A Brief History of Childbirth in the Anglo-Saxon World

The whole philosophy around conception and giving birth was a confusing mishmash of myth, old wives tales. In a field near a small village in Suffolk was kept a white bull. The monks from various intentions would regularly lead a procession. Alice would walk in the procession alongside the bull, stroking its flanks. It's a wonderful combination of all sorts of things - shared importance of fertility to community. But understanding ideas about medieval world is very different to feeling what it was really like to live there.