The Luttrell Village

On my mad dash to the Madison NJ library to get books on Hanukah, I also stumbled over this:

The Luttrell village : country life in the Middle Ages by Sheila Sancha. (Crowell, 1982)

The conceit of this picture book is a depiction of life in one of Geoffrey Luttrell's manor villages during the time the Luttrell Psalter, with its images of daily life, was painted. The author/illustrator says that she constructed a scale model of the village, based on archeological finds and the 18th-century map, in order to be as accurate as possible. Admittedly, her knowledge of the status of villeins vs. freemen is outdated (see Gies and Gies, Life in a Medieval Village) but the depictions of various activities and of village life are true to history and to the illustrations in the Psalter.

For a high quality, high-broadband look at the Psalter itself, see:
http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/luttrell/luttrell_broadband.htm

This children's book is an excellent resource not only for children and those doing Medieval school units, but as a basic introduction to medieval life in the 14th century.

I complain bitterly that people don't know even the basic facts of medieval country life, and that many of them won't take the trouble to look at secondary or tertiary sources to get some background. This volume, with its simple but charming illustrations and diagrams, may be a stepping-stone, especially if we can get adults to read it to children (thus painlessly exposing the adults).

16th c. midwifery as described by a physician

Some notes from the 1513 midwife's manual:
In childbirth, a woodcut

Birthing Chair: Woodcut from Der Swangern Frawen und he bammen roszgarten, by Eucharius Rösslin, 1513.
Apparently a birthing chair was sometimes used, as well as a half-lying position and apparently a hands-and-knees position:

...She should lie down on her back, but she should not lie down completely and yet also she also should not quite be standing, but rather it should be somewhere in the middle . . . And in high German lands, and also in Italian lands the midwives have special chairs for a woman's labor, and these are not high, but carved out and hollow on the inside, as depicted here. And these should be made so the woman can lean back on her back . . . And if she is fat, she should not sit, rather she should lie on her belly, and lay her forehead on the ground and pull her knees to her belly . . .

Rösslin, Eucharius. When Midwifery became the Male Physician's Province: the sixteenth century handbook The Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and Midwives [Der Swangern Frawen und he bammen roszgarten] newly Englished. Translated by Wendy Arons. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994)

NB: Bizarrely, the wife of one of my acquaintances was only able to give birth via natural childbirth when she assumed this position; and she's one of the skinniest women I know!