Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:09:47.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Devotion, Popular Belief and Sympathetic Magic among Renaissance Italian Women: The Rose of Jericho as Birthing Aid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Suzy Knight
Suzy Knight*
Affiliation:
Queen Mary, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The natural world offered Renaissance men and women an abundance of raw materials which could be used to protect and to heal. Healers and wise women used particularly potent plants, gemstones and animal parts, in conjunction with magical ritual and Christian prayer, as preventative and cure. Pertaining largely to an oral and unlettered culture, much of this natural lore has been lost. Fortunately, the Renaissance demand for vernacular translations of classical works brought about a revived interest in botany, whilst cheap print and a wider reading public fostered the proliferation of a new genre of self-help manuals and books of secrets, and it is within these works that some of the oral traditions have been captured in ink. Whilst it may be true that many of the new authors of the Renaissance used print to disparage and demystify many of these popular beliefs, it is often only through the disapproving lens of the vernacular manual that we are able to catch glimpses of folk beliefs in practice. This paper will examine one such tradition: the use of the Rose of Jericho as birthing aid.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 46: God’s Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World , 2010 , pp. 134 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For books of herbals, see Arber, Agnes, Herbals, Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany 1470–1679 (Cambridge, 1953)Google Scholar; Reeds, Karen, Botany in Medieval and Renaissance Universities (New York, 1991)Google Scholar. For Renaissance Italian selfhelp manuals, see Bell, Rudolph, How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (Chicago, IL, 1999). For the vernacular book of secrets and its impact on science, medicine and attitudes towards nature CrossRefGoogle Scholar, see Eamon, William, ‘Science and Popular Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: The “Professors of Secrets” and their Books’, Sixteenth Century Journal 16 (1985), 471–85; idem, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton, NJ, 1994).Google Scholar

2 ‘j a roxa di Jericho da dona di parto’: Florence, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Magistrato dei Pupilli del Principato [hereafter: ASF, MPP], 2646, fols 330r-341I [estate of Pagholo di Jacopo, funaiuolo, Io May 1535], at fol. 339v.

3 See Musacchio, Jacqueline, Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, CT, 1999), 141 Google Scholar; Gélis, Jacques, History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy and Birth in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1991), 117; 145–46.Google Scholar

4 See Morren, Charles.‘The Rose of Jericho’, in The Annals of Horticulture and Year-Book of Information on Practical Gardening (London, 1850), 333—34 Google Scholar; Conway, Moncure, ‘The Sacred Flora’, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, vol. 42, no. 247 (December 1870), 87–95 Google Scholar; Crowfoot, Grace and Baldensperger, Louise, From Cedar to Hyssop: A Study in the Folklore of Plants in Palestine (London, 1932), 119–25 Google Scholar; Liitzenkirchen, Guglielmo and Simoni, Maria Doretta, ‘Utilizzazione magica e terapeutica dell’Anastatica hierochuntica’, Storia e medicina popolare 9 (1991), 192–204 Google Scholar; and Gasparroni, Alessandra, ‘La rosa di Gerico. Tratti di un’indagine fito-magico-religiosa dalla tradizione ai nuovi contesti’, Etnoantropologia 1 (2007), 143—49.Google Scholar

5 The word ‘amulet’ will be used here to describe an object that is treasured for its powers to protect against harm or encourage good fortune and health. For textual amulets used in birthing rituals, see Skemer, Don, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA, 2006), 235–50.Google Scholar

6 For the dangers and fears relating to pregnancy and childbirth during the period, see Roger Schofield, ‘Did the Mothers really Die? Three Centuries of Maternal Mortality in “The World We Have Lost”’, in Bonfield, L. et al., eds, The World we have Gained (Oxford, 1986), 230–60 Google Scholar; Wilson, Adrian, ‘The Perils of Early Modern Procreation: Childbirth with or without Fear?’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 16 (1993), 1–19 Google Scholar; Pollock, Linda A., ‘Embarking on a Rough Passage: The Experience of Pregnancy in Early Modern Society’, in Women as Mothers in Pre-Industrial England: Essays in Memory of Dorothy McLaren, ed. Valerie Fildes (London, 1990), 39–67 Google Scholar, at 45. For the maternal death-rate in fifteenth-century Florence, see Herlihy, David and Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, Tuscans and their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427 (New Haven, CT, 1985), 270–79.Google Scholar

7 e.g. Siena, Bernardino da, Predica volgari sul Campo di Siena, 1427, ed. Delcorno, Carlo, 2 vols (Milan, 1989), 2: 29, 824.Google Scholar

