СЪСЪДЪТ НА ЖИВОТА: СРЕДНОВЕКОВНИ СЛАВЯНСКИ ТЕКСТОВЕ ЗА ЗАЧЕВАНЕ, РАЖДАНЕ И ВЪЦЪРКОВЛЕНИЕ
Vas vitae: Medieval Slavonic Texts for Conception, Childbirth and Churching

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses female reproductive functions and women's and new-borns' initiation in ecclesiastical community after childbirth up to the fortieth day -- as they could be detected in texts in medieval Slavonic Euchologia from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries (prayers and liturgical directions) and in recipes from a fifteenth-century South Slavonic manuscript – in comparison to Greek texts and present-day folklore rituals and beliefs. The arrangements of rites and prayers in manuscripts together with liturgical directions could give information on real liturgical practices (and their change) in the Middle Ages concerning midwife, mother after delivery on the first or third day and for child on the eighth day and for the 40th day. The recipes show that medieval Slavonic culture was familiar with several antique ideas and techniques concerning conception, formation of embryo, predictions of the gender of foetus that were widespread in Byzantine and West European milieus. The paper explores Galen’s and Hippocrates’ texts that served as sources of a treatise on conception translated in medieval South Slavic milieu. The study displays medieval notions of female body in the context of ancient medical corpus and its medieval adaptations.

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