7
BIRTH AND THE BODY
St Margaret’s, Westminster, with the blue sun-dial clock-face on its tower, set between the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey
A short walk down Whitehall, past Downing Street and the Foreign Office, the Cenotaph and the Treasury, and into Parliament Square, leads to the religious and political heart of the British state. On the left stand the Houses of Parliament, the Palace of Westminster and the Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben; on the right Westminster Abbey, where for over 1,000 years the monarch has been crowned and divinely invested with temporal authority (Chapter 26). Nestling modestly between the two, and often scarcely noticed by the crowds of sightseers, is the one building in this group not dedicated to the exercise or the display of power: the parish church of St Margaret. But in a sense what both its famous neighbours represent, religion and politics, begins here. This church is dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch, patron saint of women in childbirth.
Holy Margaret, Mothers pray to thee for an easy birth, when their term comes. Thou art merciful to them…they bear witness to their safe delivery…
Since the twelfth century (these words are from a Latin hymn of around 1520), pregnant women have been praying to Saint Margaret of Antioch for the safe delivery for their child. The prayers were often recited in front of a devotional image, like the little sculpture of gilded polychrome ivory now in the British Museum. Carved and painted in Paris some time around 1350, clearly for a wealthy patron, and standing about twenty centimetres high, it shows the saint with her hands clasped in prayer. She is rising up in triumph. Her upper body curves elegantly backwards – a constraint of the elephant tusk from which she has been sculpted – as she bursts forth from the hunched body of a beast, upwards and out, through its back. The beast is actually a rather weary-looking dragon – the devil in animal form – and it is munching listlessly on Margaret’s gilt-edged robes, which are still hanging out of its mouth, as the saint it has not even finished swallowing escapes uneaten and entirely unscathed.
Saint Margaret miraculously bursts from the back of the dragon that has just swallowed her, in a mid-fourteenth-century gilded ivory statue made in Paris (left). Still chewing Saint Margaret’s skirts, the dragon realizes the saint herself has escaped (right).
Although the quality of the carving is high and the state of conservation generally good, close inspection reveals that the fingertips on Margaret’s right hand are not original. She was probably once holding a crucifix, because according to legend she was rescued from death by invoking the saving power of the Cross. This split the dragon’s body apart – and with one bound, the saint was free. She went on to exorcise demons with great success, converting hundreds to Christianity in the process. When eventually she was beheaded, her reluctant executioner fell dead beside her, as her head was carried to heaven by a flight of angels. Even more important for posterity than Margaret’s victories over devils through the Cross was her swift emergence from the dragon’s miraculously opened body. By an analogy not especially flattering to women in labour, she became associated with safe and rapid delivery in childbirth, the protectoress who would bring both mother and baby unscathed through the ordeal. As the saint had burst from the dragon, the child would spring from the womb.
Margaret’s career as a saint is an unusual one. She was alleged to have been martyred in the great persecutions of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian around 300, but from as early as the fifth century the church questioned not just her famous encounter with the dragon, but her very existence. In the mid-490s, Pope Gelasius I declared her probably apocryphal; and even the Golden Legend, the popular medieval anthology of saints’ lives and achievements – a work which records the most startling miracles in credulous, deadpan prose – explicitly rejected the story of the dragon. Yet the public appeal of the saint and of her miracle was simply too strong to be quashed. Not for the only time (see Chapter 16) the scholarly scruples of the clergy were overwhelmed by the wishes of the laity. Margaret prevailed. Where George had conquered his dragon by force, Margaret had escaped hers by quiet womanly piety, and this female dragon-tamer (the dragon, being a manifestation of the devil, naturally survived his side of the encounter) became one of medieval Europe’s most popular saints. She was taken as a model for, and asked to help with, every part of a young woman’s life.
Margaret, the chorus of mothers quickly enters thy temples; every year they bring sacred gifts; they teach their unmarried daughters to visit from an early age and praise thee.
Throughout Christendom her name was given to many girls, among them the daughters of kings and princes. In England alone there are today well over 200 churches dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch.
Our ivory sculpture – possibly once owned by the French royal household – is the luxury Parisian expression of a Europe-wide cult that was found in every class. In Germany, she was one of the fourteen ‘holy helpers’, those indispensable saints who could always be relied on in moments of greatest need. In the 1420s, hers was one of the ‘voices’ that spoke to the simple village girl in Lorraine, Joan of Arc, as she dreamt of rescuing France from the English. And just a few years later, in 1434, she appeared in an affluent Italian bedroom in Bruges: we can see her emerging from a miniature wooden dragon on top of the bench beside the bed in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait. Margaret is clearly visible over Mrs Arnolfini’s shoulder, to reassure her that she will be on hand, by the bed, when the moment to give birth comes. Women in labour had Margaret’s life story read aloud to them to ensure an easy delivery. A fragment of her girdle, with which she reportedly bound the dragon and led it captive, was one of the most prized relics of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. It was carried in great solemnity to be laid on the stomach of the queens of France when they were in labour. There could be no clearer demonstration of the high politics of birth. The body of the queen is an affair of state. The succession to the throne is even today a matter of national concern in the United Kingdom. But royal births are merely the supreme expression of a universal truth: that all society claims a stake, and a responsibility, in the birth of a child. Under Saint Margaret’s protection in Paris so great a king as Louis XIV came safely into the world. It is no surprise that in London her church is so close to the seat of political power.
