Old English byrððīnenu: the Anglo-Saxon midwife

Midwives were clearly viewed as professionalized figures in the Mediterranean world of antiquity and late antiquity and they were responsible for women’s healthcare, such as gynecological and obstetrical needs. They were referred to in Roman law, admonished in Christian edicts and memorialized in statues and inscriptions. Their status is attested to by medical texts specifically intended for midwives’ use dating from at least the third century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. According to Green, professional midwives disappeared along with the slow disintegration of the urban environments that supported medical specialization and reemerged as a specialized profession only in the thirteenth century, first in larger towns and then in smaller rural areas. We might surmise a similar scenario for Anglo-Saxon England, although textual References are very limited, related lexical items very scarce, and the figure of the Anglo-Saxon midwife altogether still little known and appreciated.