Liverpool Scholarship Online, DOI: 10.5949/liverpool/9780859896801.001.0001).
[7] Fielding Ould, in his Treatise of Midwifery in Three Parts, (1742) describes an incision made “very leisurely towards the Rectum,” carefully incised “to the present Exigency of Affairs,” with a warning that the rectum should be left intact.
[8] The case: Jacob Nufer, Siegershausen, canton of Thurgau, Switzerland, 1500. “Multiple independent sources (NLM’s own exhibition history, Wikipedia, a DIG podcast history piece, and others) agree on the core facts: Nufer’s wife, Elisabeth Alespachin, had been in labor for several days; thirteen midwives had been unable to deliver the child. Nufer, a pig-gelder by trade with practical anatomical experience from animal husbandry, actively petitioned local town authorities for permission to perform the operation himself on his still-living wife — and received it. Two of the thirteen midwives present agreed to assist once permission was granted; the rest left. Per the accounts, both mother and child reportedly survived.” The doubt comes from the fact that it was published by a Swiss physician Caspar Bauhin, eighty-two years after the event, so it necessarily depended on oral tradition to some extent. And Bauhin was criticized widely over the facts of the case (if it indeed happened at all) and also on Bauhin’s motives which were seen as self-serving.
[9] (Produced by the Anglican Church and in force in England from 1512 to 1641). The Book of Oaths and The Severall forms thereof, both Antient and Modern. (London: W Lee, M Walbancke, D Pakeman, and G Bedle, 1649), pp. 284–290.
[10]Hibbard, B. (2000). The obstetrician’s armamentarium: Historic obstetric instruments and their inventors. Novato, CA: Norman Publishing. This is available via Google Scholar and is a worthwhile read to those interested in the subject.
[11] This was a major scandal in France. Two hundred people were arrested and thirty-six executed. It involved the upper classes in French society (including Madame de Montespan, the mistress of King Louis XIV.) It began when a noblewoman Marie Madeleine de Brinvilliers, was tried and executed in 1676 for murdering her father and brothers using arsenic, slowly and over time so as to represent a normal death. This was such a common practice that there was a term poudre de succession or “inheritance powder” for it. Arsenic was probably readily available, but midwives had other poisonous potions that were less common. La Voisin, a sorcerous as well as a midwife was implicated in the deaths of more than 1,000 people. A large number of infant remains were said to have been exhumed from her garden.
[12] Somerset, Anne (2003). St. Martin’s Press.
