Childbirth in Medieval Times with Kate Lister

This episode contains explicit language and graphic descriptions of birth Today we're delving into historical childbirth's stark realities, facing the medieval attitudes toward childbirth, its dangers, and grizzly details. Dr. Eleanor Janega pays a visit to our sister podcast Betwixt the Sheets to be the guest of its presenter Dr. Kate Lister, and they explore the life of midwives, including their crucial role, training, and societal perceptions. They also touch on unique aspects such as the medical practices of nuns, the evolving understanding of childbirth, and the heartbreaking prevalence of maternal and infant mortality. Dr Kate Lister is a sex historian and host of our sister podcast Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society https://podfollow.com/betwixt-the-sheets-the-history-of-sex-scandal-society. Over on her pod, there are new episodes twice a week every week, and Kate explores everything from witch trials, to the sex lives of kings and queens, to scandals which change the course of history. Check it out if you haven’t already. MORE: The Real Joan of Arc with Dr. Kate Lister https://open.spotify.com/episode/2wgZwZ7RZt5d6AZOeLih2b Medieval Sex Work https://open.spotify.com/episode/0GDgtPZjN02v5Sf9fyv4jK Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. It was edited by Tom Delargy and Amy Haddow, the producer is Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 1:20Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were, and how we got here.

• 1:54Eleanor Janega?

  As a society, we don't really like to think about childbirth. There's good reasons for that. It's dangerous and painful, and we actually just want to focus on babies rather than what people have to go through in order to produce them. But the thing is, as dangerous and difficult as childbirth is even now, we have absolutely nothing on our medieval forebears. And interestingly, they were a lot less shy about talking about the often grisly realities behind the childbed. Not only were average people a lot more familiar with what the process of giving birth looked like and meant, they were also a lot quicker to ask whether or not someone was actually

• 2:36Eleanor Janega?

  ready to put themselves through all of that. I was invited out of the Gone Medieval Dungeon by my wonderful friend and colleague, the indomitable Dr. Kate Lister, to have a chat about medieval childbirth on our sister podcast, Betwixt the Sheets. We managed to get through medieval attitudes to sex, death, and why considering saving your virginity for Jesus looked like a pretty good idea in the medieval period. But a word of warning: because we are talking about childbirth, it can get a little grisly. And because it's me and Kate, well, the language might be a little bit more adult than usual. So you might want to have a listen before deciding whether this is an episode that younger listeners might want to hear.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Well, hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Eleanor Yaniger. How are you doing?

• 3:29Eleanor Janega?

  Uh, well, you know, anytime they let me out of the Gone Medieval Dungeon, I'm delighted. So I'm doing great, babes. Great.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Welcome back to the sunlight.

• 3:37Eleanor Janega?

  Thank you. Wow, you've got some here. What's that like?

• 3:41Speaker 03

  It's, oh, it's very nice, yeah, in the, in the bright, the bright world. But we're not here to talk about such nonsense. We are here to talk about different nonsense. Medieval midwives, childbirth, all kinds of scary things.

• 3:58Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, look, I mean, the vibes are kind of not great.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, if you say, if you sneak up behind the average woman in the street and just went medieval childbirth.

• 4:08Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, oh, 100%.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Right?

• 4:09Eleanor Janega?

  100%.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  Doesn't have to be a medieval scholar or nothing.

• 4:12Eleanor Janega?

  No.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  You know, we know. We know, things like, well, like even today, like my, one of my closest mates, Jen, recently had a baby and like I was so supportive. But even I had moments when she was talking about things like vaginal tearing and stitching and episiotomies. And just, and that's today, 2025.

• 4:35Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, you know, we have come a long way. And I mean, yeah, we're going to talk about medieval childbirth, but I'm going to be so real with you, babes. Like if it's before the 20th century, I'm not interested.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  No, God.

• 4:46Eleanor Janega?

  Like, no, like, I'm not even interested in that. You know, like, this is the thing. It's like, all you got to do is like, study historical childbirth. And you're like, you know, I'm good.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Yep. No, no, it's really, it's a one way system. That's all.

• 4:58Eleanor Janega?

  That's it.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  I just got, but there are plenty of people listening who have had babies.

• 5:03Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And like, God bless you.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Well done. Thank you.

• 5:06Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. Thank you for your service, brave women of the troops, et cetera. So, yeah, like, it is one of those things where if you consider how difficult and painful, and frankly, dangerous it still is.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Still is. I'm still scary.

