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Medieval Milk: The Narratives and Practice of Maternal Lactation in Medieval England
Department: Art & Architecture
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Pocatello
Unknown to Unknown
Kierra E. Burns
Idaho State University
Thesis
No
6/25/2025
digital
City: Pocatello
Master
This thesis investigates the narratives and practices of maternal breastfeeding in the medieval period in England and how the texts of the period reflect shifting authority away from mothers and onto religion and medicine. This analysis is completed through three lenses: maternal, religious, and medical. To examine maternal perspectives, I evaluate several Old English texts while centering maternal breastfeeding to demonstrate how lactation authority began to shift away from mothers and toward the Christian church. These texts include the Old English Metrical Charm 6, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and an anonymous homily titled De Infantibus. Chapter two focuses on religious narratives and Marian devotion which complicated the issue of maternal lactation, creating paradoxes around maternity that affected both lay and religious women, illustrated in a comparison of two contemporary Middle English female writers: Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. Finally, I evaluate how specific remedies in the medical writing, as well as the authorial voice and intended audience of these texts, impacted women’s authority over maternal lactation. The medical texts included in this review are Bald’s Leechbook, Leechbook III, The Lacnunga, the Old English Herbarium, and The Trotula. Through study of maternal breastfeeding, we gain a unique view of female history and authority that was influenced by and also helped to shape broader cultural contexts of the Middle Ages. Key Words: medieval, England, lactation, motherhood, breastfeeding, religion, medical, AngloSaxon, Old English, Middle English, Metrical Charm, Bede, homily, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Marian paradox, The Trotula, Leechbooks, Lacnunga

Medieval Milk: The Narratives and Practice of Maternal Lactation in Medieval England

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