Alienated from the womb: abortion in the early - UCL Discovery

280 Pages·2011·2 MB·English

by  Mistry, Z.

„Alienated from the womb‟:
abortion in the early medieval West, c.500-900

Zubin Mistry
University College, London
PhD Thesis
2011

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I, Zubin Mistry, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where
information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated
in the thesis.

Signed:

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ABSTRACT

This thesis is primarily a cultural history of abortion in the early medieval West. It is a
historical study of perceptions, rather than the practice, of abortion. The span covered
ranges from the sixth century, when certain localised ecclesiastical initiatives in the form
of councils and sermons addressed abortion, through to the ninth century, when some
of these initiatives were integrated into pastoral texts produced in altogether different
locales. The thesis uses a range of predominantly ecclesiastical texts – canonical
collections, penitentials, sermons, hagiography, scriptural commentaries, but also law-
codes – to bring to light the multiple ways in which abortion was construed,
experienced and responded to as a moral and social problem.
Although there is a concerted focus upon the ecclesiastical tradition on abortion, a
focus which ultimately questions how such a tradition ought to be understood, the
thesis also explores the broader cultural significance of abortion. Early medieval
churchmen, rulers, and jurists saw multiple things in abortion and there were multiple
perspectives upon abortion. The thesis illuminates the manifold and, occasionally,
surprising ways in which abortion was perceived in relation to gender, sexuality, politics,
theology and the church.
The history of early medieval abortion has been largely underwritten. Moreover, it
has been inadequately historicised. Early medieval abortion has been rendered strangely
familiar because it has been approached through alien concepts and assumptions,
whether pre-medieval, later medieval or modern. Through vigilance against conceptual
dangers, a thoroughgoing and sometimes microscopic approach to reading and
contextualising early medieval sources, and an interest in bringing the history of
abortion into conversation with other areas of early medieval historiography, the thesis
seeks to historicise perceptions of and responses to abortion in the early medieval West.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................... 8
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 10
THEMES IN THE HISTORY OF ABORTION ........................................ 19
THE DISTORTION OF EFFICACY ........................................................................................ 19
THE USE AND ABUSE OF ABORTIFACIENTS ...................................................................... 22
MEDICAL ETHICS AND HARD CASES ................................................................................. 25
MISCONCEIVING ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION ..................................................... 28
ATTITUDES TO ABORTION IN CLASSICAL AND LATE ANTIQUITY ......... 33
ROMAN PERSPECTIVES ON ABORTION ............................................................................. 33
Seeing like a state: abortion in Roman law .................................................................................. 33
The abortion-adultery nexus: abortion in Roman moralising ........................................................ 35
Abortion problematised: other perspectives in Roman society ........................................................ 38
CHRISTIAN DISCOURSE ON ABORTION ............................................................................. 41
Christian moral excellence: abortion and apologetics ..................................................................... 41
Divine love and divine punishment: the apocalypse of abortion ...................................................... 43
A problem within the fold: abortion within Christian communities ............................................... 45
Communal prohibition: the councils of Elvira and Ancyra .......................................................... 46
Church fathers on abortion: western examples .............................................................................. 48
Church fathers on abortion: eastern examples .............................................................................. 50
ABORTION IN THE SERMONS OF CAESARIUS OF ARLES ...................... 54
PREACHING AND PASTORAL LEADERSHIP ....................................................................... 55
ABORTION IN THE SERMONS............................................................................................. 56
Obliged to preach (sermo 1) ......................................................................................................... 57
Catechumens and abortion (Sermo 200) ..................................................................................... 58
Paternal correction (sermo 19) ..................................................................................................... 59
The noblewoman and the servant-girl (sermo 44) ......................................................................... 60
Fecundity and sterility (sermo 51) ............................................................................................... 61
Diabolical suasion (sermo 52) ..................................................................................................... 61

