Nancy Caciola wrote:
> The burial in unconsecrated ground of women who die in childbirth was of
> concern to Burchard of Worms, who censures the practice, and proscribes
> penance for it, in his *Corrector,* XIX: 5. The rationale for the practice,
> according to Burchard, is to prevent the corpse of the unfortunate woman
> from returning as a revenant. Apparently, in the area Burchard is writing
> for, both stillborn infants and mothers dying in childbirth were
> traditionally interred pinned to the ground with thorns and stakes, in some
> out-of-the-way place, in the hope that such constraints would prevent them
> from "rising up and harming many" (paraphrase). I don't have notes here on
> how severe the penance was for burying a woman in this way.
Might this suggest, then, that women appearing to be churched in place
of others who had died in childbed, were not doing this with a view to
providing retrospective benefit for their souls, but in order to
'prevent them from "rising up and harming many"'?
I doubt there's evidence either way, but would like to hear ...
Darryl
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