• 5:18Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, very much so. You know, they're, all you have to do really is ask, you know, like, what, what is your, your story from giving birth? And there's still.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  Do you know what I've noticed? Every single mate I've had who's had a baby, when I've actually asked that question, what was the birth like? They can't remember. It's like the body like blocked out. It's like something, I don't know if there's some actual scientific research behind this, or if just all of my friends went for the drug option, but like, they don't remember. And I think maybe that is some kind of, I'm off script now, but I think there might be some kind of evolutionary thing. Because if you did actually remember what happened, if you actually.

• 5:51Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  Well, I was in excruciating agony for 52 hours, Kate. That's how, well, you wouldn't do that again.

• 5:57Eleanor Janega?

  Do you know what? It's conspiracy of silence, in my opinion.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  I think it is.

• 5:59Eleanor Janega?

  I think it's a conspiracy of silence. People don't talk about it because they don't want to put other people off. But, you know, that's the exact opposite of how medieval people are getting on with it. Because medieval birth is so much more matter of fact.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Really?

• 6:12Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, because fundamentally medieval people don't have privacy.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  No, they don't. That's something I've learned from talking to you. That changed how I think about a lot of these people, the idea, the concept of privacy.

• 6:24Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. You're not going to be going anywhere to have your child. You're going to be having your child at home.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  There's no medieval maternity wards.

• 6:33Eleanor Janega?

  No, and I mean, there are medieval hospitals, but the concept of the medieval hospital is super different to how it is now, where it's like, they're kind of like inns. They're run by, you know, monks and nuns.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Down the Pope.

• 6:45Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, fully, fully. It's like, you know, there might be someone like giving birth, someone like, you know, dying of cancer. And then also you're like, oh, I just needed a place to stay. And then like some people, yeah, kind of having dinner.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  That's a fabulous start already, right? Okay.

• 6:57Eleanor Janega?

  Great. So, I mean, that's not what's going to be happening for you. Uh, when you are having a child, you're going to be having this child in your own home. You are probably going to be attended by the women you know.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  There has been research done, and I can't think of the proper title of it, that shows that home births, the, the more calm the surroundings, the actually that hyper-medicalized environment, although very safe and necessary, let's not put people off it. But actually being calmer in a home environment can reduce stress and shorten labor.

• 7:29Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is if you can like chill out.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 7:32Eleanor Janega?

  That's probably good.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Watch the telly.

• 7:34Eleanor Janega?

  And you know, this, so this is the thing is like, you know, probably your mom's gonna be there, maybe your mother-in-law, your sisters, and I mean, the midwife is gonna be there and that, that's gonna be who looks after it. And it doesn't matter who you are. Like even if you are an incredibly wealthy queen, physicians don't really deal with this stuff. You, you basically have midwifery as a separate skill. Now, a physician might be called if something really wild goes down.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Like that scene in Robin Hood, Princesses.

• 8:03Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. But you know, for the most part, it's just gonna be women because this is very much considered a specialist occupation. And it is one that is taken incredibly seriously. And now, to be, to be fair, midwives do more than just deliver babies. But that is really the one where it's always gonna be them.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:22Eleanor Janega?

  Who is doing it. So that's kind of cool. It's, there's like this specific medical field for women.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Is it true that some nuns were midwives or some midwives were nuns?

• 8:30Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, absolutely, because the nuns are some of the women who are trained pretty extensively in medical care. So again, hospitals, it might just be like a nunnery's got beds. You know, very famously in Paris, the Hotel Dhu is run by nuns. And so like, there are all these nuns who will kind of like look in on you there. And so if you've got some expertise, you're going to be given more expertise. And this is also something that nuns can go do, you know, nuns are supposed to be enclosed. They're just supposed to be hanging out in their nunnery away from the world and not participating in society. But if you're going to attend a birth, this is considered like worthy and fine. And so, you know, Hildegard Bingen writes rather a lot about midwifery as well. So, you know, I mean, Hildegard Bingen writes a lot about a lot. So that's probably not a surprise. She, you know, she's just like the, the infinite monkeys.

• 9:14Eleanor Janega?

  She's just got like, she probably, I don't know.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  She's just the kind of person, she would just deliver several babies in between composing symphonies and

• 9:21Eleanor Janega?

  Exactly.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  recording her visions and whatever the fuck else she was doing that day.

• 9:25Eleanor Janega?