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Creating an idiom of condemnation ............................................................................................. 63
CONSTRUING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ABORTION ........................................................... 64
Idealised femininity and the sexual division of labour ................................................................... 64
Sexual double standards and blind spots ..................................................................................... 66
Envisaged community responses ................................................................................................... 67
Abortion and the dark arts ........................................................................................................ 69
„Homicidal contraception‟ ............................................................................................................ 71
ABORTION IN VISIGOTHIC SPAIN ................................................... 74
„KILLING THOSE CONCEIVED IN SIN‟: COUNCIL OF LÉRIDA (546) ............................... 75
DOCTRINAL THEORY AND PASTORAL PRACTICE: MARTIN OF BRAGA .......................... 78
A Priscillianist detour: abortion and heresy ................................................................................. 79
Back to Braga II: educating the clergy ......................................................................................... 82
„BITTER DISCIPLINE OF BISHOPS AND JUDGES‟: TOLEDO III (589) ............................... 84
EVOLUTION OF VISIGOTHIC LAW ..................................................................................... 88
The treatment of abortion in the Visigothic antiquae ................................................................... 88
A life – or an eye – for a life: Chindaswinth‟s rescript ................................................................. 92
ASPECTS OF „OFFICIAL‟ VISIGOTHIC DISCOURSE ON ABORTION .................................. 94
Convergence: entangling sex and murder ...................................................................................... 94
Divergence: the „salus‟ of the state and the „salus‟ of the sinner ...................................................... 97
READING ABORTION IN THE PENITENTIALS ................................... 99
METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES ................................................................................................ 99
A „growth industry‟ in historiography .......................................................................................... 99
Active deliberation and the anticipated pastoral ministry ............................................................ 101
Rewriting penitentials into the history of abortion ....................................................................... 102
ABORTION AND SEXUAL SCANDAL: P.VINNIANI ........................................................... 104
Reading the P.Vinniani ........................................................................................................... 105
Deciphering sense from context .................................................................................................. 105
Mutable „maleficium‟ ................................................................................................................ 107
The turbulence of sexual scandal ............................................................................................... 108
AMBIGUOUS MALEFICIUM: THE P.COLUMBANI ............................................................. 110
Decoding the P.Columbani and the context of clerical sins ......................................................... 111
Ambiguous means and equivocal ends ....................................................................................... 113

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CLERICAL REFORM: THE PAENITENTIALES SIMPLICES ................................................. 114
Voluntary abortion ................................................................................................................... 115
Reception of the „maleficium‟ canon ............................................................................................ 116
The context of clerical reform ..................................................................................................... 118
FOETAL POSITIONS: THE THEODOREAN PENITENTIALS ............................................. 119
Background to the Theodorean penitentials ................................................................................ 120
Versions of the abortion canon across the Theodorean penitentials .............................................. 121
Situating the „XL dies‟ distinction ............................................................................................ 122
The Discipulus‟ editing: reading the abortion canons in context .................................................. 126
ABORTION CANONS IN COMPILATIONS ......................................................................... 129
Compositional rationales and their effect on abortion canons....................................................... 130
A reader‟s perspective on abortion canons .................................................................................. 133
ABORTION IN THE CONTEXT OF CAROLINGIAN REFORM ................. 138
ASPECTS OF CAROLINGIAN REFORM .............................................................................. 139
Episcopal statutes: abortion in the programme for reform ........................................................... 141
CREATING AUTHORITY: ABORTION AND CANONICAL AWARENESS ........................... 142
Canonical authority and the history of abortion ......................................................................... 142
Canonical collections: the problem of knowing where to look ....................................................... 145
Abortion in „reform‟ penitentials ............................................................................................... 148
Modalities of canonical awareness .............................................................................................. 151
THE „ENTRY‟ OF CONTRACEPTION ................................................................................. 154
The interrogatory in the P.pseudo-Bedae .................................................................................... 155
Rereading Onan: the P.Hubertense ........................................................................................... 156
The „dog not barking in the night‟: explaining the entry of contraception ..................................... 157
External entry and internal development ................................................................................... 160
ABORTION IN EARLY MEDIEVAL LAW-CODES ................................. 164
EARLY MEDIEVAL LAW-CODES: PRELIMINARIES .......................................................... 164
Law-codes in a Carolingian setting ............................................................................................ 165
ARTICLES ON ABORTION: FIVE EXAMPLES .................................................................... 167
Example one: Lex Salica ......................................................................................................... 167
Example two: Lex Ribuaria .................................................................................................... 169
Example three: Lex Alamannorum ......................................................................................... 170
Example four: Lex Baiwariorum ............................................................................................. 172

