Girding the loins? Direct evidence of the use of a medieval English parchment birthing girdle from biomolecular analysis

Sarah Fiddyment; Natalie J Goodison; Elma Brenner; Stefania Signorello; Kierri Price; Matthew J Collins

doi:10.1098/rsos.202055

Girding the loins? Direct evidence of the use of a medieval English parchment birthing girdle from biomolecular analysis

R Soc Open Sci. 2021 Mar 10;8(3):202055. doi: 10.1098/rsos.202055.

Authors

Sarah Fiddyment¹, Natalie J Goodison^{2

3}, Elma Brenner⁴, Stefania Signorello⁴, Kierri Price^{4

5}, Matthew J Collins^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ The McDonald Institute, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
² The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
³ Department of English Studies, Durham University, Hallgarth House, 77 Hallgarth Street, Durham DH1 1AY, UK.
⁴ Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, Bloomsbury, London NW1 2BE, UK.
⁵ Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX, UK.
⁶ Evogenomics, The Globe Institute Department of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Sølvgade 83, København K, Denmark.

Abstract

In this paper, we describe palaeoproteomic evidence obtained from a stained medieval birth girdle using a previously developed dry non-invasive sampling technique. The parchment birth girdle studied (Wellcome Collection Western MS. 632) was made in England in the late fifteenth century and was thought to be used by pregnant women while giving birth. We were able to extract both human and non-human peptides from the manuscript, including evidence for the use of honey, cereals, ovicaprine milk and legumes. In addition, a large number of human peptides were detected on the birth roll, many of which are found in cervico-vaginal fluid. This suggests that the birth roll was actively used during childbirth. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to extract and analyse non-collagenous peptides from a birth girdle using this sampling method and demonstrates the potential of this type of analysis for stained manuscripts, providing direct biomolecular evidence for active use.

Keywords: birth girdle; medieval; parchment; proteomics; stains.

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5324965