8 This was in his Tractatus de matricibus, cap. 24 in Opera omnia (Pavia, 1481), at fols 2.3r-v, quoted in Larson, Wendy R., ‘Who is the Master of this Narrative? Maternal Patronage of the Cult of St Margaret’, in Erler, Mary C. and Kowaleski, Maryanne, eds, Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 2003), 94–104 Google Scholar, at 94. For Guianerio, see Helen Rodnite Lemay, ‘Anthonius Guainerius and Medieval Gynecology’, in Julius Kirshner and Wemple, Suzanne F, eds, Women of the Medieval World (Oxford, 1985), 317–36.Google Scholar

9 See Forbes, Thomas, The Midwife and the Witch (New Haven, CT, 1966), 64–79 Google Scholar; and Cardini, Franco, ‘Tra scienza e magia’, in Gabriele Borghini et al., eds. Una Farmacia preindustriale in Valdelsa: la spezieria e lo spedale di Santa Fina nella città di San Gimignano, Secc. XIV-XVIII (San Gimignano, 1981), 153–71 Google Scholar. For the displacement of midwives by male physicians in the early modern period, see Wilson, Adrian, Tîie Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England 1660–1770 (London, 1995)Google Scholar; McTavish, Lianne, Childbirth and the Display of Authority in Early Modern France (Aldershot, 2005).Google Scholar

10 A practice branded superstitious by Scipione, Fra (Girolamo Mercurio), the former Dominican friar turned physician in his De gli errori popolari d’Italia (Verona, 1645), 382; cited in Bell, How to Do It, 108.Google Scholar

11 Bell, How to Do It, 114. For other examples of female ritual, see The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, ed. Green, Monica H. (Philadelphia, PA, 2002).Google Scholar

12 For a detailed history of the Agnus Dei, see John Cherry, ‘Containers for Agnus Dei’, in Through a Glass Brightly: Studies in Byzantine and Medieval Art and Archaeology Presented to David Buckton, ed. Entwisde, C. (Oxford, 2003), 171–84.Google Scholar

13 For the importance of this relic to Florentine women, see Cassidy, Brendan, ‘A Relic, some Pictures and the Mothers of Florence in the Late Fourteenth Century’, Gesta 30 (1991), 91–99.Google Scholar

14 See Saint-Aignan, Laurent de, ‘Recherches sur la Rose de Jéricho’, Annales de philosophie chrétienne 93 (1877), 348–63, at 348.Google Scholar

15 Friedman, Jacob and Stein, Zipporah, ‘The Influence of Seed-Dispersal Mechanisms on the Dispersion of Anastatica Hierochuntica (Cruciferae) in the Negev Desert, Israel’, Journal of Ecology 68 (1980), 43—50.Google Scholar

16 It was given this name by Gronov, Gronov Johann Friedrich (1611—1671): Lutzenkirchen and Simoni,‘Utilizzazione magica’, 195.Google Scholar

17 For Ludolph von Suchem’s description, see his ‘Description of the Holy Land’, in Library of the Palestine Pilgrims’Text Society, ed. Steward, Aubrey and Conder, C. R., 14 vols (London, 1887-97), 12: 91, cited in Crowfoot and Baldensperger, Cedar to Hyssop,123.Google Scholar

18 For souvenir-collecting by pilgrims, see Webb, Diana, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in the Medieval West (London, 1999), 124–32 Google Scholar. For souvenirs from the Holy Land, see Beebe, Kathryne, ‘Knights, Cooks, Monks and Tourists: Elite and Popular Experience of the Late-Medieval Jerusalem Pilgrimage’, in Cooper, Kate and Gregory, Jeremy, eds,Elite and Popular Religion, SCH 42 (Woodbridge, 2006), 99–109 Google Scholar, at 106; Prescott, Hilda F. M., Jerusalem Journey: Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1954), 141–60.Google Scholar

19 See Haines, Herbert and Busby, Richard James, A Manual of Monumental Brasses (Oxford, 1861), cxi. A Rose of Jericho features in Matthias Grünewald’s St Cyriacus panel, which forms part of the Heller Altarpiece (1509—11), at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt.Google Scholar

20 Other areas in Italy refer to them as roses of St Anne or St Margaret: Gasparroni, ‘rosa di Gerico’, 145.

21 ‘ja chassettina d’arcipresso entrovi … ja rosa della Vergine Maria’: ASF, Magistrato dei Pupilli Avanti il Principato [hereafter: MPAP], 180, fols 49r-52v [estate of Jachopo di Marcho di Marcho, speziale in [Piazza] Verzaia, 1496], at fol. 50r.

