‎Costanza Gislon Dopfel, Alessandra Foscati, Charles Burnett (eds)‎
‎Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World. European and Middle Eastern Cultures, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance‎

‎, Brepols, 2019 Hardback, xxiv + 357 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:38 b/w, Language: English. ISBN 9782503580555.‎

Reference : 66039

‎Summary This volume of contributions from international scholars offers a cross-cultural and multi-period analysis of pregnancy and childbirth traditions in Western and Middle Eastern cultures. The studies focus on the ideas, practices, and visual representations surrounding pregnancy and birth-giving from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance and offer the reader the possibility of observing the perception, representation, and theoretic paradigm of these events in a wide range of cultural contexts. The collection fits within multiple traditions of specialized scholarship, yet its scope suggests a geographically global approach and a new, multicultural methodology that encompasses a wide range of practices, historical periods, and topics. On one hand, it participates in the well-established medical, historical, and iconographic discourse on childbirth and family that has enticed much interest over the last two decades; on the other, its unique thematic structure includes cultures and periods previously ignored in similar collections of essays. The articles span from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and India, and connect the experience of childbirth to the exchanges of knowledge, religious beliefs, and social practices. With its variety of topics and specializations, the volume encourages a global comparative approach to the cultural narrative surrounding the activities and attitudes connected to conception and birth, paying particular attention to material culture, religion, history, and iconography, as well as to the exchange and dispersion of medical knowledge. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface - CHARLES BURNETT Indroduction - COSTANZA GISLON DOPFEL Part 1: Cultural Exchanges and Transmission of Knowledge Educating the Midwife. The Role of Illustration in Late Antique and Medieval Obstetrical Texts - FRANCESCA MARCHETTI Pregnancy and Birth in Middle-Persian Zoroastrian Literature: The Exchange of Knowledge between India, Iran, and Greece in Late Antiquity - PAOLO DELAINI Tracing the Maternal Body in Medieval Muslim Gynaecological Texts - KATHRYN KUENY Calculating Birth: Abraham Ibn Ezra's Role in the Creation and Diffusion of the Trutina Hermetis - SHLOMO SELA Part 2: Birth, Death, and Magic Mother and Child: Archaeological Evidence of Childbirth Complications in Medieval Normandy - ARMELLE ALDUC-LE BAGOUSSE, C CILE CHAPELAIN DE SER VILLE-NIEL, and RAPHA LLE LEFEBVRE 'Girde hyr wythe thys mesure': Birth Girdles, the Church, and Lollards - MARY MORSE Prayer as Obstetric Practice at Thirteenth-Century La Cambre - SARA RITCHEY Retracing Childbirth Through Hagiographical Texts and Canonization Processes in Italy and France between the Thirteenth and Sixteenth Centuries - ALESSANDRA FOSCATI Part 3: Lying-in and Holy Birth: Tradition, Iconography, and Political Statement 'Lying-in' in High Medieval England - FIONA HARRIS-STOERTZ Mary and Eve: The Permanence of the First Mother in Armenian Apocryphal Infancy Gospels - VALENTINA CALZOLARI Mystras' Byzantine Frescoes: The Political Message in the Iconography of the Birth of Mary - ANTONELLA PARMEGGIANI Holy Mothers and Vanished Nativities: Maternal Art as Female Visual Epic in Quattrocento Florence - COSTANZA GISLON DOPFEL Index‎