While you wait for an answer the FAQ has a section on medicine in the ancient world through the Middle Ages.
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The royal household was both private and public. A queen’s major duty was to produce an heir for the kingdom, and the health of the queen and child were very important. Queens were given the “best” healthcare available and received increased scrutiny during pregnancy.
First it is important to note that women’s bodies, and subsequently queen’s bodies, were sites of impurities and danger. Menstrual blood was especially poisonous to a child and contact must be avoided at all costs. Menses were representative of a major difference between the genders and thus it was a threat. Medical writers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries believed that menstrual blood sustained the fetus in utero and this made the fetus especially fragile (Parsons and Wheeler). The misogyny influenced many of the child birthing practices.
From the beginning of her marriage, the queen’s body is scrutinized. After the wedding would be a bedding ceremony, where the royal couple would consummate their relationship in view of members of the court. Even sexual relations were prescribed to the queen. “[M]iroirs aux princesses explained to women the need for moderation in carnal relations, ‘since frequent and excessive copulation leads to the destruction of the soul and the body, the obscuring of reason and the weakening of the spirit’” (Gaude-Ferragu). Her sexuality had no other purpose than conception, and great attention was paid by the court to the activities of the monarchs.
There were many remedies to help conceive a child, and those to specifically conceive a male child. “[H]ealth regimens prescribed mandrake and leek as well as laudanum suppositories and fumigation. Advice for specifically conceiving a male heir varied, making use of both botanical knowledge (according to Bartholomew of England, thistle juice was beneficial) and magic. For example, dipping a belt of goat hair in a female donkey’s milk was advised by some, while others suggested drinking a potion concocted of wine mixed with the dried and ground-up sexual parts of a hare” (Gaude-Ferragu). Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England, was notably childless. Apothecary bills from her household show purchases of medicines associated with infertility or aiding conception: “herbs such as water of plantain, trisandali, diapendion, spikenard and mustard, all of which had multiple uses including the treatment of gynaecological problems” (Tingle).
Once she was pregnant, her health regimen ramped up significantly. “The future mother had to follow a special diet and avoid consuming salty and bitter foods (which would make the child she was carrying more sensitive to childhood diseases). The pregnant woman was also supposed to avoid tiring herself out.” (Gaude-Ferragu).
The first and last trimesters were the most dangerous for child and mother. Many medicinal recipes focus on the last trimester and labor. At the end of the pregnancy, she was expected to rest and rely on medical and religious ways of protection.
During the last 4-6 weeks of pregnancy, coinciding with the most risky time, the queen’s bedchamber would be converted into the “Lying-in” room. She would be secluded in her enclosed room with no interaction with anyone outside of her female attendants. She would remain secluded until her churching. The rooms would be lavishly decorated with new furniture and additional curtains, hangings, and rugs to create an enclosed and insulated space sealed away from the rest of the household and the court (Florschuetz).
The queen’s attendants were all female and this gendered separation was highly ritualized. The redecoration of the lying-in chamber “clearly suggests not only the desire to keep the space inviolate and private, but also the assumption that such a space will invite curiosity and the desire to witness what is being marked as secret and off-limits. Strategies to police and control this space, as well as the knowledge of the lying-in room and its practices, construct the lying in chamber as a site of privileged knowledge that outsiders in general and men in particular, are ineligible to share” (Florschuetz). The mystery of childbirth was a sacred one only permitted for those initiated into the cult of motherhood. The secrets of the lying-in room were parallel to the secrets of the woman’s reproductive body (Florschuetz).
Midwives played an important role in the childbirth process. “In contemporary instructions for midwives, much emphasis is placed on the comfort of the room, its consistency with the nobility of the woman’s endeavor, its value to the family, and upon the need to keep men out, rather than the woman in. Midwives were especially enjoined to concentrate on the social construction of the lying-in room as a place where the woman’s feelings and body must be dignified, rather than denigrated or repudiated” (Florschuetz).
The act of labor was expected to be a social event seen by the members of the court. The female attendants, specialists, and midwives were all present during the labor to reinforce the legitimacy of the child.
A woman would give birth in a semi-seated position supported by pillows or a midwife. “The account books give details about the objects that were employed, such as the ‘vat for holding water’ (cuve à recevoir l’eaue), the ‘basin for washing hands’ (bacin à laver mains) and ‘heater’ (chaufouere) as well as a ‘large boiler garnished and lined with iron rings’ (grant chaudiere garnye et bordee de fer a anneaulx) and sometimes forceps” (Gaude-Ferragu). Additional medicinal recipes were given to the queen to ease the labor, including potions, fumigations, and warm baths with soothing elements (Gaude-Ferragu).
In addition to medicinal interventions, religious or magical interventions were also popular. Queens often brought holy relics or “sachets d’accouchement, parchments comprised of the tale of the saint’s life and magico-religious formulas to protect mother and child” (Gaude-Ferragu). Saint Margaret was the patron saint of women in labor, and she was often venerated through reading passages from her haigiography. The Virgin Mary was also a predominant saint and intercessor for the queens.
After being expelled from the womb, the child was taken from the mother to be washed and swaddled. “In order to protect his or her health and help him or her avoid catching a chill, his or her room was carefully monitored. When Charles VI’s children were born, for example, the windows were systematically caulked, even though there was a fire constantly burning in the chimney” (Gaude-Ferragu).
The child would be taken away from the mother and given to a wet-nurse to feed. Many wealthy women forwent nursing their own children in order to conceive again more quickly. Nursing tends to delay or prevent regular menstrual periods, so women who needed to create as many children as possible to cement the succession were reluctant to nurse.
About a month after childbirth, the queen would participate in the “churching” ritual. This was a purification ritual and thanksgiving for the child. As childbirth was associated with the sin of sexual activity, women needed to be purified in order to re-enter society and the church. “The humoral imbalances and sexual contamination related to childbirth necessitated churching and, in some cases, exorcism, as the pregnant woman was believed to be particularly vulnerable to demonic possession” (Florschuetz).
Works cited
Bratsch-Prince, D. (1998). A Queen’s Task: Violant de Bar and the experience of royal motherhood in Fourteenth-Century Aragon. La corónica, 27(1), 21-34.
Florschuetz, A. (2014). Marking maternity in Middle English romance: mothers, identity, and contamination. Springer.
Gaude-Ferragu, M. (2016). Chapter 3: Bearing the Blood of France. In: Queenship in Medieval France, 1300-1500. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-93028-9_4
Parsons, & Wheeler, B. (1996). Medieval mothering /. Garland Pub.
Tingle, L. (2020). Pregnancy, Maternity and Childlessness. In: Chaucer's Queens. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63219-9_2
Edited to fix my works cited