  God bless her, yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  God bless that woman. I know what you're going to tell me now, this is, because this is women's history. No fucker has bothered to write it down. Was there training for this? How would you get into being a midwife? It's quite specialist now. You can't just rock up and go, I am a midwife.

• 9:41Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, the thing is, you're going to need a reputation and you are probably going to train in a sort of apprentice kind of manner. And yeah, you're right, we don't have a whole lot on this because it's like lady stuff. No, thank you. Oh, gross, you know, kind of a deal.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Call us when it's baptized.

• 9:58Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. And so we do know though, that these women form a backbone of their community. They show up in tax records, you know, we find these midwives who are working in different places around the shop. And they are, yes, delivering babies, but they're also doing generalized healthcare for the community. Right? So this is going to be the woman that you go see when you've got a cough, right? The midwife is going to be called, you're not getting a physician, like especially if, I don't know, you live in rural Scotland.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  It's like a wise woman type of thing.

• 10:27Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, it is.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Wise woman, yeah.

• 10:28Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's like, yo, like, if you are a trained physician, like, say you went to the school at Slernow, whereas there's like one, like you didn't go there so that you could be like, oh, I can't wait to practice rural medicine.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  No.

• 10:42Eleanor Janega?

  In like Northumbria. No, that's not.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  And those people wouldn't have been able to afford something like that anyway.

• 10:47Eleanor Janega?

  No, so it's like you go, you do that and then you go to court.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:50Eleanor Janega?

  Or you hang out in a city where there's a lot of rich merchants and that's who you attend to. So the great majority of medical help that is happening is by people like midwives. And also frankly, you want a midwife so much more than you want as a physician. Because yeah, here's the thing about medieval medicine, it's not real.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  No, it's mad.

• 11:11Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  Properly mental.

• 11:13Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And I mean, to be fair, like, and now this is like the proviso that I always say, it's not just medieval people. You know, they were getting it from the Romans and the Greeks. And like, it basically, it takes until the 19th century for any medicine to be like workable.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Even now today, you have to remember that advice changes all the time. All the time.

• 11:30Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. You know, like, all you gotta do is like, think about diets. Like, how many times have we gone back and forth on whether or not you should be eating eggs, right? You know, like, and these things are constantly going on, right?

• 11:39Speaker 03

  I was watching a sitcom from the seventies over the weekend, The Good Life. And it was interesting to, at the top, top tier.

• 11:45Eleanor Janega?

  Top, yes.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  But it was interesting just to watch, that was in 1975. And it's so weird watching it of how much things have changed. So there was an episode where Tom does his back in and the advice is to lie completely immobile on the floor. And that's exact opposite now.

• 11:59Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, they're like move around.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:01Eleanor Janega?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, and exactly. So that is also kind of like the difference between if you've got medicine, like physicians are learning at universities. That is going to be a lot more rigid because it's going to be a lot more, oh, well, let us go back and see what Hippocrates wrote about this. Like, let us go back to the ancients because there's this great reverence for classical medicine and an idea that that must be better. Whereas if you're going to a midwife in your village, she's gonna be like, this works real good.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:29Eleanor Janega?

  You know, I know, I know that if you boil up willow bark and you drink it, it's going to help your headache. You know, I know that L. Camphane seems to help to treat lung afflictions. You know, these are things that you see work.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:47Eleanor Janega?

  And yeah, you'll be taught this by whoever it is you're apprenticing with and whoever it is you're working alongside. But these are also things that you might be tinkering with around the joint. And you know, you as a midwife are going to need to know how to do things like stitch things up. And so that is going to be, I know, that's in great, you know, demand, you know, if being able to do stitches is being able to do stitches, that's great. So these women are really kind of like the frontline of what healthcare is in the medieval period. And every day of the week, I would rather have one of them. Then like some court physician who's going to be like,

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Without a doubt.

• 13:20Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  Without, I just think it would have been the kind of thing that like was passed down families. Like you do it because your mother did it and you could.

• 13:27Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:29Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And that's a super, super common. It's really common for there to be just like a family of people who do this. So.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over a hundred dollars off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 14:24Speaker 04

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• 15:10Speaker 03

  So I'm trying to think like actually of the birthing experience.

• 15:14Eleanor Janega?

  It sucked.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  It sucked. I mean, but I. All the people listening to this that have had babies, and if you ask your friends who've had babies, all this stuff, just talk to them about their birth if they remember it. And all the things that happened that if it wasn't for modern medicine would have been a fucking nightmare. My mate Sam split from fucking keel to stern.