22 ‘ia rosa della Nostra Donna sopra a done di parto’: ASF, MPAP, 190, fols 71r-74v [estate of Piero d’Antonio Quaratesi, 14 May 1527], at fol. 72r;’i° schatolino entravi ia; rosa della Vergine Maria’: ASF, MPP, 2649, fols 586r-590r [estate of Lorenzo di Bastiano, coriere diVinezia, 21 April 1549], at fol. 588v.

23 For an introduction to Mattioli and his work, see Bell, How to Do It, 45–46.

24 ‘Valerio Cordo nel suo volumetto delle compositioni de medicamenti, scrive dell’Amomo assai inconstantemente. Imperoché nella compositione dell’aurea Alessandrina afferma per certo che l’Amomo non è altro, che questa pianta di Hierico’: Pietro Andrea Mattioli, II Dioscoride dell’ eccellente Dottor P.A. Matthioli co i suoi discorsi, con l’aggiunta del sesto libro de i rimedi di tutti i veleni de lui nuovamente tradotto & con dottissimi discorsi per tutto commentato (Venice, 1548), 31.

25 ‘Rose di S Maria portate di Hierico’: ibid., unpaginated.

26 ‘che le nostre Donne d’Italia chiamano Rose di santa Maria, portateci di Hierico da i peregrini, che vanno al santissimo sepolchro del nostro Signore GIESU CHRISTO’: ibid. 31.

27 von Suchem, Description of the Holy Land, 91; cited in Crowfoot and Baldenperger, Cedar to Hyssop, 123.

28 Lutzenkirchen and Simoni,‘Utilizzazione magica’, 197.

29 See Crowfoot and Baldensperger, Cedar to Hyssop, 123.

30 Ibid.

31 See Belon, Pierre, Les observations de plusieurs singularitez & choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie, & autre pays estranges. Redigeés en trois livres, 3 vols (Paris, 1555), 2: 144.Google Scholar

32 Lutzenkirchen and Simoni, ‘Utilizzazione magica’, 198—200. It is this aspect of the Rose’s legend that is the basis of Hess’s, David story about this plant: The Rose of Jericho, trans, and ed. Caroline Norton (London, 1870).Google Scholar

33 ‘nell’hora del partorire usano di tenere le donne nell’acqua; credendosi, che, come tal pianta s’apre, subito partoriscano’: Mattioli, I discorsi, 31.

34 For a Renaissance Italian interpretation of sympathetic magic, see Porta, Giambattista della, Natural Magick (London, 1658), 16–17.Google Scholar

35 This notion appears in Giovanni Mannello’s late sixteenth-century treatise Delle medicine partinenti all’infermità delle donne (Venice, 1563), 235–40; quoted in Bell, How to Do It, 73.

36 For the continuation of these ceremonies in present-day Abruzzo, see Gasparroni, ‘La rosa di Gerico’, 149.

37 ‘tanta inter christicolae irrespit superstitio’: Mattioli, I discorsi (Venice, 1554), 35.

38 discorsi (Venice, 1557), 38; 1 discorsi (Venice, 1568), 58; Commentaires de Pierre, M. André Matthiole médecin sennois, sur les six livres de Ped. Dioscoride Anazarbeen de la matière médicinale: avec certaines tables médicinales, tant des qualités & vertus des simples mèdicamens, que des remèdes pour toutes maladies, qui peuvent avenir au corps humain, comme aussi des sentences, mots & matières traictées esdicts commentaires (Lyons, 1572), 41; 1 discorsi (Venice, 1597), 50.Google Scholar

39 Bell, How to Do It, ch. 3; Medicina per le donne nel cinquecento: Testi di Giovanni Mannello e di Girolamo Mercurio, ed. Biagi, Maria Luisa Altieri et al. (Turin, 1992).Google Scholar

40 See the judgements of Belon, Observations, 2: 144; Johannes Sturmius, De rosa hierochuntina liber units: in quo de eius natura, proprietatibus motibus, et causis pukhrè disseritur (Louvain, 1608), quoted in Saint-Aignan, ‘Recherches’, 356—61; Parkinson, John, Theatrum botanicum:The Theater of Plantes or an Universali and Compleate Herball (London, 1640)Google Scholar, 1384; Browne, Thomas, Pseudodoxia epidemica, ed. Robbins, Robin (Oxford, 1981), 148–50, 775–76. See also Caroline Norton’s comments in the introduction to Hess, Rose of Jericho, vi—vii.Google Scholar

41 See Gasparroni,‘rosa di Gerico’.

42 Caroline Norton had encountered the tradition in nineteenth-century Italy ‘among the lower classes’ and followed by ‘the simpler sort of peasant woman’: Hess, Rose of Jericho, vii.