Images of 15th century sheepskin birthing girdles studied by Cambridge University researchers. The top-right image shows the hands and feet of Christ (i.e. the five wounds of Christ) dripping with ...

Childbearing in medieval Europe was a highly perilous time with considerable risks for both mother and baby. Difficulties occurring during childbirth or through postpartum infection, uterine prolapse ...

Swansea University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. The British royal family has released a statement saying that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will keep plans for the arrival of ...

A rare strip of parchment more than 10 feet (3 meters) long and adorned with Christian emblems shows chemical traces of its use by women in medieval England as a magical amulet to protect them during ...

In medieval Europe, when childbirth was highly perilous for both mother and child, women and those caring for them used various talismans to try to influence a safe delivery. Not many of those relics ...

Medieval English Birth Scroll. MS.632 (c. 1500), Wellcome Collection. The girdle contains prayers and invocations for safe delivery in childbirth. Biomolecular evidence supports its active use.

Historian and author Helen Castor, presenter of the popular series She-Wolves, explores how the people of the Middle Ages handled the most fundamental moments of transition in life: birth, marriage ...

This blog post is authored by Mary Morse, author of MIP's English Birth Girdles: Devotions for Woman in "Travell of Childe." Mary Morse specializes in medieval women’s devotional and childbirth ...

In the popular imagination, “medieval” and “women” aren’t always words which go together happily. Ideas about the lives of pre-Renaissance women tend to form two hazy stereotypes: an illiterate girl ...

Analysis of stained c. 500-year-old manuscript provides direct evidence of wear and use during childbirth. Birthing girdles are thought to have been used in medieval society to protect the wearer ...