• 15:36Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, God, yeah, like, I'm one of four because my parents are idiots. I love you, Mom and Dad, thank you. But like, all of us either tried to kill our mother or almost died, like, all of us. And if it was the medieval period, she would have just been

• 15:49Speaker 03

  You'd have been gone.

• 15:49Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, yeah, like, my sister was breech, my mother's blood wouldn't clot with me, my older, younger brother, umbilical cord around the neck, my youngest brother, 11 pounds, three ounces.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Holy moly.

• 16:03Eleanor Janega?

  Which is, you know, we're a big family.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 16:06Eleanor Janega?

  So, yeah, like, all of this. So, you know, if you just kind of consider how difficult and dangerous it is now, it's even more at the time, right? But the thing is, they were super matter of fact about it.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:19Eleanor Janega?

  Because I think one of the big differences between like today and then is everyone goes, oh, sweetie, it's fine. Actually, it's the most natural thing in the world.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Well.

• 16:27Eleanor Janega?

  It's so beautiful. Yeah, I mean, it's like, let's just make it beautiful, honey, right? And I think that now we really tend to downplay the dangers of childbirth because, you know, I, yeah, we're trying not to freak women out. But like, I don't know, you could use a little bit of being freaked out, right? Like, there's, there's, you know, don't freak people out. And there's like, also, let's be reasonable.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Let's not surprise them.

• 16:49Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, like, this is, I think that a lot of people are kind of surprised when they get there. And it's like, dangerous and horrifying and you almost die.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:57Eleanor Janega?

  You know? And so medieval people are like, yeah, no, it's bad, right? Okay, so there's this particular medieval document that I love, that is called a letter on virginity, or the Halle Midfeth, or like, don't get mad at me, my Middle English is rubbish, okay? And it is a specific work that is like, girl, do not get married. Like dedicate your life to Christ. And it's talking very specifically about like, all of the shock and horror of what goes along with being a wife and mother. And they're like, you think you want to bang and you do, but you're gonna get knocked up. And then you're gonna have to give birth and it goes into detail being like, pregnancy sucks. It sucks in his ass and you're going to want to puke the whole time and you're still gonna have to be plowing the field.

• 17:41Eleanor Janega?

  And your useless husband is still gonna be like, where's dinner? And you're still gonna have like, do all of these things, even though you feel awful. And then you're gonna give birth and it's going to be awful. It's even if you survive, which is a pretty big if, I mean, we're talking about kind of like a 50 50 chance at the time. You know, even if you survive that, they're like, and then you're left with a kid. And they gotta look after it. And then, you know, it's gonna disappoint you someday by like, being a weird little slut. And you know, it's gonna grow up to be just like you, girl.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  So just don't do it.

• 18:14Eleanor Janega?

  Don't do it, right? And so this is like a specific thing where it just goes on and on and on. And it's like, and do you understand what it's like when your water breaks? Like, do you understand what it's like when like you're?

• 18:25Speaker 03

  A woman who'd had a baby.

• 18:26Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, well, or either that or who had been around it enough. And it's like, like, do you get that, like, you are going to soil yourself in front of everyone while you're giving birth? Do you get that? Do you understand that it's gonna like, tear you apart? Do you, is that something that you understand? It's not just a cute little baby at the end. This is a really visceral process. And they were a lot more upfront about that. And now granted, this is 100% a tract that is like, antinatalist. They're like, don't, don't have children. And you know, a lot of religious works are like, you shouldn't be doing that. Like, you know, the ideal medieval Christian is a virgin, right? I think it's Saint Jerome says that like, he praises the office of marriage because it gives him virgins.

• 19:08Eleanor Janega?

  Or it's like, well, you people messed up, but like, more virgins might be born. And then, I know, he's the worst.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  He's just such a tool.

• 19:15Eleanor Janega?

  I know, well, you know, he's like, his kink is beating himself with rocks instead of beating off. And you know, I'm not gonna kink shame.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Well, I am, he's a tool. But the thing is, I want to be careful that we don't. Like completely stigmatized childbirth in the Middle Ages because quite obviously they managed it. We're all the walking, living, breathing proof that some people at least, and quite a lot of people successfully gave birth. What was their process like? I mean, would you have had a medieval birthing plan? Would you have had like a medieval birthing pool or one of those bowls to bounce on?

• 19:50Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, usually one of the big things that you have is a chair.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Oh, a chair?

• 19:54Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. So like a chair is like a birthing chair is a really big thing.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Is that good or bad? Like, is that like a mad thing that they had that they thought was good?

