The book of punishments, midwives-witches and other marital rules

How was it?

Until the 12th century, men could freely change wives and even enter into intimacy with relatives, until the church took up the fight against polygamy. At least, it’s definitely worth saying thank you for this, because it was then that the usual model of a family of a husband and one woman was formed.

True, not everything was so simple, since intimacy was approved solely as a way of procreation. However, it was extremely forbidden to perform marital duty on weekends and during Lent.

Yes, and to follow in bed it was necessary to certain rules. So, for example, everything had to happen in complete darkness and silence. Only a man could move, while a woman had to remain completely calm, otherwise she could be burned at the stake, like a witch. There were similar precedents when the spouse himself wrote a denunciation.

With a divorce, everything was also not easy, because the only reason for this could be the male inability to continue. In other words, impotence. The court took such claims as seriously as possible. And so much so that the husband had to first demonstrate his organ to the commission, and then demonstrate its functionality in practice.

There were problems with pregnancy. There was a high mortality among women in childbirth, but no one thought that you just need to take better care of women. Instead, it was customary to bury the wife immediately after giving birth, leaving the child’s health to God’s will. It is not surprising that wealthy ladies often wrote a will, while ordinary girls simply had to confess.

Moreover, most often death occurred if a doctor took part in the birth. Midwives had a lower mortality rate, but they were considered witches, calling on dark forces through rituals with babies. As for the doctors, the problem was not with them, but with the lack of any kind of hygiene. Hands were rarely washed, and given that the doctor could come for the procedure immediately after the autopsy, there was nothing surprising in some kind of blood poisoning.

Well, let’s finish with such a terrible thing as the “Book of Punishments”, in which all the rules of punishment for each “sinful” act were recorded. There were also those associated with bed comforts, which the priests learned about during confessions. To understand how harsh this book was, it is worth knowing that for the “eruption of the male seed into the mouth” only execution was prepared.