When the brick coffin of a young woman from medieval Italy was opened after its discovery in 2010, two peculiar things stood out to the researchers: There was a perfect hole in the frontal bone of her ...

Historian and author Helen Castor, presenter of the popular series She-Wolves, explores how the people of the Middle Ages handled the most fundamental moments of transition in life: birth, marriage ...

Expecting: Birth, Belief and Protection at London’s Wellcome Collection is a small but quietly powerful exhibition. Spanning five centuries, it explores how the experience of bringing life into the ...

Through modern science, the grim discovery of a Medieval woman's remains is able to tell the tale of a "coffin birth" and ancient brain surgery. Despite the macabre nature of the grim discovery of a ...

This blog post is authored by Mary Morse, author of MIP's English Birth Girdles: Devotions for Woman in "Travell of Childe." Mary Morse specializes in medieval women’s devotional and childbirth ...

Researchers have made a rare discovery - a medieval woman who died while pregnant who also had early form of neurosurgery, as well as, a coffin birth. A young woman, who experts believe was between ...

Pregnancy in the Middle Ages was extremely dangerous. There were no sterile conditions or modern medical knowledge. Complications were poorly understood and rarely treated effectively. Midwives relied ...

Daily life in the Middle Ages was shaped by deep religious faith and widespread superstition. From unconventional contraception remedies to elaborate birth rituals, families relied on symbolic acts to ...

In the popular imagination, “medieval” and “women” aren’t always words which go together happily. Ideas about the lives of pre-Renaissance women tend to form two hazy stereotypes: an illiterate girl ...

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