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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