Read on Twitter
Before PREGNANT is used with its modern meaning, how was being pregnant described in medieval English?
One medical text translates Latin praegnans with ‘pregnant’, but for the most part PREGNAUNT in Middle English is figurative rather than literal
One medical text translates Latin praegnans with ‘pregnant’, but for the most part PREGNAUNT in Middle English is figurative rather than literal
To be PREGNAUNT in medieval English is to have a quick, lively mind or to be loaded with weighty meaning – the mind or meaning full or alive like a belly crammed with a kicking baby
For example, ‘the mynde of man is pregnante [i.e. quick-witted] in a feire day and feynte [weak] in a clowdy day’ (Higden's Polychronicon, 15thC trans)
The idea of weightiness survives in that modern phrase, ‘a PREGNANT pause’, a pause full of significance
The idea of weightiness survives in that modern phrase, ‘a PREGNANT pause’, a pause full of significance
So, how is pregnancy described in Middle English? Well, you can GRETEN (i.e. ‘to enlarge, to grow great’)
The author of Sir Gowther describes Gowther’s mother’s pregnancy: ‘Ylke a day scho grette fast’ [every day she grew quickly]
The author of Sir Gowther describes Gowther’s mother’s pregnancy: ‘Ylke a day scho grette fast’ [every day she grew quickly]
You can BARNISHEN (from BARN, ‘child’, literally to child-ishen)
Igraine in the Prose Merlin is soon visibly pregnant:
‘Sche BARNESCHED wondir faste [amazingly quickly], so that the kyng hire axede [asked her]…“hos [whose] is this child?”’
Igraine in the Prose Merlin is soon visibly pregnant:
‘Sche BARNESCHED wondir faste [amazingly quickly], so that the kyng hire axede [asked her]…“hos [whose] is this child?”’
In the later stages of pregnancy when the baby kicks and moves, you can be QUICK with child (QUICK meaning ‘living, alive’)
The Holy Spirit in one of the N-town plays says to tell Mary that ‘her bareyn cosyn Elyzabeth is / QWYK WITH CHILDE, in her grett age’
The Holy Spirit in one of the N-town plays says to tell Mary that ‘her bareyn cosyn Elyzabeth is / QWYK WITH CHILDE, in her grett age’
You can be CHARGED with a child, burdened or ladened
Ulfin in the Prose Merlin says of Igraine after Gorlois’s death:
‘the lady is lefte CHARGED WITH CHILDE’
Ulfin in the Prose Merlin says of Igraine after Gorlois’s death:
‘the lady is lefte CHARGED WITH CHILDE’
In Nicholas Love’s Mirror, the Virgin Mary walks the long way to Elizabeth without the usual pregnancy aches and pains:
‘Sche was not hevyed [wearied] or CHARGED by the conceyvynge of hir sone as comounly beeth othere wymmen, for oure lord Jesu was not CHARGEANT to his moder’
‘Sche was not hevyed [wearied] or CHARGED by the conceyvynge of hir sone as comounly beeth othere wymmen, for oure lord Jesu was not CHARGEANT to his moder’
My favourite verb is the utterly efficient CHILDEN, ‘to child’, to carry and give birth to a child
For example Reginald Pecock’s description of the Virgin Birth:
‘A mayde childide god’ [a maiden childed God]
For example Reginald Pecock’s description of the Virgin Birth:
‘A mayde childide god’ [a maiden childed God]
Or, more elaborately, in a 15thC translation of a French religious text praising Mary:
‘Thi puarpure wombe childyng god son intacte and cloos’
[Your pregnant womb, perfect and sealed, childing God’s son]
‘Thi puarpure wombe childyng god son intacte and cloos’
[Your pregnant womb, perfect and sealed, childing God’s son]
Image in first tweet: Piero della Francesca, ‘La Madonna del parto’, circa 1460
