medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Remember this is a story in the Bible, about the 2 women who brought a baby
to King Solomon. The bad mother had overlaid her baby & was now arguing
that the other woman's baby was her's...............
If it was/is in the Bible, it must be true.
DW
Was it Abelard, writing on intention, who held that a poor woman who took
her baby into her bed to keep it warm and unintentionally smothered it would
nevertheless be guilty of its death?
I haven't got the reference off hand, but no doubt someone here can help . .
.
Cate
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cormack, Margaret Jean" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 9:32 PM
Subject: Re: [M-R] child deaths
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Did not such women sometimes come under suspicion of doing
away with unwanted offspring?
Meg
________________________________
From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious
culture on behalf of Ms Brenda M. Cook
Sent: mán. 28.3.2005 13:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] child deaths
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
One form in particular was quite interesting to me - they even had a
special word for it which I cannot recall offhand.
The word is, I think, "Overlaid"
Since people wrapped their babies in swaddling clothes,
Swaddling clothes have had a bad press, but they did protect the baby
against fleas, lice and possibly rat-bite.
there was a high incidence of infant death among the poor especially because
they would put the baby in the same bed with themselves and often rolled
over and smothered the baby.
This has long been held as an opinion, but I believe that some modern -
well - 20th century - reseach which involved sleeping parents and their
babies being filmed - demonstrated that this simply does not happen and that
even when asleep a mother instictively does NOT overlay her baby. A baby
sharing a bed with its parents would be warm and safe and mother would not
have to get out from under the covers and light a candle (if she had one! )
to suckle it in the middle of the night.
I think this belief in "overlaying" grew up to explain what is now called
"cot death" - a phenomenon that is still not medically understood.
Brenda.
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