Confinement in the Marriage Chamber
- Juliet Braidwood
- Feb 3
- 3 min read
Giving birth was one of the most dangerous things a woman could do in Medieval and Renaissance England: it was the leading cause of death for women, with as many as 1 in 40 women dying in childbirth. So what could be done to keep women safe at this time?
Preparations for giving birth started early, with the lying-in period beginning up to six weeks before the prospective mother gave birth. The Marriage Chamber at Athelhampton was almost certainly used for lying-in for Isabella Farringdon, who built the early foundations of Athelhampton along with her husband Sir William Martyn. It may also have been used by her daughter-in-law Christian Cheverell.
During the lying-in or confinement period, a wealthy woman would be confined to her room, with all men excluded. The room would have been kept dim - too much light was thought to be harmful to the mother's eyes - and commonly would have been hung with red, which was considered to be a warm, healthy colour. With the fire lit, miasma and bad humours could be kept at by through use of perfumes and fumigations.
Confinement wasn't just for wealthy women. Working women had their own form of it too. More often kept to their home, rather than just their bedroom. Without quite the same restrictions on light and men, such a practice both ensured that births wouldn't take place in unexpected or inconvenient locations, and that the woman didn't have to do too much work while heavily pregnant, or having just given birth. Care was provided for her by female relatives, and sometimes also a hired nurse.
Before the Reformation in England, help and solace would commonly be sought by praying to various saints - the most common being the Virgin Mary, her mother Anne, and Saint Margaret, who became the patron saint of giving birth after emerging out of the belly of a dragon entirely unscathed.
More tangible help could also be sought via various religious relics: a shard of the true cross, for instance, was used in a village where another branch of the Martyn family lived to help women in childbirth. Birth scrolls: long, narrow strips of paper, silk, or vellum covered in prayers and invocations to saints were worn by women during their confinement and, some evidence suggests, while giving birth. Relics, scrolls, and prayers were all accessible to women lower down the social scale as well as wealthy women like Isabella - they were commonly held either by the local lord, or by monasteries and convents.
Because of staying in bed after the birth, it was very uncommon for women to attend their child’s christening. Godparents would attend in her stead. When the lying in period ended, a woman would be “churched” – a ceremony in church where she waws blessed and thanks was given for her survival. This happened even when the child was stillborn or died unbaptised. Churching was also a social occasion for the new mother to reintegrate back into society, and resume her pre-lying in duties.
While everything possible would be done to keep a woman safe before, during, and after childbirth, sometimes this was not enough. Both Isabella and Christian died in childbirth, possibly here in the Marriage Chamber. Despite high infant mortality rates, and women's frequent death in childbirth, Medieval and Tudor people weren't unaffected by their proximity to death. Outpourings of grief in the writings of such men as John Winthrop or Sir Symonds d'Ewes show how hard it was to navigate the grief caused by such deaths:
"...my deare and lovinge wife, was delivered of a daughter, which died the mundaye followinge in the morninge. She tooke the deathe of it with that patience, that made us all to merveile... soone after the deathe of the childe, she was taken with a fever... whereupon I breakinge for the into teares, she was moved at it, and desired me to be contended, for you breake mine heart (said she) with your grievings. I answered that I could do no lesse when I feared to be stripped of suche a blessinge..."
Further reading:
Cressy, David, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England
Leyser, Henrietta, Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1500