Description
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, western European cities began to enact robust regulations concerning the training and licensure of midwives. The city of Amsterdam refined its bureaucratic procedures for midwife licensure earlier than other European locales, and all prospective midwives – including Jews – were required to register in the Collegium Obstetricum from 1668 onward. Midwives had to attend anatomy lectures, report their apprenticeships, and pass a comprehensive examination. Although individual Jewish midwives often went through standard municipal procedures to gain admittance to the profession, Jewish communities had their own internal methods of regulating midwives and ensuring that members of the community received appropriate care from them. The event of birth, and ensuring a positive outcome for both mother and child, was of prime concern to the lay leadership, which was responsible for hiring a midwife or midwives to serve the community. Because of this heightened sensitivity towards midwifery in Amsterdam, communal registers from the Ashkenazic (Hoogduitse) kehillah emphatically state that it is the responsibility of the community to supply enough midwives to serve all birthing women. In the following entries from the community’s pinkas, lay officials appoint additional midwives to address the community’s growing population. These entries divide midwives’ roles by street, with each midwife responsible for a discrete area. The inclusion of this rubric suggests the importance of geography among Jews in eighteenth-century Amsterdam as well as the community’s keen awareness of its location within an urban landscape. In addition to this, birth records kept by one Amsterdam midwife in the earlier half of the century frequently record streets or neighborhoods where births took place, reinforcing this sense of place and the importance of a mental cartography for the midwife as she went about her work. This impulse to record geographical information may have taken cues from the midwife records submitted to the Collegium Obstetricum, to which stadsvroedvrouwen (municipal midwives) and their advanced students were required to supply birth lists at least every three months.
Start Date
16-8-2018 11:00 AM
End Date
16-8-2018 12:00 PM
Included in
Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Social History Commons
Mapping with Midwives: Sources about Jewish Midwives in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, western European cities began to enact robust regulations concerning the training and licensure of midwives. The city of Amsterdam refined its bureaucratic procedures for midwife licensure earlier than other European locales, and all prospective midwives – including Jews – were required to register in the Collegium Obstetricum from 1668 onward. Midwives had to attend anatomy lectures, report their apprenticeships, and pass a comprehensive examination. Although individual Jewish midwives often went through standard municipal procedures to gain admittance to the profession, Jewish communities had their own internal methods of regulating midwives and ensuring that members of the community received appropriate care from them. The event of birth, and ensuring a positive outcome for both mother and child, was of prime concern to the lay leadership, which was responsible for hiring a midwife or midwives to serve the community. Because of this heightened sensitivity towards midwifery in Amsterdam, communal registers from the Ashkenazic (Hoogduitse) kehillah emphatically state that it is the responsibility of the community to supply enough midwives to serve all birthing women. In the following entries from the community’s pinkas, lay officials appoint additional midwives to address the community’s growing population. These entries divide midwives’ roles by street, with each midwife responsible for a discrete area. The inclusion of this rubric suggests the importance of geography among Jews in eighteenth-century Amsterdam as well as the community’s keen awareness of its location within an urban landscape. In addition to this, birth records kept by one Amsterdam midwife in the earlier half of the century frequently record streets or neighborhoods where births took place, reinforcing this sense of place and the importance of a mental cartography for the midwife as she went about her work. This impulse to record geographical information may have taken cues from the midwife records submitted to the Collegium Obstetricum, to which stadsvroedvrouwen (municipal midwives) and their advanced students were required to supply birth lists at least every three months.
