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Abortion in the Early Medieval West, C.500-900

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Abortion in the Early Medieval West, C.500-900 „Alienated from the womb‟: abortion in the early medieval West, c.500-900 Zubin Mistry University College, London PhD Thesis 2011 1 I, Zubin Mistry, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Signed: 2 ABSTRACT This thesis is primarily a cultural history of abortion in the early medieval West. It is a historical study of perceptions, rather than the practice, of abortion. The span covered ranges from the sixth century, when certain localised ecclesiastical initiatives in the form of councils and sermons addressed abortion, through to the ninth century, when some of these initiatives were integrated into pastoral texts produced in altogether different locales. The thesis uses a range of predominantly ecclesiastical texts – canonical collections, penitentials, sermons, hagiography, scriptural commentaries, but also law- codes – to bring to light the multiple ways in which abortion was construed, experienced and responded to as a moral and social problem. Although there is a concerted focus upon the ecclesiastical tradition on abortion, a focus which ultimately questions how such a tradition ought to be understood, the thesis also explores the broader cultural significance of abortion. Early medieval churchmen, rulers, and jurists saw multiple things in abortion and there were multiple perspectives upon abortion. The thesis illuminates the manifold and, occasionally, surprising ways in which abortion was perceived in relation to gender, sexuality, politics, theology and the church. The history of early medieval abortion has been largely underwritten. Moreover, it has been inadequately historicised. Early medieval abortion has been rendered strangely familiar because it has been approached through alien concepts and assumptions, whether pre-medieval, later medieval or modern. Through vigilance against conceptual dangers, a thoroughgoing and sometimes microscopic approach to reading and contextualising early medieval sources, and an interest in bringing the history of abortion into conversation with other areas of early medieval historiography, the thesis seeks to historicise perceptions of and responses to abortion in the early medieval West. 3 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................... 8 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 10 THEMES IN THE HISTOR Y OF ABORTION ........................................ 19 THE DISTORTION OF EFFICACY ........................................................................................ 19 THE USE AND ABUSE OF ABORTIFACIENTS ...................................................................... 22 MEDICAL ETHICS AND HARD CASES ................................................................................. 25 MISCONCEIVING ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION ..................................................... 28 ATTITUDES TO ABORTIO N IN CLASSICAL AND LATE ANTIQUITY ......... 33 ROMAN PERSPECTIVES ON ABORTION ............................................................................. 33 Seeing like a state: abortion in Roman law .................................................................................. 33 The abortion-adultery nexus: abortion in Roman moralising ........................................................ 35 Abortion problematised: other perspectives in Roman society ........................................................ 38 CHRISTIAN DISCOURSE ON ABORTION ............................................................................. 41 Christian moral excellence: abortion and apologetics ..................................................................... 41 Divine love and divine punishment: the apocalypse of abortion ...................................................... 43 A problem within the fold: abortion within Christian communities ............................................... 45 Communal prohibition: the councils of Elvira and Ancyra .......................................................... 46 Church fathers on abortion: western examples .............................................................................. 48 Church fathers on abortion: eastern examples .............................................................................. 50 ABORTION IN THE SERMONS OF CAESARIUS OF ARLES ...................... 54 PREACHING AND PASTORAL LEADERSHIP ....................................................................... 55 ABORTION IN THE SERMONS............................................................................................. 56 Obliged to preach (sermo 1) ......................................................................................................... 57 Catechumens and abortion (Sermo 200) ..................................................................................... 58 Paternal correction (sermo 19) ..................................................................................................... 59 The noblewoman and the servant-girl (sermo 44) ......................................................................... 60 Fecundity and sterility (sermo 51) ............................................................................................... 61 Diabolical suasion (sermo 52) ..................................................................................................... 61 4 Creating an idiom of condemnation ............................................................................................. 63 CONSTRUING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ABORTION ........................................................... 64 Idealised femininity and the sexual division of labour ................................................................... 64 Sexual double standards and blind spots ..................................................................................... 66 Envisaged community responses ................................................................................................... 67 Abortion and the dark arts ........................................................................................................ 69 „Homicidal contraception‟ ............................................................................................................ 71 ABORTION IN VISIGOTHIC SPAIN ................................................... 74 „KILLING THOSE CONCEIVED IN SIN‟: COUNCIL OF LÉRIDA (546) ............................... 75 DOCTRINAL THEORY AND PASTORAL PRACTICE: MARTIN OF BRAGA .......................... 78 A Priscillianist detour: abortion and heresy ................................................................................. 79 Back to Braga II: educating the clergy ......................................................................................... 82 „BITTER DISCIPLINE OF BISHOPS AND JUDGES‟: TOLEDO III (589) ............................... 84 EVOLUTION OF VISIGOTHIC LAW ..................................................................................... 88 The treatment of abortion in the Visigothic antiquae ................................................................... 88 A life – or an eye – for a life: Chindaswinth‟s rescript ................................................................. 92 ASPECTS OF „OFFICIAL‟ VISIGOTHIC DISCOURSE ON ABORTION .................................. 94 Convergence: entangling sex and murder ...................................................................................... 94 Divergence: the „salus‟ of the state and the „salus‟ of the sinner ...................................................... 97 READING ABORTION IN THE PENITENTIALS ................................... 99 METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES ................................................................................................ 99 A „growth industry‟ in historiography .......................................................................................... 99 Active deliberation and the anticipated pastoral ministry ............................................................ 101 Rewriting penitentials into the history of abortion ....................................................................... 102 ABORTION AND SEXUAL SCANDAL: P.VINNIANI ........................................................... 104 Reading the P.Vinniani ........................................................................................................... 105 Deciphering sense from context .................................................................................................. 105 Mutable „maleficium‟ ................................................................................................................ 107 The turbulence of sexual scandal ............................................................................................... 108 AMBIGUOUS MALEFICIUM: THE P.COLUMBANI ............................................................. 110 Decoding the P.Columbani and the context of clerical sins ......................................................... 111 Ambiguous means and equivocal ends ....................................................................................... 113 5 CLERICAL REFORM: THE PAENITENTIALES SIMPLICES ................................................. 114 Voluntary abortion ................................................................................................................... 115 Reception of the „maleficium‟ canon ...........................................................................................
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