Junius Childbirth Charm (Medieval)

The Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ. The infertile Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptist. I urge you, child, whether you are male or female, but the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit, to come out and move beyond. Mat you not harm the child or make him foolish. Amen. The Lord, seeing the wailing sisters of Lazarus, wept in front of the tomb. In the presence of the Jews, he exclaimed, "Lazarus, come out!" And he who had been dead for four days came out with his hands and feet bound.

Write this in wax which has never been worked on and bind it under her right foot.

--Anonymous, English and Latin text, 11th century, translated by Runqi Zhang. Found at the Global Medieval Sourcebook: A Digital Repository of Medieval Texts, at Stanford University.

From the introduction:

"Childbirth in medieval Europe was often the most dangerous experience of a woman's life. Because of poor hygiene and a lack of gynecological knowledge, scholars have estimated that as many as ten percent of women died during childbirth or immediately afterwards. Not only did mothers die in large numbers, but as many as thirty percent of children died in the process of childbirth. In the face of these dangers, medieval people used a wide variety of charms and prayers in an attempt to improve their chances of a successful delivery.

The charm presented here was composed in England in the eleventh century CE and is an example of a “peperit charm”. The name comes from the Latin word peperit (“gave birth to”). This word occurs frequently in these charms, because they list the biblical women who gave birth to children. Indeed, a peperit charm can be identified by its sequence of holy mothers, one of the most widespread motifs in medieval childbirth charms. Typically, as is the case here, a peperit charm will invoke the names of holy mothers one by one. Some examples will contain other formulations, whether to add to the functions to the charm or to enhance its effects. This charm contains three additional features that can be found in other childbirth charms: an appeal to the unborn child to leave the womb; the account of Lazarus’s resurrection with its climactic words, “Lazarus, come forth!”; instructions for how to turn the prayer into an amulet that the laboring woman can wear on her body.

In the case of the Junius Peperit Charm, the instructions for turning the prayer into an amulet state that the charm should be written on wax that has never been used before and bound to the woman’s right foot. The requirement for unworked wax (also known as “virgin” wax) is interesting, seeming to emphasize the sacramental quality of the prayer. The instruction to attach the prayer to the pregnant woman's body suggests that there was a hope that she could connect with its content in an embodied way, drawing on its power to support her own body during childbirth.

In comparison to childbirth prayers, an example of which is presented in this collection https://sourcebook.stanford.edu/text/marston-childbirth-prayer, this charm has minimal narrative content, focusing instead on the invocation of biblical names. It is quite possible that this charm, or at least the first part of it, would have been repeatedly chanted during a woman's labor. Hearing the familiar names of biblical mothers might have served to calm and encourage the laboring woman, reassuring her that she too could deliver her child safely.

Citation: Anonymous. "Junius Childbirth Charm." Trans. Runqi Zhang. Global Medieval Sourcebook. http://sourcebook.stanford.edu/text/junius-childbirth-charm. Retrieved on August 1, 2023.