• 20:01Eleanor Janega?

  I think it's actually pretty good because like one of the things that we're kind of learning now, for example, is that like the laying down thing isn't necessarily great. These are their idea was like, yo, you want to use gravity.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Gravity.

• 20:13Eleanor Janega?

  In your favor. So it's kind of like, so if you sit up, if you can like get on this chair and you know, you're not always going to want to get on the chair because you're going to be in like great pain. But if you can sit up and get on the chair, then that gravity is going to help draw the baby down along with the contractions.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  We need midwives and gynecologists to email into the show just to let us know if that if the chair was a bad idea or a good idea.

• 20:36Eleanor Janega?

  And that, yeah, and they.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Gravity sounds, that sounds sensible to me.

• 20:40Eleanor Janega?

  Birthing pool, not so much, just because, I mean, like granted, you could fill up the tub with, with water, but like it's probably going to cool down and then you're going to have to keep replacing it and it's eventually gonna, it's, it's gonna get, yeah. And when you're carrying water the whole time.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:56Eleanor Janega?

  Water's really annoying.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:57Eleanor Janega?

  Now you might end up just giving birth in bed. That's super common as well. You know, that's a big place to do it because you're so uncomfortable. You're like, no, I will not stand up. Thank you. No, not going to happen. But as a general rule, you're going to be giving birth in your own home and like someone's going to go get the midwife. That's what's going to happen. Like, you know, your mother-in-law or your sister or whoever is going to look after you and then someone's going to go run, get the midwife and then she's going to come in and take over. And what that means can be, you know, anything, you know, you could have a relatively straightforward birth and she is just going to be like, yeah, great job, girl. Like rub your back, you know, kind of a deal. There are other things that can happen. So for example, we know that, you

• 21:40Eleanor Janega?

  know, in order to avoid vaginal tearing, for example, they will like oil you up. Like that's a, that's a big thing that kind of happens is like the hope that this is going to like prevent tears from happening. They will be keeping an eye on the baby, like in case it is, uh, you know, breach or something like that. And, you know, they'll get in there and just kind of try to manipulate it, move it around if it's gone into the wrong position. So that's something that they are super clear on. But for the most part, this is kind of an at home deal where we're just going to see what we see.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 22:10Eleanor Janega?

  Once we get there, right?

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Did they do that lying in thing? Or was that a rich person deal? Like when, you know, when you shut themselves away in like a little room with no windows or light and lots of incense?

• 22:22Eleanor Janega?

  Peasants girls ain't got no room.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  No, there's no time.

• 22:25Eleanor Janega?

  No, they've just got, peasant girls live in one room, uh, which like sometimes in the winter, there's a cow at one end.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 22:32Eleanor Janega?

  Right? You know, like a great, granted they're in like a little stall thing. It's not like in the same room, you know, but everybody lives in one big room for the most part. So no, I mean, like you'll probably lay down for a couple of days just because of, you know, the trauma. Uh, but they're not, it's not going to be that whole like lying in, we cover up all the windows. Here's some incense, da, da, da. That's for queens. You know, that's for ladies. It's not for your average individual, uh, who is just going to have to be in their house in the best way that they can be, frankly.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  Confinement. That was the word I was looking for.

• 23:03Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  That sounds fucking awful, by the way.

• 23:06Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. Oh, I mean, I wouldn't recommend it. I don't think, you know, and this is the thing that confinement is a really interesting one because that lasts for ages as an idea. Yeah. I mean, it's, Jesus, it's, it's such a difficult thing, medical history, because like basically absolutely nothing worked until we figured out germs exist, but they were still doing all this weird stuff anyway. And you're like, yeah, it's not till the 19th century that any of this gets better, right?

• 23:28Speaker 03

  You just lie there in a bed for like a month, maybe more, waiting for this thing to kick off.

• 23:34Eleanor Janega?

  And they're like, please don't get postpartum depression. Have fun.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Why would nuns make good midwives?

• 23:41Eleanor Janega?

  Well, nuns make good midwives because in the first place, they are dedicated to serving their communities. They are the sort of people who can sit around and read the texts in order to learn about these things. And also, in cases of extremis, where you have a baby who's been born, but it's not looking good, and they very well may die, which is incredibly common. You know, let us keep in mind that until we invent vaccines, 50% of all children are going to die before they are the age of two. And it's incredibly common with newborns for them to die. And so you would be happy to have a nun because a nun in this case is authorized to perform baptism.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Oh, that's handy.

