Pieter Bruegel the Elder's son painted many versions of the biblical story of Herod's Massacre of the Innocents, but his father's original has its own story. Shortly after its completion it came into the possession of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II who, for reasons unknown, ordered that the details of infant slaughter be painted over. Instead of infant death, it became an image of soldiers plundering a village. Yet, despite a later, uknown, artist's attempt to replace one crime with a less horrific one, strangely human details can be seen beneath images of dead geese, women grieving over indeterminate bundles, and tussles over the ownership of a calf. The abandoned garments and shadowy feet of murdered infants suggest an existence between being and non-being and thus unintentionally reflect the conflicting early modern beliefs about unborn, newborn and very young infants.

Beliefs and attitudes toward new lives

The point at which an infant was regarded as having existence is essential to the study of infanticide, but the question was far from straightforward for early modern people. Between conception and birth – during the development from embryo to newborn – the infant could be considered as simultaneously part of, or separate from, the human world.