Mary Morse begins English Birth Girdles: Devotions for Women in “Travell of Childe” with a sobering description of the experience of pregnancy and childbirth for medieval women. As both “the happiest of times” and “the deadliest of times,” childbirth claimed the lives of one in three to five women (1). In hopes of protection, both physical and spiritual, women sought connection with the Virgin Mary through prayer, pilgrimage, and veneration of her relics. One such relic, the Virgin’s girdle, prompted textual simulations, parchment and paper birth girdles that “extended the protections of her girdle to all women, irrespective of titles or wealth” (2). This book provides an in-depth exploration of the nine surviving English birth girdles, detailing their textual contents and contextualising them with reference to contemporary literary, social, political, and material examples.
The introduction begins by setting out Morse’s rationale for this corpus. She describes their identifying features as a combination of roll format and the presence of either of two different metric relics (measurements of holy figures or objects) with their accompanying prayers, which she terms “childbirth units” (5)--although she suggests that future biocodicological analysis may “expand (or decrease) the number” of identified birth girdles (6). Morse gives a comprehensive foundation for the reader, offering a full martyrology of Saints Quiricus and Julitta; an overview of European girdle relics; a brief discussion of girdles in fashion, literature, and artwork; and an exploration of the role of birth girdles in countering Lollardy and reinforcing orthodoxy. All these themes are revisited in the following nine chapters, each covering one birth girdle, in chronological order of their production.
Chapter 1 focuses on Philadelphia, Redemptorist Archives, olim Esopus, produced potentially as early as 1390. This early date places its production “within a period of intense Lollard activity” (45), and Morse draws out points of comparison between Esopus and Takamiya 56, another early birth girdle, in their shared role as sacramental objects that reinforced orthodox beliefs. She also suggests that Esopus, as one of three birth girdles to feature text on both face and dorse, may have served as a trial run for a double-sided birth girdle; arma Christi material predominates on the face, and childbirth texts appear on the dorse. As to be expected from a volume about women “in travell of childe,” Morse centralises female usage and readership, while still recognising that these rolls could have been used by both male and female readers.
British Library Harley Charter 43.A.14, the subject of Chapter 2, includes a named beneficiary of the prayers: a (male) “Willelmo.” Far from reducing the possibility that this manuscript was used in a childbirth context, Morse argues that the insertion of Willelmo’s name shows he purchased the birth girdle “primarily to protect his wife and heir during childbirth, but also for protections related to his domestic, military, and/or mercantile responsibilities” (90). Although Morse’s discussion of these non-childbirth applications is relatively brief, it is refreshing to see birth girdle scholarship consider the multifaceted uses of these rolls--and recognise that male ownership and childbirth usage are not mutually exclusive. This chapter also delves into the iconography of the double-barred cross, and the importance of metrical verisimilitude for this manuscript’s buyer; the 128mm cross, when multiplied by fifteen, accurately corresponds to the mensura Christi acknowledged in the fifteenth century.
Chapter 3 continues with questions about measurement and accuracy in its discussion of Beinecke Library Takamiya MS 56. It is the only birth girdle accurately to represent the Virgin Mary’s height in its length of 5’8”, as well as depicting a true-to-life measure of the Holy Nails. The borders of the dorse text also potentially “simulated real leather or rope girdle styles” (107), and Morse offers points of comparison ranging from a mid-fifteenth-century portrait to the knotted rope of the Franciscan habit. Sometimes Morse’s comparative examples can feel a little abrupt, but this latter point is strengthened by her earlier examination of the “persistent Franciscan slant” (101) of Takamiya 56, with its iconographical and textual programme. Morse also considers its Benedictine connections, drawing on her previous linguistic analysis to reveal the scribe’s location at Tewkesbury (the site of a Benedictine abbey), and exploring the anti-Lollard Latin content of the manuscript.
In Chapter 4, Morse reveals elements of Beinecke MS 410’s connection to the Austin friars--a possible donor portrait could identify Thomas Barnak, a son of a noble Lincolnshire family with ties to the Augustinian order. Morse draws links with the Austin friar John Mirk’s Festial: despite his adamant opposition to Lollardy, Mirk wrote the Festial in English, and exemplars of his text moved between scribal and print workshops. Manuscript and early printed witnesses suggest some of Beinecke 410’s exemplars were also subject to similar transmission between manuscript and print production, and the predominance of vernacular texts in Beinecke 410 is a stark contrast to the chiefly Latinate character of other birth girdles produced in this period. Morse otherwise devotes much of this chapter to the manuscript’s miniatures, borders, and other decoration, including a section on the Salvator mundi as Christ-child, a motif unknown elsewhere in English manuscripts.
Glazier MS 39, from New York’s Morgan Library and Museum, is the topic of this book’s longest chapter--appropriate, given that the manuscript is the longest of any birth girdle, at nearly 6m long. Much of Chapter 5 is spent on descriptions of the fourteen saints this birth girdle memorialises. Morse explains how the inclusion of Saints Roche, Sebastian, and Christopher reflects late-fifteenth century concerns around both the sweating sickness (sudor Anglicus) and the bubonic plague, suggesting protective uses for this manuscript that extended beyond childbirth. Feminine forms in Glazier 39’s Latin prayers reveal explicitly female usage, and Morse suggests that the presence of Saints Mary Magdalene, Margaret, and Katherine could “indicate a commission intended for a female user” (211). Glazier 39 is the only birth girdle to offer images and memorials of female saints. This chapter ends with an expansion of its start, with a brief note on the scribe Percevall’s rhyming colophon. Morse’s locating, dating, and linguistic analysis of Glazier 39 rely heavily on this colophon, in which Percevall provides his name, “his monastic affiliation and residence, his day of entry into the Premonstratensian order, his place of birth, and his social status through his mother” (216).
