Gentle Birth Research Articles

"This Living Hand": Thirteenth-Century Female Literacy, Materialist Immanence, and the Reader of the Ancrene Wisse

Previous articleNext article No Access"This Living Hand": Thirteenth-Century Female Literacy, Materialist Immanence, and the Reader of the Ancrene WisseElizabeth RobertsonElizabeth Robertson Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 78, Number 1Jan., 2003 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713400098961 Views: 21Total views on this site Citations: 6Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 2003 The Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Sara Charles The Literacy of English Nuns in the Early Thirteenth Century: Evidence from London, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius D. iii, Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 6 (Jan 2017): 77–107.https://doi.org/10.1484/J.JMMS.5.115438Ayoush Lazikani The Vagabond Mind: Depression and the Medieval Anchorite, Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 6 (Jan 2017): 141–167.https://doi.org/10.1484/J.JMMS.5.115440Lara Farina Money, Books, and Prayers: Anchoresses and Exchange in Thirteenth-Century England, (Jan 2010): 171–185.https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106017_10Elizabeth Ann Robertson Practicing Women: The Matter of Women in Medieval English Literature, Literature Compass 5, no.33 (May 2008): 505–528.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00547.xNigel J. Morgan, Rodney M. Thomson The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 2 (Nov 2008).https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521782180Lara Farina Dirty Words: Ancrene Wisse and the Sexual Interior, (Jan 2006): 35–61.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-04931-5_3

Creating Active and Gentle Birth Culture

Creating Active and Gentle Birth Culture

Irish law students and lawyers in late medieval England

In April 1421 the Irish parliament, meeting at Dublin, chose the archbishop of Armagh and Sir Christopher Preston as its messengers to convey to the king in England a long list of complaints. Among these was the following: Also, your said lieges show that whereas they are ruled and governed by your laws as used in your realm of England, to learn which laws and to be informed therein your said lieges have sent to certain inns of court (hostelles de court) able men of good and gentle birth, your English subjects born in your said land, who have been received there from the time of the conquest of your said land until recently, when the governors and fellows of the said inns would not receive the said persons into the said inns, as is customary. Wherefore may it please your most gracious lordship to consider this and ordain due remedy thereof, that your laws may be perpetuated and not forgotten in your said land.This was, of course, something of an exaggeration. The Inns of Court certainly did not exist at the time of the English ‘conquest’ of Ireland; indeed, it is now fairly certain that the inns only came into existence around 1340. It is also clear, however, that some kind of organised legal education was taking place in London before the inns were created, certainly as early as the 1270s and quite possibly as early as 1260, though definitely not in the twelfth century. We also know that as early as 1287 Irishmen (or at least one specific Irishman, Robert de St Michael) were crossing the channel ‘causa addiscendi in Banco regis apud Westm’’, that is, specifically for the purpose of legal education at Westminster through attendance at the king’s court there.

Gentle and safe birth assistance: “alternative”, complementary means

Gentle and safe birth assistance: “alternative”, complementary means

Book Reviews: The Gentle Greeting: An Obstetrician's Complete Guide to Planning a Loving Pregnancy and Birth Experience, by Ronald L. Cole, MD