Emerging from a winged dragon, Saint Margaret stands protectively beside the bed in Bruges in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait of 1434.
As might be expected, almost every human society has devised comparable prayers and rituals – ceremonies that involve many people beyond the woman herself – to help both mother and baby safely through childbirth. But in a moment of such peril it is not enough merely to pray in aid of the forces of good. The powers of evil must be warded off, and they are always on the prowl – recognized and dreaded long before Margaret and her dragon, and still thought by many to be present and dangerous today.
She is fierce, she is raging, she is a goddess, she is dazzling, she is a she-wolf, the daughter of Anu
Her feet are like those of Anzu, her hands are soiled
Her face is like the face of a mighty lion.
This is Lamashtu, daughter of Anu, greatest of the gods. She is the bringer of miscarriage, infant death and stillbirth, the ‘extinguisher of life’ in ancient Mesopotamia. Lamashtu was known to slip into the house of a pregnant woman, try to tap her seven times on the stomach, and so kill the baby inside her. Alternatively, she would kidnap the unborn or newborn child. Unlike other demons, who operated mostly under divine command, she acted on her own initiative, delivering evil unpredictably, and for its own sake. Just how terrifying Lamashtu was is clear from a rectangular stone amulet in the British Museum, about the size of a mobile phone. It was carved in Babylonia or Assyria over 2,500 years ago, and looking at it is still a spine-chilling experience.
Lamashtu, extinguisher of life in ancient Mesopotamia, sets off on her donkey. Portable stone amulet from 800–550 BCE
Five times the size of the donkey she stands on, Lamashtu rears up at us. She has a snarling lion’s head, grasps an enormous snake in each hand, and is suckling, one at each breast, a jackal and a wild pig. Ominously, her donkey has broken into a trot – Lamashtu is on the way to pay her visit to a woman in labour, which is why the amulet should very quickly be turned over. On the other side is a magical incantation, an extract from a much longer ritual text, which, if recited, will stop her in her tracks and frighten her away. Over sixty such amulets are known to have survived, so they must have been widespread, presumably purchased from a temple or shrine. Revealingly the texts on them range from immaculately scripted incantations to crude attempts at writing: it is clear that around 700 BCE every part of Mesopotamian society sought protection from Lamashtu.Throughout the ancient Mediterranean, Lamashtu had many similar sisters. The Hebrew Lilith, the Greek Lamia and the Roman Strix were all bearers of random misfortune, especially to unborn and newborn children, and were mostly connected with animals of the night. All had to be repelled, by rituals and incantations similar to those used against Lamashtu. In the Mediterranean world today, the sinister goddesses are no longer named, but even in devoutly Islamic and Christian societies there is a deep and widespread fear of the Evil Eye – a malign and unpredictable force, likely especially to strike pregnant women or infant children. Protection is indispensable, and so amulets to ward it off are frequently attached to clothes and bed coverings. An Albanian cradle cloth of the 1950s from the Catholic region of Mirdita is a typical example: on the red chequered wool a black cross has been sewn, but to it have been added tufts of coloured silk on the arms, and in the centre a bright yellow plastic button. Both serve to distract and deflect evil spirits. The Christian cross has taken on the added pagan role of amulet against Lamashtu’s successor, the Evil Eye.
Albanian cradle cloth of the 1950s with the cross and yellow button to ward off the Evil Eye
In the twenty-first century, most of us are more likely to rely on modern obstetrics than a spell carved in cuneiform script to keep Lamashtu and her ilk at bay. Rather than invoking Saint Margaret, we tend to place our faith in the expertise and technology of the maternity ward. Or do we? In many countries, the most modern science is still often accompanied by traditional religious customs and practices. As with the medieval survival of the cult of Margaret, the needs and wishes of the laity are stronger than the well-founded medical opinions of the learned. In childbirth, all sources of help have to be invoked.
In Japan, where expectant mothers enjoy ready access to some of the world’s most advanced biomedical technology, obstetric clinics also frequently sell traditional ‘pregnancy sashes’. These are of no proven medical value, but offer a protection against misfortune which is deeply rooted in popular belief. Dr Aya Homei, a specialist in the history of Japanese medicine at the University of Manchester, explains:
Women in Japan commonly wear a pregnancy sash after the fifth month – traditionally after a so-called quickening, when you first feel the baby move in the womb. The custom is that you start wearing it over your stomach on what is a ‘dog day’ according to the Chinese zodiac, because a dog is supposed to have a very easy birth. Nowadays you can get a pregnancy sash anywhere – you can even just buy it in a department store. But after buying it, women go to a shrine and get a stamp put on it there – to indicate that this sash has been blessed.
