"Be Fruitful and Multiply": Genesis and Generation in Reformation Germany

This essay analyzes vernacular texts on reproduction from sixteenth-century Germany. It examines religious texts, including sermons and devotional treatises for pregnant women, as well as medical texts, such as midwifery manuals, books on the "secrets of nature," and anatomical treatises....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Renaissance quarterly 2002-09, Vol.55 (3), p.904-935
Main Author: Crowther-Heyck, Kathleen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
16th century
Albertus Magnus, Saint (Albert Graf von Bollstadt) (1200?-1280)
Albertus Magnus, Saint (Albert Graf von Bollstadt) (1200?-80)
Bible
Childbirth
Children
Christianity
Colloquial language
Conception
Criticism and interpretation
Crosses
Divinity
Germany
Historical text analysis
History of medicine
History, 16th Century
Human reproduction
Humans
Literary criticism
Lutheranism
Medical literature
Mothers
Pregnancy
Reformation literature
Religion and Medicine
Religious aspects
Religious literature
Renaissance period
Reproduction
Social aspects
Textbooks as Topic - history
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Summary:This essay analyzes vernacular texts on reproduction from sixteenth-century Germany. It examines religious texts, including sermons and devotional treatises for pregnant women, as well as medical texts, such as midwifery manuals, books on the "secrets of nature," and anatomical treatises. Vernacular authors, both medical and clerical, ascribed enormous spiritual and symbolic significance to human generation. Conception, pregnancy, and birth were linked to the biblical account of the creation and fall of mankind. In the creation of the child in the womb, sixteenth-century Germans saw an echo of the original divine act of creation. And in the sufferings of a woman in labor they saw a reenactment of Christ's Passion. Discussions of reproduction thus served as a starting point for meditations on original sin, human mortality, and the relationship between body and soul.
ISSN:0034-4338
1935-0236
DOI:10.2307/1261560