Close encounter with a medieval birth scroll

Touching the past

I was struck by my sense of anticipation – consulting manuscripts is always exciting for me – but this was different. In the conservation studio, the table surface had been specially cleaned in preparation, a set of disc-like archival weights for holding the manuscript in place set out in readiness.

With a delicate sense of ceremony, Stefania removed the roll from its storage box and gently unrolled it section by section, while I placed a tape measure (initially the wrong way up) beside it. Stefania and I were the only ones in the conservation studio, and the room felt appropriately hushed in recognition of this special moment.

Stefania was the one to manipulate the manuscript, which could only be unrolled a small section at a time. I was another pair of hands where needed, and we only did what she was comfortable to do with the girdle. Over the course of an hour, under her protective direction, I took some photographs, measured the sections of parchment that were stitched together to make this long roll, and, keeping tentatively to the margins, even touched it with bare fingertips.

When I reached some stains on the parchment, I had to pause to gather myself. These were marks left behind by people long dead, a tangible connection to the past. It feels quite radical to talk about your feelings when doing archival research, as though there’s something inherently un-academic about having an emotional response. For me, getting to see this manuscript in person made it real in a way that viewing a digital proxy simply couldn’t recreate. The actual size, shape and texture added a poignant recognition of the manuscript’s current fragility.

Virtual recreations vs real objects

Digitised manuscripts are a wonderful resource and research tool in one. They allow you to travel the globe virtually from the comfort of your own device while researching in your pyjamas at 2 am! You can glean more information through zooming in, or by changing contrast and brightness settings; you can download and print your own personal copy and create your own archive of rare materials. When archives closed during the Covid pandemic, digital facsimiles were the only way I could continue my PhD studies.

But what digitised manuscripts don’t give you is the sounds, smells and feel of the physical manuscript. MS.632, on that day, in the conservation studio, was a real object and the impact of this encounter wasn’t lost on me. Seeing and handling the manuscript in person was a privilege, but one that risked causing further damage to an already delicate object.

For every request to see the scroll in person, Wellcome’s conservation team has to weigh up the potential benefits of new understandings and avenues for scholarly exploration against their duty to preserve the manuscript for future generations. My single research session with the scroll eventually led to a temporary exhibition – ‘Expecting: Birth, Belief and Protection’ – where MS.632 was put on public display, enabling thousands of visitors a rare chance to have their own personal encounter with this 500-year-old medieval birth girdle.

Medieval encounters

The manuscript was written on sheepskin parchment, which is both robust and flexible, and ideal for a portable scroll intended for heavy use and manipulation. Inevitably, 500 years of wear and tear have turned it into the fragile and vulnerable object that now rests at Wellcome Collection. As with all the few remaining medieval birth girdles in the world, it can only be seen and used in a sterile, contained and restricted environment.

For medieval people, the scroll offered protection against a number of perilous situations, including childbirth, battle and the plague. Through a combination of images, prayers and instructions to the reader/user, the birth girdle invoked the protective intervention of saints and other holy figures in in several ways.

A user could touch or even kiss images to venerate them (resulting in the worn-away ink on an illustration of Christ’s side wound on the face (front) side of the manuscript). One instruction for general protection was simply to “beryth thys mesure uppon hym” [carry this length upon them] and recite a short number of prayers.

For a pregnant or labouring woman, the instruction was to “gyrde thys mesure abowte hyr wombe” [wrap this length around her belly] for a successful delivery. ‘Wearing’ MS.632 as a girdle created friction against the body, further degrading the surface of the parchment, and recent biochemical analysis of material from the parchment confirms that stains and marks on the surface are evidence of its use during labour and childbirth.

Ultimately, MS.632 was a communal object, likely circulated within a particular network, and handed down from one generation to the next, creating a lineage of people who drew on it for reassurance and support.

The archival research I conduct as a medievalist is a very different kind of ‘use’ of the birth girdle, but I can still remain sensitive to MS.632’s immensely personal origins. It was an artefact used in intense, stressful situations, and – through stains, smudges, rips, and tears – it holds a tangible record of the emotional experiences of people which might otherwise be lost. Recognising and permitting my own emotional response to encountering MS.632 feels somehow respectful.