Year: 2024
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Chapter One: Knocked Up"and than, what for labowr sche had in chyldyng and for sekenesse goyng beforn, sche dyspered of hyr lyfe, wenyng sche mygth not levyn" 1 Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery KempeAt just twenty years old, Margery Kempe lay on a bed in indescribable agony surrounded by women from her family.She was in the throes of an extremely challenging birth, and the medieval birthing room was no place for men.Since conceiving her first child, shortly after getting married, Margery had suffered relentless waves of fever and sickness.Now, these symptoms were all coming to a head.She was in so much pain she wondered if she would survive it.After several gruelling hours, each of which stretched out for an eternity, Margery's child was delivered safe and well.But her torment was far from over.For half a year, eight weeks and odd days afterwards, Margery remained traumatised by the birth, plagued by visions of demons, their mouths open and full of vicious flames, ready to swallow her up.They grabbed at her night and day without relief.In her agony, Margery threatened and attacked her family, her friends, herself.She tore at her skin so viciously that her husband was forced to restrain her.She bit herself on the hand so savagely that she would bear the scar for the rest of her life.Her suffering was so great, Margery tells us, it drove her "out of her mind."Margery was one of the first women in England to describe her experience of childbirth.It is, perhaps more remarkably, the story with which she opens her autobiography, even though for the rest of her Book she is much more interested in her religious endeavours, rather than dayto-day family life.It might be that Margery saw resonances between the birth of her first child and the lives of key figures in the Christian story: the Virgin May (a mother) and Jesus Christ, whose pains during the Crucifixion were comparable with the labours of childbirth.It was the first of fourteen such labours that she would endure over the course of her life.As far as we can tell, none of the subsequent births were quite so difficult, but this number is still high, especially bearing in the mind the stress and physical demands that pregnancy can put on the female body, not to mention what we know about childbirth in the Middle Ages.No painkillers, save natural 1 NB I think with all this epigraphs we'll want a translation as a footnote on the page, but otherwise we should do endnotes?
Author: Howes, H.
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7022616675
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: