Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- List of Illustrations
- Dedication
- Introduction: Constructing Maternal Knowledge
- 1 Flesh and Stone: Dissecting Maternity in the Theatre of Anatomy
- 2 The Cabinet of Wonders: Monstrous Conceptions in the Theatre of Nature
- 3 Strange Labours: Maternity and Maleficium in the Theatre of Justice
- 4 Speaking Stones: Memory and Maternity in the Theatre of Death
- Postscript: Our Maternities: The Historical Legacy
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
3 - Strange Labours: Maternity and Maleficium in the Theatre of Justice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- List of Illustrations
- Dedication
- Introduction: Constructing Maternal Knowledge
- 1 Flesh and Stone: Dissecting Maternity in the Theatre of Anatomy
- 2 The Cabinet of Wonders: Monstrous Conceptions in the Theatre of Nature
- 3 Strange Labours: Maternity and Maleficium in the Theatre of Justice
- 4 Speaking Stones: Memory and Maternity in the Theatre of Death
- Postscript: Our Maternities: The Historical Legacy
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Breaching the Wall: The Archaeologies of Witchcraft and the Maternal Body in Early Modern England
We are all conceived in close prison; in our mother's wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution …
John Donne, A Sermon preached to the Lords, 28 March 1619In 1961 workmen were carrying out structural repairs to the first-floor interior of Lauderdale House, a late-sixteenth-century mansion situated in London's Highgate Hill. As they began to remove bricks near a chimney-breast in what is now the long Tudor gallery they made a grim discovery. They had stumbled upon a hidden compartment which had been blocked up for more than four centuries. One by one the old house gave up its long-held secrets as the workmen began to remove the curious artefacts concealed inside. The extraordinary hoard of carefullyplaced objects, which can still be seen at the Museum of London today (Fig. 3.1), consisted of four desiccated chickens, two of which, as forensic evidence suggests, were strangled while the other two may have been, gruesomely, buried alive; a candlestick with a yellow glazed border (Fig. 3.2); a glass drinking goblet; two odd shoes (Fig. 3.3); a cord of plaited rush-matting; and an egg, which may have been laid by one of the chickens while it was trapped inside its stony prison.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shakespearean MaternitiesCrises of Conception in Early Modern England, pp. 154 - 211Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2008