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Parturition and Print in Seventeenth-Century London PARTURITION AND PRINT IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON by Katharine Phelps Walsh Bachelor of Arts, Catawba College, 2005 Master of Arts, The University of Pittsburgh, 2009 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2014 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Katharine Phelps Walsh It was defended on November 6, 2014 and approved by Seymour Drescher, Distinguished University Professor, Department of History Evelyn Rawski, Distinguished University Professor, Department of History Dissertation Advisor: Jennifer Waldron, Associate Professor, Department of English Dissertation Advisor: Bruce Venarde, Professor, Department of History ii Copyright © by Katharine Phelps Walsh 2014 iii PARTURITION AND PRINT IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON Katharine Phelps Walsh, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2014 In early modern Europe, medical men (sometimes known as “man-midwives”) became increasingly involved in the traditionally female-dominated sphere of childbirth. The timing and extent of this transition varied across regions and differed significantly between urban and rural areas. This dissertation questions whether this process of “masculinization” was evident in London during the key transitional period of the seventeenth century. A significant new genre of print, the instructional midwifery treatise, appeared during this period. To date, scholars have largely neglected the seventeenth century and midwifery treatises as focal points for analysis. This study adopts both of these foci, using the evidence found in midwifery treatises to demonstrate that in London midwives maintained authority in the realm of prescribed practice throughout the seventeenth century. Though men dominated the print industry, the midwifery treatises they published endorsed midwives’ authority. These treatises recognized midwives as a corporate body of practitioners capable of supervising a variety of uncomplicated and complicated births. English authors borrowed material from Continental treatises, many of which limited the midwife’s role in childbirth, but English writers revised these sources so as to highlight and endorse midwives’ authority. Further, male authors sought to increase the experiential authority of their treatises by adopting (fictitious) feminine personas. This study argues that there is little evidence for the “masculinization” of childbirth in seventeenth-century London. Instead, midwifery treatises published during this time recognized and sanctioned iv midwives’ authority and instructed early modern readers to rely upon midwives in the practice of childbirth. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... XI 1.0 REPRODUCING REPRODUCTION: CHILDBIRTH AND PRINT IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON ................................................................................... 1 1.1 SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 5 1.2 ENGLISH MIDWIFERY TREATISES ............................................................ 9 1.2.1 The Byrth of Mankynde (1540) ...................................................................... 9 1.2.2 Child-birth; or the Happy Deliverie of Children (1612) ............................ 10 1.2.3 The Expert Midwife (1637) ........................................................................... 10 1.2.4 A Directory for Midwives (1651) .................................................................. 11 1.2.5 The Compleat Midwife’s Practice (1656) .................................................... 11 1.2.6 Doctor Chamberlain’s Midwife’s Practice (1665) ...................................... 12 1.2.7 Speculum Matricis; or, The Expert Midwives Handmaid (1670) ............. 13 1.2.8 The Ladies Companion; or, The English Midwife (1671) .......................... 14 1.2.9 The Midwives Book, or the whole Art of Midwifry Discovered (1671): ... 14 1.2.10 The Diseases of Women with Child, and in Child-bed (1672) .................. 15 1.2.11 The English Midwife Enlarged (1682) ........................................................ 15 1.2.12 Aristotle’s Masterpiece (1684) ..................................................................... 16 vi 1.2.13 A General Treatise on the Diseases of Maids, Bigbellied Women, Child- bed-Women, and Widows (1696) .............................................................................. 16 1.2.14 A Companion for Midwives (1699) ............................................................. 17 1.2.15 Summary of English Midwifery Treatises ................................................. 17 1.3 THE LANDSCAPE OF CHILDBIRTH IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND .......................................................................................................................... 21 1.4 THE LANDSCAPE OF CHILDBIRTH IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE ............................................................................................................................. 27 1.5 CHAPTER OUTLINE ...................................................................................... 34 2.0 FEMALE PRACTITIONERS, PROFESSIONALISM, AND PRINT IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON ................................................................................. 36 2.1 FEMALE PRACTITIONERS IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND ............. 37 2.2 MIDWIVES AS FEMALE PRACTITIONERS ............................................. 49 3.0 CONSTRUCTING AUTHORITY IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CHILDBIRTH: A RE-EXAMINATION OF JANE SHARP’S THE MIDWIVES BOOK .. 61 4.0 ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF FRENCH TREATISES: EXPANDING WOMEN’S AUTHORITY ......................................................................................................... 98 5.0 READERS REAL AND ENVISIONED ................................................................ 136 5.1 AUDIENCES .................................................................................................... 137 5.2 READERS ........................................................................................................ 165 5.2.1 Seventeenth–Century Medical Men ........................................................... 167 5.2.2 Midwives ....................................................................................................... 170 5.2.3 Early Modern Male Readers ...................................................................... 174 vii 5.2.4 Seventeenth-Century Female Readers....................................................... 178 5.2.5 Eighteenth-Century Male and Female Readers ....................................... 180 6.0 SARAH STONE: A REAL JANE SHARP ............................................................ 187 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 191 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Midwifery treatise publication by decade ......................................................................... 8 Table 2. Editions and republications of midwifery treatises......................................................... 19 Table 3. Partial list of ailments treated by female medical practitioners ...................................... 40 Table 4. Gender of readership by time period for individual copies of midwifery treatises ...... 184 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Midwifery treatise borrowings ...................................................................................... 20 Figure 2. Appeals to audiences in preliminaries of fifteen treatises (1540-1699) ...................... 163 Figure 3. Inscriptions of Elizabeth Stevenson (A) and Doctor John Winterton (B) ................... 170 Figure 4. Inscription of the midwife Hannah Curtis ................................................................... 171 Figure 5. Inscription of Elizabeth Fiss (A) and list of attended women (B) ............................... 173 Figure 6. Recorded births and baptisms of the Holles family ..................................................... 176 Figure 7. Markings of Joan ___ (A) and John Trender (B) ........................................................ 178 Figure 8. Inscriptions of Rebecca Pym-hin (A) and Ann Holman (B) ....................................... 180 x PREFACE Several individuals have provided influential guidance and feedback towards the completion of this dissertation. I would like to thank my committee co-chairs, Dr. Jennifer Waldron and Dr. Bruce Venarde. Thank you, Jen, for your advice and guidance in the conceptualization of this project. Thank you, Bruce, for your thoughtful input on all aspects of this project, from its original inception as a Master’s thesis to its current form. I would also like to thank my two additional committee members, Dr. Evelyn Rawski and Dr. Seymour Drescher, for their valuable feedback on numerous drafts of this work. I would also like to thank Dr. Jonathan Scott, who provided important guidance when I began this project as a Master’s thesis, and Adrian Wilson, who has proven to be an invaluable source of feedback and knowledge. I conducted research for this dissertation at archives in the United States and the United Kingdom. These archives are: Balliol College (Oxford, England), Bodleian Library (Oxford, England), British Library (London, England), Cambridge University Library
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