medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Not just children! At many shrines, pilgrims would squeeze under, between or through various tight spots usually but not always connected with the physical remains of the saint. Partly this speaks to wanting to pass "under the hands", so to speak, of the saint, but the behavior seems often to be independent of this. Some liminal experience, possibly?
TGD
On Jan 16, 2014, at 4:25 PM, "James Bugslag" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Passing children through holes of one sort or another -- in trees, in the earth, etc. -- was a practice common in Europe before the coming of Christianity, was fulminated against by the Christian missionaries of the conversion period, but then crops up in Christianized form occasionally through the Middle Ages and into the early modern period in a variety of forms.
> Cheeses often crop up in terms of women trying to assure sufficient breast milk for their infants, presumably because of the milk connection. At some early-modern local pilgrimage shrines, cheeses were offered, particularly by nursing mothers in relation to assuring their supply of milk. My favourite instance of this thaumaturgical use of cheese was at the church of Clermont-d'Excideuil, where a woman having trouble nursing "placed a soft cheese on her naked breasts and held it there while the priest read the Gospel over her". She then gave the cheese to the priest! The quotation is from Stephen Wilson's The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe (London, 2004), p. 269.
> Cheers,
> Jim
>
> ________________________________________
> From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of John Dillon [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: January 16, 2014 3:29 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [M-R] groaning cheese / childbirth
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> A little more on 'groaning':
> OED, s.v. _groaning_, n.:
> 2. A lying-in. Now only dial.[1603 Shakespeare Hamlet iii. ii. 237 It would cost you a groning to take them off.]
> Diary 1724 S. Sewall 9 Jan. (1973) II. 1011 She came from a Groaning very cheerfull.
>
> <SNIP>
>
> Compounds C1. General attrib.
>
> a. groaning-time n.
> 1579 T. North tr. Plutarch 11 When her groninge time was come..she [Ariadne] dyed..in labour.1881 I. of W. Gloss., Groanin time, the time of a woman's accouchment.
>
> b. Esp. of food and drink provided for attendants and vistors at a lying-in.
>
> groaning-beer n.
> 1677 S. Sewall Diary 16 Feb. (1973) I. 36 Brewed my Wives Groaning Beer.
>
> groaning-bread n.
> 1893 R. O. Heslop Northumberland Words, Groanin-breed..is the cake provided on the occasion.
>
> groaning-cake n.
> 1841 J. T. J. Hewlett Parish Clerk I. 71 Caudle and groaning-cake were handed round.
> 1896 W. W. Skeat & T. Hallam Pegge's Two Coll. Derbicisms 103 Groaning-cake, [cake] given to the assisting women, after the good woman is brought to bed.
>
> groaning-cheese n.
> 1636 W. Sampson Vow-breaker iv. 1 H, Bring the groaning cheece and all requisites.
> 1822 Scott Fortunes of Nigel I. iii. 63 To taste a glass of anniseed, and a bit of the groaning cheese.
>
> ****
>
> Here's an example of the sort of thing Meg's informant may have read:
> http://milksleap.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/baptism-by-cheese/
> I could find nothing to establish either that the baby will always have been male (note "his christening" rather than "its christening" or "her or his christening") or that the passing of the baby through the rind was a _medieval_ custom. See, for example, the explanations here, all failing to specify when in past time the practice of passing the baby will have been observed (NB: The first two are from Google Books and so may be less than universally available):
> http://tinyurl.com/n3v4qnu
> http://tinyurl.com/m66wen5
> http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192829160.001.0001/acref-9780192829160-e-701
>
> Best,
> John Dillon
>
>
> On 01/16/14, Jane Stemp Wickenden wrote:
>
>> I couldn't give as detailed an answer as I would have liked, earlier, having
>> only a mobile phone to work with.
>>
>> Back at the PC - there is a brief entry in three sources:
>>
>> Oxford Dictionary of Superstitions
>> Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) online
>> http://www.bartleby.com/81/7673.html http://www.bartleby.com/81/3334.html
>> And, http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/GroaningCheese.htm
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Jane
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious
>> culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]](javascript:main.compose() On Behalf Of Cormack,
>> Margaret Jean
>> Sent: 16 January 2014 16:28
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [M-R] groaning cheese / childbirth
>>
>> I was recently told of a belief, said to be medieval, according to which
>> when a woman was pregnant she would make a special cheese that would mature
>> in 9 months. When the baby was born, the family would eat the cheese and
>> pass the child through the empty rind. (No mention of why the cheese is said
>> to "groan".)
>> This sounds suspicious to me on many levels, but has anyone heard of
>> anything remotely similar?
>> Meg
>
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