• 24:20Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Wait, no, that sounds like a bigger deal than I thought that was then because only priests were allowed to do.

• 24:26Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, ordinarily, yeah. And you have some cases where when stuff gets really bad, so like, for example, during the Black Death, they'll be like, if you can't get a priest, just get a Christian. And then they can do these things. And then if you can't find a Christian, oh, man, I guess a woman could do it. Like, if someone is dying, you can hear someone blast confession. You know, like, you can go find a woman. But here is a case where they're like, well, yeah, it's more likely that you're going to have a nun around than it is to, like, go fetch a priest. And then if you've got to go fetch a priest, then then you're also wasting time. And everybody agrees it's really important to get the baby baptized so that they don't end up in purgatory.

• 25:06Eleanor Janega?

  So, you know, that is something that it's a rare example of where women get to have a little bit more spiritual power, specifically in the birthing room.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  So are the nuns trained in, I guess, not just push and breathe, but surgery as well? Like Caesarians?

• 25:24Eleanor Janega?

  Caesarians, this is the big thing, right? And so let's keep in mind that a Caesarian at the time, you know, like, again, up until essentially like the 20th century, you do Caesarians when it's like, she ain't gonna make it, right? Like, it's over for wifey. Like, she is probably already, she's going to be dead. Like, she's dead. And you're like, okay, we've got to get to this baby. And odds are, baby's also going to die. That's what the odds are. But what you want to do is make sure it gets baptized. So you get in there to get the baby to make sure that it is baptized so that it goes to heaven. So that is when someone would perform a Caesarian section. And again, this is something that's really handy to have a nun who is trained up here because

• 26:07Eleanor Janega?

  she can cut you open and she can also do the baptism really quickly. And because odds are the baby, if it's got to this incredibly difficult situation, odds are the baby is going to die as well. But we're still thinking about the pastoral needs of the baby, and this is as much a form of healthcare as is seen to the corporeal needs of either the mother or child.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Cause it was almost certain death, wasn't it?

• 26:32Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  You wouldn't, you wouldn't do that unless you knew it was absolute curtains. And even then, you'd probably still be holding out hoping it would, it would be okay.

• 26:41Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. I mean, like fundamentally, this doesn't happen unless mom's dead. And we're worried because the baby's too far in and there's like no amount of like gravity that's gonna get them out.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  It's grim, isn't it?

• 26:51Eleanor Janega?

  It's grim. Don't you love having me on?

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Oh, oh. So would this have been primarily a woman only space then?

• 26:59Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, for the most part, this is one of these circumstances where we just see a lot of chicks rocking, you know, like you are probably gonna have like your husband toddle along once or twice in certain occasions, but for the most part, they're like, get out of here.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:14Eleanor Janega?

  Go take the other kids and go to your dad's house or something like that, right? Like go make yourself useful. And so that is something that certainly would exist now, probably especially for poorer families. So it's gonna be a little bit less of that. But this is a kind of time and place where women are hanging out around other women and like that is who the crowd is.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  From what you're saying, it sounds like midwives are, well, they're quite important people. So I'm assuming that they were very widely respected and. And given a lot of kudos in the community and not accused of being witches at any point.

• 27:47Eleanor Janega?

  Now, I want to be clear that medieval people really don't do that.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, sorry, I forgot.

• 27:51Eleanor Janega?

  Early modern problem, anti early modern action.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Sorry.

• 27:55Eleanor Janega?

  So, yeah, but this is.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  Slipping there into that myth.

• 27:58Eleanor Janega?

  And this is a really important one, though, because we do see, when we hit the early modern period, we do see that more midwives end up getting persecuted as witches. But there's a very specific thing here, right?

• 28:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 28:12Eleanor Janega?

  Whereas it's not just any midwife, like midwives exist the entire time, like across the early modern period, midwives are still around.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  You can't just periodically execute more than midwives.

• 28:21Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, you know who periodically execute? The midwives who do abortions.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 28:26Eleanor Janega?

  Ooh. Because medieval people are a lot more chill on the whole abortion front. Medieval people are like, well, so true, bestie. Like, you do be having to have abortions from now and then. And medieval church way chiller about abortions than you would think. They're basically like, you know, it's a freebie up to three months.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, they had this idea about the quickening.