Ronald L. Cole. 1998. The Gentle Greeting: An Obstetrician's Complete Guide to Planning a Loving Pregnancy and Birth Experience. Source Books, Inc.: Naperville, IL. The Gentle Greeting promotes birth as a normal, family-centered experience that should be one of the happiest days in the lives of the parents-to-be. Robert Cole began his professional career as a civil engineer. His profound experience as the father of a child born with spina bifida led him from being a co-founder of the Spina Bifida Association of America to a new career—an obstetrician who approaches birth holistically. In his acknowledgment, Cole thanks all of the families in whose births he has been “privileged to play a part.” The text is divided into two parts—pregnancy planning in the first four chapters and designing a gentle birth in the last eight chapters. The easy-to-read text would be attractive to the newly pregnant, fatigued woman. Cole's efforts to promote a greater understanding of the prenatal period are rooted in the work of Thomas Verney, founder of the Association for Pre-and Perinatal Psychology and Health. While obstetrical principles of American medicine are not criticized in the text, Cole gently urges his colleagues to combine medical practice with a spiritual approach. The natural wonder of each birth led Dr. Cole to explore the emotional and spiritual aspects of pregnancy and birth. As he opened his own mind, he counseled families to personalize their births. In addition to preparation and a positive attitude, childbirth education is described as one of the three keys to a good birth experience. The text could stand alone to inform families about the birth process from conception to the early postpartum period. Cole's approach is not what to expect but to make a commitment to become actively involved by planning, including family members, communicating wishes, caring for the pregnant woman's body, and communicating with the baby within. Recommended books and videotapes, suggestions for activities and lists of questions make each chapter a true guide to a healthy pregnancy. Furthermore, holistic activities such as Yoga, T'ai Chi, aromatherapy, and massage therapy are encouraged. The process of birth is explained simply in the chapters on labor and delivery. “Delivery: A Gentle Greeting,” the chapter that completely explores the importance of the environment of birth, describes options to be considered. In the chapter on water birth, Cole summarizes the history of the advocates of this experience and relates his own experiences with water birth as confirming beliefs about the connectiveness of parents and the unborn child. Each chapter reinforces the belief that all births are unique. Even a Cesarean birth can be a gentle, loving experience in an environment that is closer to a birthing room than to a surgical suite. If all obstetricians were as caring and client-focused as Dr. Cole is, birth experiences would be more satisfactory for American women. Changes in the conduct and environment of birth are led by consumer demand. Educators, you might want to encourage consumers to share this book with their obstetricians. If the message of The Gentle Greeting is to open our minds to what is normal, consumers, you have much work to do.

Joseph Andrews as Exemplary Gentleman

Joseph Andrews as Exemplary Gentleman TREADWELL RUML, II In its representation of an exemplary gentleman, Joseph Andrews demonstrates not only the influence of theories of exemplary historiography in the development of the English novel, but the tensions that complicated mid-eighteenth-century notions of gentility.1 According to eighteenth-century theory, the novel, like traditional exemplary biography , performs an educational function by presenting "valuable Patterns" of conduct to the reader. Fielding makes very clear in Joseph Andrews, however, that readers of fiction and history cannot passively accept the models presented to them, but must learn how to distinguish (even in admirable models) which kinds of conduct deserve imitation and which should be shunned. In part, Fielding's quarrel with Richardson's Pamela is that the epistolary intimacy of the serving girl's narrative disarms the very critical faculties that it is the mission of exemplary literature to sharpen. The ironic historian of Joseph Andrews, on the other hand, constantly draws the reader's attention to the problems of interpretation and judgment that complicate learning in literature and learning in life. This procedure makes Fielding's version of exemplary fiction a particularly apt vehicle for the presentation of models (like that of the "gentleman ") that represent complex and troubling problems of social interpretation and judgment. Joseph Andrews is designed as much to teach its 195 196 / RUMLII readers how to recognize gentility in others as to teach them how to behave genteelly themselves. Here, too, Richardson provided a negative stimulus. Pamela paints Mr. B.'s violence, weakness, and arrogance far more vividly than she can his good qualities, and a reader need not be very cynical to suppose that the reward of her virtue lies less in the quality of his character than in the gentleness of his birth and the extravagance of his wealth. In Joseph Andrews, however, Fielding's hero appears at the outset to lack all of the external trappings of gentility, a circumstance that allows the narrator to pose this complexly ironic question: "Would it not be hard, that a Man who hath no Ancestors should therefore be render'd incapable of acquiring Honour, when we see so many who have no Virtues, enjoying the Honour of their Forefathers?"2 Joseph is restored to the honorable rank of gentleman only after he has demonstrated his "Virtue"—a term which Fielding seeks to restore, from its reduction to chastity in women and to birth and wealth in men, to its proper function as the external sign and the inward spirit of England's social and political elite. Fielding is not arguing for progressive social mobility; his final recourse to a traditional family romance plot (which confirms Joseph's emergence from lower class status through the revelation of his gentle birth) reaffirms the importance of lineage. Fielding seeks rather to resolve the tensions between intrinsic virtue and extrinsic honor, first by seeming to alienate merit from birth and then by reconciling the two in his hero. Like traditional exemplary history, Fielding's new species of writing is designed to teach readers, not how to cross status boundaries, but how to behave properly in the status to which providence has assigned them. Indeed, by focusing his narrative upon the exposition of an exemplary gentleman, Fielding seeks to appropriate for his new species of writing the authority and prestige of gentility.3 In a sense, the discovery of Joseph's parentage, elevating him from footman to gentleman, corresponds to the elevation of his story from satiric mock-biography to comic fiction. Joseph Andrews seems to imply that, while the heroes of fictional private histories may lack the exalted rank of figures in traditional public histories (kings, queens, generals, and the like), they should be members of the gentry, at least, not footmen or serving girls. The term "gentleman," however, was highly unstable in the eighteenth century and could be used in a variety of senses: as a general term of distinction (based on birth) from the commonalty; as the title of someone with the right to bear arms; as the honorific of someone whose income did not derive from physical labor, or whose income depended on land rather than trade; or...

