The Purification of Women After Childbirth: A Window Onto Medieval Perceptions of Women

Abstract

In the second quarter of the thirteenth century Bishop Roger Niger found it necessary to issue a statute in the archdeaconry of London regarding the rite known as the Purification of Women after Childbirth, more commonly spoken of today as churching. This blessing of a recently delivered mother took place at the church door and usually marked her first appearance in church since her confinement. It had come to the bishop’s attention that women were seeking this sacramental in parishes other than their own. They were fleeing their home parishes out of “hatred or fear of the curate, or in order to avoid injury or scandal” after having become pregnant (Powicke and Cheney 336 # 16).