• 28:45Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and they're like, don't get me wrong, they're not like, yes, I love abortions. That's, that's my favorite thing, you know, but they are like, look, fundamentally, we know things happen. You might have too many children. And what they see as probable in circumstances where people cannot feed their children, which is a real concern at the time, is infanticide. And they see that as a probable outcome because it is probable. Because infanticide is incredibly high when you can't access, you know, abortion services. And so a lot of midwives are like, also, this is a thing that I do. And that is usually a kind of intervention that is like, for example, drinking penny royalty.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and am I right in thinking that, like, the quickening around about three months, that was when they thought that the soul?

• 29:34Eleanor Janega?

  The soul enters.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  Enters, so up until that point, it's like, it's, it's not a Christian, there's no soul.

• 29:40Eleanor Janega?

  No.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  Whatever you do doesn't count. But after that, then things.

• 29:43Eleanor Janega?

  Then things got, and it's like, from there, like, it, it kind of like goes up and up and up. I mean, like, not that women are really usually attempting to, like, abort pregnancies after six months, but it's like, it would get worse and worse and worse, right?

• 29:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:56Eleanor Janega?

  Um, in terms of what penance is. But penance is usually, like, surprisingly light for the first three months. And they're just like, yeah, please don't kill babies, that would be cool. Like, you know, just get an abortion, it'll be fine. That changes after we invent Protestants because Protestants and Catholics are like, "I'm the holy one. No, you're not holy. I'm holy. No." And then they're like, "You would do abortions? No, I wouldn't. You would. No, I bet you that sounds like something you would do." And then they're like, so it turns into like the spiritual arms race. Okay. Or slap fight, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. And so then everyone goes, "No abortions. That is it." Ruined it. Yeah, exactly. And so then you go after the midwives who are doing abortions. And that is very specifically

• 30:41Eleanor Janega?

  Okay. the group of midwives who are persecuted as the ones doing abortion services.

• 31:01Speaker 01

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• 31:35Speaker 04

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• 32:20Speaker 03

  Have we got any texts left to us by any, well, midwives able to write through? Was there any man that, that wanted to write for a midwife? We have any textual evidence? Any medieval version of call a midwife?

• 32:33Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, the number one, it's, it's gonna be your girl, Trotta of Salerno and the Trotula, right? And now granted, we think that she very well may have been an actual physician. She very well may have been educated at Salerno, but she writes this OBGYN treaties, which tells you very expressly how they're like, well, this is what you do about a breached baby. This is what you do about tearing. This is how you care for mothers afterwards. And it goes really step by step about what it is you're supposed to do. And this is, you know, the equivalent of a medieval bestseller. This survives to us in absolutely tons of copies. I mean, after the original text gets written, that tells you all these important OBGYN things. Then later on, they're like, and here's how you curl your hair.

• 33:15Eleanor Janega?

  And like people like add to it and they're like, yeah, this is the eminent midwife was also like, here's how you make lipstick, like, yeah, sure, bro.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  It was different people.

• 33:24Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, different people, but it, it kind of travels together. It's like, here is the one stop shop for ladies and things that you'll need to do. So it's interesting because there is also with this, we kind of see, there's kind of an understanding that like women are gonna need to know a little bit about what's due generally, because you're gonna be at somebody's birth at some point in time, helping out. And you can't lay it all at the feet of the midwife.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Do we have anything in the records about women, what hampers them, their bodies after they? Cause sometimes you read some records of how many births somebody's had. It's not super duper common, but like I've come across women, it wasn't medieval, it was 18th century. And she'd had 34 children.

• 34:07Eleanor Janega?

  You get into some clown car situations pretty quickly.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  And you just think like, what did that do? Like even if, even if she didn't require stitches, like, but how could you not? Like what that must have done to her body?

• 34:18Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. I mean, we certainly, it's not uncommon to see. Women who have had like, you know, 13 kids, 16 kids, you know, like this sort of thing like that is very, very common. And I mean, I think the thing that sort of happens there is that your body does, to an extent, get used to it where it's like, oh, we're doing this again, right? You're gonna have less tearing, you know, and if you are the sort of person who has been like really maimed by the situation, you might not be the sort of person who gets pregnant again. You know, you might be like, yeah, that's cool. Jesus says we need to do that. Absolutely not. We are not ejaculating inside of anything. Right? Like, so you, there are ways of doing, getting around that, right?

• 35:00Speaker 03

  I often think like, because this, this is not a history that's, that's written down because, and it's still something that people struggle to talk about today. Actually, I don't think it's spoken about nearly enough is the vaginal damage and the internal damage that can be done. I mean, they must have been like incontinent and tears and fistulas and all kinds of internal injuries.