It is impossible not to be struck by the parallel with Saint Margaret’s girdle – in this case open to everybody and not just to the queens of France and other powerful Parisians. Nevertheless, it is a surprising survival. Most Japanese now define themselves as being mushūkyō – ‘of no religion’ – and see their society as one of the most technologically advanced in the world. Yet these same people take their pregnancy sashes, known to be medically ineffectual, to be blessed at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, which also thrive on selling and blessing omamori – amulets, which appear to offer pregnant women very much the same kind of protection as prayers to Saint Margaret, or as amulets against Lamashtu. Omamori are usually bought in a small crisply designed plastic pouch, about the size of a playing card. Inside is a piece of tightly woven cloth, in white and salmon pink, packaged with a small sheet of paper: the printed Japanese text reads ‘anzan omamori’: ‘protection for a safe birth’. As Aya Homei explains, many women carry an amulet like this with them all the way through their pregnancy. But it is a charm with a limited shelf life:
Omamori are often compared to a kind of electric battery: meaning that the blessing, or the force which protects you, will after a while run out. The recommendation is that you should not reuse the same omamori for subsequent pregnancies: you should keep buying a new one for the second, third or fourth babies. And the convention is, that after you have been safely delivered, you should bring the omamori back to the shrine where you bought it, and report to the deity that yes, I had a good birth – thank you very much.
Modern Japanese amulets made of wood, cloth and paper to protect women during pregnancy
An amulet bought and blessed in a holy place to protect the mother through pregnancy and childbirth, and then a journey of thanksgiving to the shrine for a safe delivery – it is a pattern that would be familiar in many countries, it would have surprised nobody in medieval Europe, and it demonstrates that in Japan medicalization has by no means removed the desire for religious help.
There is, however, one aspect of the treatment of mother and child in which traditional Japanese religion diverges sharply from the global norm, and seems – to the Western observer at least – to have moved with great originality: abortion. Aya Homei talks about the evolution over the last few decades of a particular, and particularly Japanese, ceremonial ritual:
It is a form of memorial service performed at Buddhist temples which is intended to mitigate the pain and suffering inflicted on the large numbers of infants who could not come into this world, who were not born, because of stillbirth, miscarriage or abortion. Interestingly it is a relatively recent invention, devised by doctors and midwives co-operating with Buddhist priests. It became prevalent only in the 1970s, when abortion started being so widely practised that it was effectively used as a form of birth control.
Those who have made the choice to have an abortion bring offerings to the temple, in the belief and hope that the Bodhisattva Jizo, patron deity of children and lost travellers, will look after the child who will not now be born. After the service, the parents place toys and sweets around a stone statue of the Bodhisattva in a cemetery within the temple precinct – making them powerfully poignant places. This new memorial service is a Buddhist phenomenon, and it appears to reflect a view now widely held in Japanese society: that although a potential human life is being denied, the decision to abort is neither a legal issue nor a matter for the public realm, but essentially a private and spiritual one.
Toys for children not born, on a cairn at a Buddhist temple in north Japan
In Europe and America, by sharp contrast, abortion has in the decades since the 1970s been at the centre of an acrimonious, often violent, debate about the politics of the female body. It is a debate – a political conflict – in which religion has played a large part, and especially the imperatives which religion has traditionally carried with it. Is the unborn child already a member of the community, and so deserving of its protection? Should the political power, which has in almost all times and places meant the power of men, have the right to make decisions about the bodies of women who bear children? Should the individual woman have the right to decide all such questions for herself? Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, argues that these issues have been greatly complicated by the teachings of the Abrahamic faiths:
Ultimately, it comes down to a notion of a hierarchy of bodies. Within all three of the major monotheistic religions, male bodies are better than female bodies. It was Adam whom God created first, and made in his own image. Male bodies do not automatically become impure once a month. So there is a sense in which – in this tradition – to be male is to be more like God, and to have a female body is to be somehow deficient, and in need of purification.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all for centuries taken the view that human fertility, and in particular children, are gifts from God, something to be nurtured and pursued as one of the main purposes of life. So right from the moment of puberty, a woman’s body is already in a sense claimed by the wider community. To disrupt the process of having children is to do wrong to the society and to God.
And that takes us back to St Margaret’s, Westminster. It is perhaps today more appropriate than ever that this lovely late-Gothic church should be located here, in the public space between religion and political power; for both are spheres in which women, a century after their political emancipation began, are still struggling for a fully equal role. Saint Margaret is an emblem of female power, exercised differently, but no less effectually than the male aggression with which Saint George tackled his dragon. There are few areas today in which women more want to exercise that power than in challenging and changing male attitudes to the female body. We are still a long way in Europe from any agreed view on how to balance the rights of the woman and the claims of the community in this area of supreme importance for all, but of unique difficulty and danger for the mother. We are even further from consensus on the legal or religious status of the unborn. Here the Japanese approach still seems to be an exception. Can we imagine a day when in St Margaret’s, or any other church, there will be a ceremony for children not allowed to be born, and outside the church a garden with their toys?