The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women by Rosalie Gilbert

Author:Rosalie Gilbert [Gilbert, Rosalie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mango Media
Published: 2020-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

St Margaret issuing from dragon.

Book of Hours with Premonstratensian connections, Walters Ex Libris. Manuscript W.215, folio 67r.

Potions advocated for childbirth in the Middle Ages included rubbing the flanks of the expectant mother with rose oil, giving her vinegar and sugar to drink, or applying poultices of ivory or eagle’s dung.

Gemstones were also utilised to ease childbirth, but how they were anything other than a placebo is a mystery. Placing a magnet in the mother’s hand was believed to provide relief. If that didn’t work, she might try wearing coral around her neck. In the twelfth century, Hildegard von Bingen wrote of the powers of the stone called sard:

If a pregnant woman is beset by pain but is unable to give birth, rub sard around both of her thighs and say “Just as you, stone, by the order of God, shone on the first angel, so you, child, come forth a shining person, who dwells with God.” Immediately, hold the stone at the exit for the child, that is, the female member, and say, “Open you roads and door, in that epiphany by which Christ appeared both human and God, and opened the gates of Hell. Just so, child, may you also come out of this door without dying, and without the death of your mother.” Then tie the same stone to a belt and cinch it around her, and she will be cured.

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