• 35:22Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, one of the things that we have really good records on from the medieval period that they do a lot of surgery on is very specifically fistulas.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 35:31Eleanor Janega?

  So like fistula and ano, the one where you kind of like get a fistula through to your anus, which is super common as a result of problematic pregnancies. That's one of the first things where everyone is like, we need to sit down and write up how you deal with this. So there are surgical practices very specifically to address that. But yeah, absolutely. And it is though, as you say, the sort of thing that you just don't talk about, right? Like it's, well, in the first place, it's happening to women. So is it happening? I don't, I didn't hear anything, you know, right? So you wouldn't talk about that. In the second place, you know, it's kind of like private stuff. So you're not necessarily going to talk about it. And then in the third place, it's so common that it doesn't even necessarily require talking about, right? You know, now for us in the global north, that would be a lot more of

• 36:15Eleanor Janega?

  an anomaly and something that you would talk about. But you know, it's still something that is a real problem for women in the global south, for example. So like access to really good healthcare around birth is still incredibly limited by where you live.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  So as a final question, then, when did things start to shift that birth became increasingly medicalized? And I don't want to be, you know, a crusty person being like, yeah, we should all be at home on a lily pad and being washed. I think that, I think that actually medical intervention is a good thing. But also, there is an argument to say that we do. Overly medicalize this. And now the idea that you just go into hospital to have a baby, that that's the done thing. But when did it stop being like Betty up the road that you'd just go and get?

• 37:02Eleanor Janega?

  It's an enlightenment issue. So, you know, with the enlightenment, everyone is like, we're doing science now, guys. It's it's science time.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  Stand back, ladies.

• 37:10Eleanor Janega?

  It was not science. Like, for like, until the 19th century, it's like, you're still just doing like, you know, humoral theory with more steps. But one of these things that we begin to see, especially at the end of the Middle Ages, is an increasing professionalization of physicians in particular. So whereas before you could be like, I spent a couple of weeks at Salerno and I'm a physician now, or whatever, that begins to get tightened up. And so kings will say, for example, you can't call yourself a physician unless you have a degree from a university.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  Fair.

• 37:42Eleanor Janega?

  So that means that women increasingly do not have access.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Unfair.

• 37:48Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. Now, it still happens. You know, we'll still see like women, for example, we've got women on record in Paris, for example, who are basically suing to say like, look, I'm trained, let me in. I should be able to say that I'm a physician, that kind of thing.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Something you wrote about in your book?

• 38:02Eleanor Janega?

  Yes, my book, The Ones in Future Sex, we treat this in my chapter on, you know, women's roles in society. So, you know, like what it means to be a wife and mother, you know. So, yeah, absolutely.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  But they were trained.

• 38:14Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely trained. And when we know this, and when we've got their names, right? But this becomes increasingly untenable as you hit the Enlightenment, where, you know, the universities really become much larger. And then suddenly universities begin giving medical degrees. So, right, like you and I, as the correct kind of doctor, the original kind of doctor, like, you know, like, a doctor originally met someone who had a PhD, and physicians were physicians.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:39Eleanor Janega?

  And then you kind of start seeing later, especially kind of like 18th century, 19th century, physicians are now suddenly called doctor, whereas they were not previously.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:49Eleanor Janega?

  And so when all of this comes in, that's when we see women increasingly excluded. And then, like, especially in kind of like the 19th century, 20th century, then it's going to be like more doctors, doctors, doctors, doctors, doctors. So. Particularly in the kind of post-war period in the global north, it's much more going to be like you go to hospital, you see a doctor, there isn't really going to be a midwife so much. And that can vary from place to place. So that's certainly more true, for example, in the States than it is here. And you know, Call the Midwife is a great program for a reason.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  And it's a great book, actually. I read the book of that before it came out and it was fascinating.

• 39:25Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, brilliant stuff. So, you know, midwives certainly always existed along those lines. But, you know, we just kind of have changed our ways of thinking about what birth is and, you know, who is an expert.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  Eleanor, thank you so much for coming and talking to me. It's been absolutely horrifying.

• 39:42Eleanor Janega?

  Well, you know, I aim to horrify. Thanks so much to Kate Lister once again for having me. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. If you're interested in the world of medieval childbirth, why not check out our past episode on medieval medicine? Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film, The Medieval Apocalypse, released weekly, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, or you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.