THE LATE MEDIEVAL period was a dangerous time, physically and spiritually, for women in childbirth. Naturally, they took this risk very seriously and the time of confinement was approached with some trepidation and spiritual preparedness. That is, they confessed their sins and were absolved, and they invoked suitable spiritual intercessors, the better to ensure the physical safety of their child and their own survival; or if the worst should happen, they at least died shriven.

Even that was not quite sufficient, because a woman dying in childbed was still considered spiritually at risk if she died with a dead or moribund infant, or any part of it, still in utero. John Mirk's early fifteenth-century instructions for parish priests make clear the teaching to be conveyed to local midwives:

In extremis, the child was to be baptised by the midwife:

While the imperative here focused, if any flicker of life remained, on the infant's baptism and consequent salvation, the secondary objective was removal of the baby, dead or alive, from the mother's pelvis, so that she, too, all contaminants voided, was released from the burden of Original Sin, and fit for burial in sanctified ground.

For greater assurance, a mother needed to survive beyond her baby's baptism until her churching some weeks later, when she would be restored to her community ‘cleansed’ and ready for action. As Mirk advised in his sermon for the feast of the Purification,