This illustration from the late 12th century shows a woman spinning, taking the wool from her distaff and winding it around the spindle. Not shown here is a baby in a cradle at her feet. Multi-tasking like this has been part and parcel for women throughout history: we have led busy lives. While much women’s work in the Middle Ages would have felt like drudgery, at least spinning could be a time of talk and relaxation as well. It is this typical past-time of women that the male author of _The Distaff Gospels_ showcases in his work from the 15th-century. He can’t quite approach his subject — the secret conversations that women have when gathered together — without making fun of his subjects. The women/distaffs are the Evangelists, and their “Gospel” frequently portrays them as overly chatty, overly carnal, and overly emotional. But he also records what were likely very real traditions of and thoughts about peasant domestic life in north-western Europe. One of the most poignant pieces of advice is given to a pregnant woman who has been beaten or trampled by her husband. (This was perfectly legal.) The baby “will deliver easily” if she does the following: “she must get one of the shoes with which the husband trampled on her and drink from that shoe.” On the other hand, the following passage made me laugh — it is advice for a woman “with sore breasts.:” “the only thing she needs is for her husband to make three circles around them with his member, and without any doubt, she will be cured.” — Got that, ladies? There is an excellent English edition edited and translated by Madeline Jeay and Kathleen Garay, published by Broadview.