Chapter 6, on British Library Additional MS 88929, follows the lead of Chapter 5 and devotes a section to the memorial sequence of seven saints, which involves some duplication of material (six of the saints here are also present in Glazier 39). Rivalled only by Esopus and Beinecke 410 in “its deluxe production” (219), this birth girdle features fourteen miniatures, a vibrant colour palette, and copious illumination. Morse spends much of this chapter on discussion of the roll’s iconography, drawing comparisons with stained glass windows, coins, woodcuts, and vierges ouvrantes to contextualise its illustrative motifs. She also explores its Tudor context: BL Add 88929 features an autograph signature of Prince Henry, who was to become King Henry VIII. Morse traces the roll’s medieval lifespan, from where it potentially originated in Durham, commissioned by John Burnaby, prior of St. Cuthbert’s, before making its way to Prince Arthur or Prince Henry Tudor, after which Henry gifted it to William Thomas. Morse offers a brief recollection of Henry’s desperation for a male heir, and suggests that even if it was never used in a royal birthing chamber, BL Add 88929 nonetheless served as a model for English subjects to “express their desires for safe childbirth and the preservation of their families” (269).
Chapter 7 showcases BL Harley T.11, a birth girdle that dramatically differs from the previous example. Where previous birth girdles have countered Lollardy and reinforced orthodoxy, Harley T.11 “does not present the strong anti-Lollard stance that could correlate with the reign of Henry VII” (273). Instead, Morse argues that this roll could have been used for both religious and apotropaic purposes, with the use of Latin “most likely [ensuring] church approval for underlying magical aspects” (273). SATOR-AREPO and Flum Jordan charms, the “peperit” formula, magical caracteres, lists of divine names, and circular seals populate this roll. Morse touches on the different modes of use these diverse contents allow for, including physical activation of benefits, recitation of prayers/incantations, and the idea that “gazing upon [the images] could substitute for reciting” textual material (291). She also posits the roll’s likely-commercial production due to a limited colour palette; the generic “N” for “Nomen” rather than a specific inserted name; and palaeographical features (such as the single intricate cadel initial) as advertisements for the scribe’s ability to write in higher registers.
In Chapter 8, Morse also suggests that Wellcome MS 632 was a commercial item. The same generic “N.” appears, and its inclusion of two birth girdle texts made it “a desirable and inexpensive alternative to commissioned birth girdles” (303). Morse highlights the similarities between Wellcome 632 and Takamiya 56: despite the half-century gap in their production dates, they share texts, iconographical motifs, and the use of both face and dorse. Wellcome 632, however, includes material not found in Takamiya 56, implying that this later roll was never meant to be an exact copy of the earlier manuscript; Morse suggests that a lost exemplar could account for the similarities. The dorse text on both birth girdles instructs a woman to “gyrde thys mesure abowte hyr wombe” (Wellcome 632), and Morse investigates the different ways in which this birth girdle was used, as scientific analysis “unequivocally” confirms that Wellcome 632 was used in labour (301). Morse refers frequently throughout this volume to the 2021 study by Sarah Fiddyment et al., and this chapter sees sustained engagement with this article; biomolecular analysis done of the stains on Wellcome 632 showed proteins found in cervicovaginal fluid, blood, saliva, and non-human peptides associated with foods and medical remedies frequently used in pregnancy/childbirth contexts. Morse notes that human proteins were clustered especially near the Saints Quiricus and Julitta childbirth unit, and calls for further biomolecular analysis to be conducted on other prayer rolls, as this could “expand the birth girdle category” (303).
Chapter 9 is an updated and revised version of a 2012 article jointly authored by Morse and Joseph J. Gwara, focusing on BL STC 14547.5. The object, “a small mutilated strip of paper, printed on one side” (325) is the only English printed birth girdle, which survives only because it was preserved as binding material for a later codex. The (slightly truncated) texts and woodcut are listed and briefly described, and Morse brings in STC 14077c.64 (a broadside printed by Peter Treveris) as a point of comparison. She mentions the “mass-market demand for textual amulets during times of crisis” (327), and explains how STC 14547.5 was created in response to a volatile sociopolitical climate, as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s fixation on a male heir fed into the public consciousness.
The conclusion sketches a brief arc from the first birth girdle (Esopus) to the last (STC 14547.5), noting the dramatic cultural shifts over this 140-year period. With the outset of the Reformation, texts and images that had once served as the church’s armour against Lollardy were now derided as superstition. Most potently, Morse notes how Nicholas Shaxton’s 1538 injunctions of “rotten girdles” as “intolerable superstition” (347), denied parturient women and midwives the spiritual and apotropaic protection of the birth girdles. Ephemerality, environmental factors, and Reformation suppression led to the destruction of the majority of birth girdles, but Morse ends with cautious optimism: new technologies may help us identify new birth girdles, and those that do survive offer us an intimate insight into “the everyday lives of real women and their families” (349). The volume ends with four appendices (transcriptions and translations of both Middle English and Latin elements of the birth girdles), a comprehensive bibliography, and a detailed index.
This book will be invaluable to anyone working on birth girdles, medieval childbirth culture, and women’s devotional practices. It is evidently aimed at an academic audience (as reflected in the price); description of the birth girdles is meticulous, sociocultural and political information is deployed precisely to provide useful context, and Morse’s thorough textual illustrations supplement the fifteen (mainly black-and-white) images included in the volume. As a culmination of years of scholarship, English Birth Girdles integrates Morse’s existing work with new material, providing an enormously valuable, comprehensive, and detailed companion to the birth girdles.