What does the history of breastfeeding tell us about medieval society? Hannah Skoda discovers stories of miracle cures, bizarre beliefs and caring communities
In the late 13th century, a little boy crawled out of his crib while his parents were at a funeral. He was two years old. His name was Roger, and he was the son of one of the cooks at Conwy Castle in north Wales. The curious toddler crawled out of the house, through the dark, and tragically fell off the drawbridge and into the moat. A passer-by spotted his apparently lifeless body: he swiftly prayed and promised a pilgrimage to Hereford if the miracle-working late bishop Thomas Cantilupe would help. The boy’s mother arrived and began to wail and beat her breast: it was all onlookers could do to prevent her from hurling herself into the moat after her son. When the child’s body was handed to her, she tore open her cloak to warm him against her chest. The little boy began to breathe again and suckled at his mother’s breast. Revived, he began to laugh and smile.
This moving story was recounted as part of the canonisation process for Thomas Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford. On account of this, and various other miracles, Cantilupe was made a saint of the Catholic church. It’s a story that provides a wonderful insight into the lives of the humblest strata of medieval society. It’s full of familial love, deep emotion, and – importantly – a wider community invested in the well-being of children.
The history of breastfeeding lies at the heart of the history of humanity. And it was much talked about in the Middle Ages. The image of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus at her breast was pervasive in medieval Europe. In some ways, this perfect image denigrated real women, who could never hope to live up to this lofty ideal. But breastfeeding was nevertheless widely eulogised, particularly by theologians and medical writers.
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, a 13th-century scholastic, wrote that a mother “conceives her children voluptuously, having carried them in her womb where they are nourished by her blood, she bears them in pain, she loves them and kisses them: because of her love, her nursing is the best, and the nursing helps to sustain her motherly love”. He was echoing the dominant view among medieval (male) thinkers that infants should best be breastfed by their biological mothe