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Example five: Lex Frisionum .................................................................................................. 174
ABORTION AND THE LIMITS OF EARLY MEDIEVAL LAW .............................................. 176
The problem of reading attitudes ................................................................................................ 176
Dissolving the paradox: the compensatory perspective ................................................................. 178
The mutability of law-codes ....................................................................................................... 181
IMAGINING THE ABORSUS IN SCRIPTURE AND THEOLOGY ............... 184
FRAGILE IDENTITY: ABORTIVI AT THE END OF TIME .................................................. 185
Neither affirming nor denying: Augustine on the fate of abortivi ................................................. 186
Resurrection of the damned: Julian of Toledo ............................................................................. 188
Abortion and superfluity: Braulio of Saragossa ......................................................................... 189
SINNERS AND HERETICS: IMAGINING THE ABORSUS.................................................... 191
Gregory the Great on Job‟s curse ............................................................................................... 191
Alienated from the womb: the aborsus as heretic and sinner ....................................................... 194
Rabanus Maurus and scripturally informed abortion ................................................................. 197
EARLY MEDIEVAL REPRESENTATIONS OF ABORTION ...................... 203
FIGHTING FROM THE WOMB: VENANTIUS FORTUNATUS‟ VITA S. GERMANI ............. 204
The enigma of „pudor‟ ............................................................................................................... 205
Prophecies and obstructions of sanctity in hagiography ................................................................ 207
Saved by childbearing: the exigencies of childbirth....................................................................... 208
The foetal Germanus as an episcopal saint ................................................................................ 210
THE DISAPPEARING FOETUS: SAINTS AND ABORTION IN EARLY IRISH VITAE .......... 211
Making the text disappear: textual complications ...................................................................... 213
„Empyting‟ the womb: the glaring anomaly of Ciaran‟s miracle .................................................. 215
Erasing fornication: creating the „holy abortion‟ ......................................................................... 215
THE RUMOUR OF ABORTION IN THE DIVORCE OF LOTHAR II AND THEUTBERGA ... 219
The events of 857-860: background to Hincmar‟s De Divortio ................................................. 220
Making sense of rumour (i): a neglected „whodunnit‟ .................................................................. 223
Making sense of rumour (ii): Hincmar‟s response ...................................................................... 227
CONCLUSION ............................................................................ 233
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................... 240

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Numerous conversations with friends, colleagues and teachers over the past four
years have become suddenly and oddly punctuated with tangents on early medieval
abortion. As Caesarius of Arles recognised, human speech has a hidden power to
permeate deeper than we often recognise. The questions, comments, suggestions and
jokes thrown up in these conversations have been sources of new ideas, insight and, on
occasion, that crucial sense of perspective which humour provides. Several people have
been responsible for important moments of inspiration perhaps without even realising. I
am also grateful, of course, to those who knew when not to start up a conversation
about early medieval abortion.
More specifically, I would like to thank David d‟Avray, Christopher Abel and Vivian
Nutton for their insightful comments and criticisms during my MPhil upgrade panel. In
particular, I am grateful to David d‟Avray for his suggestion that I look at comparative
material, which partly prompted an important development in my own research
interests, and to Vivian Nutton for his advice that I contact William MacLehose, who
took over from Professor Nutton as my second supervisor for the latter half of my time
as a PhD student.
William MacLehose took an active interest in my research from our very first
encounter, kindly scrutinising draft after draft. I always looked forward to our lengthy
meetings and look back fondly on them now. I am very grateful to Bill for his
suggestions, criticisms, enthusiasm and gift for making me laugh at my mixed metaphors
and other verbal infelicities.
Above all, I am profoundly grateful to my primary supervisor, Antonio Sennis. In
Antonio, this occasional binge hermit has had a consistent source of support,
encouragement and intellectual inspiration over the past four years. Plenty of his
prompts and suggestions have borne fruit. To name but one, without his insistence that
I look at the Carolingian eighth and ninth centuries, I might never have left what was
formerly a late antique and (very) early medieval comfort zone. I owe Antonio a huge
debt of gratitude.
I would like to thank my PhD examiners, Peter Biller and Sophie Page, for their
constructive criticisms, many points of advice and an enjoyable discussion at the viva
examination.