Water birth: The newest form of safe, gentle, joyous birth

This paper underscores the serious problems facing institutionalized obstetrics in the United States (demonstrated by alarming cesarean rates) and provides information about a new, safe, gentle birth alternative that uses water during labor and delivery. Pioneered by doctors, nurses, and midwives to lower cesarean rates and increase possibilities for natural childbirth, water birth assists the mother in achieving deep relaxation during labor and thereby alleviates much of the pain and stress of birth for both mother and baby. Water birth may be a safe, helpful, and easy to implement method of improving obstetrical statistics in the U.S. and should be investigated by those health care providers concerned with promoting humanistic childbirth practices.

Influence of gentle birth delivery procedures and other perinatal circumstances on infant temperament: Developmental and social implications

Influence of gentle birth delivery procedures and other perinatal circumstances on infant temperament: Developmental and social implications

Book Reviews

SummaryThe Gentle Birth Book. By Nancy Berezin.The Custom-made Child? Women-centered Perspectives. Edited by H. B. Holmes, B. B. Haskins and M. Gross.Clinical Use of Sex Steroids. By James R Givens.

Gentle Birth: Its Safety and Its Effect on Neonatal Behavior

Leboyer describes a method of handling babies at birth designed to decrease initial stimulation and lessen trauma for the infant. Twenty clinic patients were delivered using a modification of this method. They were compared to 17 control patients delivered in the customary manner. Significant differences were noted between the two groups in five of 18 neonate behaviors observed in the delivery room. Among control subjects there was significantly more time spent with hand muscles tense during the first ten minutes after birth; more trembling, shuddering, and blinking during the first 15 minutes after deliver; and more trembling and shuddering overall. Experimental subjects spent significantly more time with hand muscles relaxed during the first ten minutes after birth and more time with open eyes overall. Results of this study indicate the Leboyer method is safe for mother and infant and promotes infant relaxation in the delivery room.

LII Mrs. Browning's Rhymes

For many years critics have been finding fault with Mrs. Browning's rhymes. Asserting that she “richly deserves the place generally accorded her as the foremost poetess of England,” that her Sonnets from' the Portuguese take “rank with Shakespeare's Sonnets and Rossetti's House of Life as one of the three great English sonnet cycles,” that “some of her social poems seem written in blood,” that she is at times “not only original but an equal of the greatest,” and that “her poem ‘The Great God Pan’ is almost perfect,” yet critics repeat the Victorian criticism of her rhymes. Saintsbury considers her “proficient in all the qualities which distinguish the poet from the prose-writer with the exception of ear for rhyme”; and this is what he says of these rhymes: “The dullness or falseness of her ear for consonance of sound was quite unparalleled, and she, with all the advantages of gentle birth, feminine sex, country breeding, and an almost scholarly education, confuses rhymes in a manner usually supposed to be limited to the lower class of cockneys.” Other critics have said her rhymes are “inadmissible,” “eccentric,” “illegitimate,” “slovenly false,” “vicious,” “feeble and commonplace,” “careless and perverse,” “painful,” “really shocking,” and that “few, if any, poets have sinned more grievously or frequently against the laws of metre and rhyme.”