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Representations and Contexts of Infanticide in Tudor and Stuart Literature of Stage and Street

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Representations and Contexts of Infanticide in Tudor and Stuart Literature of Stage and Street Piteous Performances: Representations and Contexts of Infanticide in Tudor and Stuart Literature of Stage and Street Massacre of the Innocents (c.1310) Wallpainting, Croughton, Northants A thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. of University College London by Josephine Elaine Billingham February 2015 1 Statement I, Josephine Elaine Billingham 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. _________________________________________________ 3 Abstract This research derives from analysis of cases of suspicious infant death recorded in Sussex Coroners’ inquests between 1485 and 1688. It examines both infanticides and child murders, following the early modern practice of defining “infant” as up to age seven. The historical records, which are summarised in several theme-based tables, are combined with close readings of imaginative texts, including plays by Shakespeare, Middleton and Webster, broadside ballads, and pamphlets. Archival and literary accounts are examined in the context of early modern works concerning law, religion, and the body, alongside recent studies of women’s history, and childbirth. Anthropological theories concerning rites of passage, liminality, waste and abjection invite new ways of thinking about early modern attitudes toward infant life. They reveal the range and complexity of child murder and infanticide, and its motives. This analysis includes the involvement of men and married women and discusses the structuring of dangerous motherhood by the linguistic similarities of crime pamphlets and breastfeeding literature. It suggests that, far from being unthinkable, infanticide might have been encouraged (by mothers, friends, masters), and could be facilitated by communities’ ambivalent attitude toward young life. Communities and authors are seen to be aware of the mental conditions which might have led married, as well as single, women to kill their infants. Archival and creative texts and visual representations reveal a society imbued with ideas of infant death, and inform us about seventeenth century motherhood. While the focus is early modern, a concluding Interlude and Epilogue bring the research up to date with a discussion of recent cases and works by writers such as Bond, Ravenhill and McDonagh. These suggest that many modern behavioural patterns, and playwrights’ ways of writing about them, have remarkable similarity to those of the early modern period. 5 Contents Statement .................................................................................................................... 3 Abstract .................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... 11 Author’s notes on text ................................................................................................... 13 List of illustrations ........................................................................................................ 15 Epigram .................................................................................................................. 19 Introduction: Losses, Lacunae and Liminality .......................................................... 21 Investigating the invisible ............................................................................... 21 The age of an infant ........................................................................................ 28 Primary sources ............................................................................................... 32 History ......................................................................................................... 32 Literature ..................................................................................................... 36 Using a dual approach ..................................................................................... 41 Secondary sources ........................................................................................... 43 States of being ............................................................................................. 43 Unhappy minds ........................................................................................... 44 Liminal and marginal states ........................................................................ 45 Chapter 1: Killers, Communities, and Accomplices .................................................. 49 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 49 The killers “woemen I cannot call them” ........................................................ 50 The animal and the monstrous ........................................................................ 51 Infanticide as incidental detail ........................................................................ 61 Communities “you might have hindred me from doing this” ......................... 63 Accomplices “feloniously aiding and abetting” .............................................. 72 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 2: Infanticide and Liminality ........................................................................ 83 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 83 The liminal child and mother: mental worlds and violent acts ....................... 84 Medico-legal arguments .................................................................................. 84 Religious arguments and the infant soul ......................................................... 86 Women’s expression of feelings ..................................................................... 90 Burial as an indicator of liminality ................................................................. 92 Single women and the newborn ...................................................................... 95 6 Complex emotions and life-threatening times ................................................ 96 The liminal world of pregnancy .................................................................... 102 Liminality in retellings: monsters, devils and dogs ...................................... 109 The liminal places: water and infanticide ..................................................... 116 Conclusion..................................................................................................... 122 Chapter 3: Love, Law and Liminality ....................................................................... 125 Introduction ................................................................................................... 125 The “betwixt and between” of betrothal and marriage ................................. 126 Liminal marital states in literature ................................................................ 129 Bastard bearing, punishment and liminality .................................................. 134 Social seclusion and separation ................................................................. 135 Literary death ............................................................................................ 140 The rituals of socially inclusive punishments ........................................... 144 Self-imposed punishment and liminality .................................................. 150 Avoiding the shame of pregnancy “A dose of the Doctor” .......................... 153 Availability and effectiveness ................................................................... 155 Men and preventing bastardy .................................................................... 161 Conclusion..................................................................................................... 163 Chapter 4: Liminal Lives - Social restrictions on bastard bearers ........................ 165 Introduction ................................................................................................... 165 Inhabiting the margins ................................................................................... 167 Seeking a home ......................................................................................... 167 Lack of money .......................................................................................... 168 Mirth and misery: single pregnancy in literature .......................................... 171 Brazening it out ......................................................................................... 173 Seeking marriage and security ...................................................................... 179 Beyond the limen .......................................................................................... 187 Wandering ................................................................................................. 187 Prostitution ................................................................................................ 190 Conclusion..................................................................................................... 193 Chapter 5: Not the usual suspects ............................................................................. 195 Introduction ..................................................................................................
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