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Harpreet Palray has been a sine qua non in my final year, a refuge, counsellor and
delight throughout the pains of writing up.
My sister, Zeenia Mistry, helped me out on several occasions with her gift for
modern languages and on yet more occasions with her gift for cooking crêpes at
unearthly hours.
Finally, my biggest debt is to my parents, who have always fostered their son‟s
pursuit of learning and never obstructed his strange interests. This thesis is dedicated to
them.

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INTRODUCTION

Introductions often explain how germinal ideas came to full fruition and perhaps
some research projects truly unfold in the manner of divine creation. Under the
seamless guidance of a loving creator, the entire progression from conception of the
seed to the emergence of perfected form follows a divine plan: “Before I formed you in
the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). This research project was not one of them. In
retrospect, the embryonic idea for research (and a phrase which we will encounter, male
conceptus, springs to mind) looks very different. The manner in which this embryonic idea
metamorphosed introduces the deeper aims of this thesis more clearly than a
disingenuous imitatio Dei.
Originally, abortion and contraception in the early medieval West were the means to
an end within a twofold division of labour: to look at attitudes towards abortion and
contraception in this murky period and to situate within specific modern contexts the
ways in which these attitudes have been written up in histories of birth-control. In a
sense, the aim was to examine the historical memory, rather than the history, of early
medieval abortion. For example, this memory has been contested in modern Catholic
discourse, especially intra-Catholic debate on the morality of abortion and contraception
in the USA from the 1960s to the present day.1 Several historical studies and works with
historical sections were written very much within this context.2
But the research encountered two problems. In addition to works written in a
Catholic milieu and aside from a clutch of focussed studies3, the relevant historiography
largely constituted a mix of diachronic histories of birth-control4 and historical studies

1 See Daniel Maguire and James T. Burtchaell, „The Catholic Legacy and Abortion: A debate‟, in S.E.
Lammers & Allen Verhey (eds.) On Moral Medicine: Theological perspectives in medical ethics (Grand Rapids,
1998) pp.586-599.
2 The best known example is John T. Noonan‟s still magisterial but slightly dated Contraception: A history of
its treatment by the Catholic theologians and canonists (Cambridge, Mass. 1965) along with his historical essay on
Christian attitudes to abortion, „An Almost Absolute Value in History‟, in id. (ed.) The Morality of Abortion:
Legal and historical perspectives (Cambridge, Mass. 1970) pp.1-59. Other examples include Germain Grisez,
Abortion: The myths, the realities, and the arguments (New York, 1970), John Connery, Abortion: The development
of the Roman Catholic perspective (Chicago, 1977), and Daniel A. Dombrowski and Robert Deltete, A Brief,
Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion (Chicago, 2000).
3 E.g. Evelyne Patlagean, „Sur la limitation de la fecondité dans la haute époque byzantine‟, Annales ESC
24 (1969) pp.1353-1369, Jean-Louis Flandrin, „Contraception, Marriage, and Sexual Relations in the
Christian West‟, in id. Sex in the Western World: The development of attitudes and behaviour (Reading, 1991)
pp.99-116.
4 E.g. Angus McLaren, A History of Contraception: From antiquity to the present day (Oxford, 1990), Robert
Jütte, Contraception: A history, trans. Vicky Russell (Cambridge, 2008). See chapter one on the works of

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