Mary Morse's English Birth Girdles: Devotions for Women in "Travell of Childe" expertly shows the multifaceted role birth girdles played in late medieval English society. Through close examination of the nine surviving examples, along with their social and political context, she places the girdles at the centre of much larger narrative than medieval childbirth. As she puts it, 'every time a girdle wearing mother survived childbirth, the church reinforced and asserted their authority as the only true path to salvation' (17)

Each chapter of the volume focuses on one of the nine girdles, arranged in chronological order. As expected, each chapter discusses the key features that identify each girdle as a birth girdle: the presence of the Saints Quiricus and Julietta Childbirth Unit or the Virgin's Childbirth Unit, alongside their other religious texts and imagery. Mary Morse proves that we should view birth girdles as more than objects of protection for labouring women. The earliest of the birth girdles, Redemptorist Archives olim Esopus, is also the earliest witness of the O Vernicle poem, a central component in over half of the identified arma Christi rolls. [1] Birth girdles did not belong to an insular genre of protection but were informed by and informed wider religious writing in late medieval England

Despite the case study approach, comparisons between each girdle, their images, and provenance, flow across the chapters, showing the evolution of tradition. Not only does this show changes over time, but it also allows Mary Morse to highlight key overlaps between girdles and further situate them in their social and political context. The English rubric introducing a prayer to the Virgin in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Takamiya 56 is almost identical to that in Wellcome Library MS 632, including reference to the sixth regnal year of Henry VI, when the devil supposedly stole the prayer from Tewkesbury Abbey. (108) Noting similarities across the girdles shows the potential for wider networks of production. In the case of Takamiya 56 and Wellcome 632, this is of particular importance for the mass production of birth girdles.

Close attention to the texts and iconography, beyond just focusing on those relating to childbirth, allowed Mary Morse to illuminate the motives of the production of these texts. The English birth girdle tradition was unique and centred around protection, most obviously, of the labouring mother and her unborn baby. However, Mary Morse clearly shows that this protection was thought to have wider reaches. In both Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Beinecke MS 410 and British Library Harley Charter 43.A.14, male names have been inserted into the Saints Quiricus and Julietta Childbirth Unit; both Thome and Willelmo, respectively, are listed as the named recipients of the saints' protections in these girdles, and the other five girdles that include this unit are not personalised. (90, 149) This offers the possibility that these girdles were not only commissioned and purchased for the use of women in labour, but also for the protection of the household and its occupants more generally.

Beyond the protection of the labouring women and the household in general, Mary Morse's close attention to the iconography and religious texts of birth girdles illuminates the considerable role they played to main orthodoxy. In the earliest three girdles, dating from the late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries, this coincides with the peak of Eucharistic fervour both in England and on the continent. The use of majority Latin texts, that praise orthodox Christian practices, allows Mary Morse to speculate that birth girdles played a role in protecting the late medieval English church from Lollardy. (35-37) This is particularly evident in Takamiya 56, where the additional middle English texts further challenge Lollard beliefs in a way that could not be misconstrued or adapted for Lollard purposes. (99) As anti-Lollard sentiment waned with the Wars of the Roses and accession of Henry VII, this too is reflected in the birth girdles. Mary Morse charts changing ecclesiastical attitudes toward Lollardy. Over the fifteenth century, that act of reading vernacular religious texts was no longer considered an identifiable feature of Lollardy. While Mary Morse notes this was not a uniform progression, from this point the number of middle English texts increases in the birth girdles, as seen in Beinecke MS 410 from the late fifteenth century. (140-141)

Throughout the later period, while birth girdles continued to play a role in combating heretical beliefs, Mary Morse shows how they also emerged to reflect rulers' own piety. In British Library Additional Manuscript 88929 (Prince Henry's Roll), she shows the influence of Henry VII's own piety in the selection of saints that 'encouraged his people to express their won desires for safe childbirth and the preservation of their families' (269) The protection provided by the saints in this girdle, and Morgan Library and Museum Glazier MS 39, continues to reflect the idea that the girdles functioned to protect the family, not just labouring women, with the inclusion of charms for fevers and other illnesses.

In the final girdles, British Library STC 14547.5, Mary Morse considers a different function. This is both the only surviving printed and paper girdle; it was produced at the start of the reformation and during Anne Boleyn's first pregnancy by Wynkyn de Worde. When taken with the 1532 book documenting Anne's introduction to the French Court and the 1533 account of her coronation, both books also printed by de Worde, Mary Morse concluded that this girdle formed part of a 'miniature propaganda campaign' to legitimise her status. She notes that 'we should not be surprised if public interest on Anne Boleyn extended to the recitation of birth girdle prayers for her unborn (and presumably male) child' (338) Here, the girdle protects the pregnant woman and unborn baby, as well as the fledgling Tudor dynasty.

With the reformation growing, birth girdles soon switched from objects that worked to encourage religious orthodoxy to those of heresy. They once numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands, but given the damage from use and their destruction in the reformation, only nine have been identified today. Mary Morse is hopeful that developing scientific analysis may reveal further girdles, preserved in the bindings of other manuscripts. This may shed further light on the patterns that emerged from her study. Nevertheless, 'these material artifacts of a vanished time and place draw us back into the everyday lives of real women and their families' (349).

Note:

[1] Morse: English Brith Girdles, 55-69; Rossell Hope Robbins: The "Arma Christi" Rolls, in: Modern Language Review 34 (1939), 415-421.

Caitlin Williams