On the Purification of Women

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction

   • Paula M. Rieder

   Pages 1-11

3. Cum Lumine et Oblatione: The Origins of Churching in France

   • Paula M. Rieder

   Pages 13-37

4. Ob Honorem Sacramenti Matrimonii: The Redefinition of Churching

   • Paula M. Rieder

   Pages 39-59

5. Quia Pollutae et Peccatrices Erant: Churching as Purification

   • Paula M. Rieder

   Pages 61-79

6. Salvam Fac Famulam Tuam, Domine: The Liturgical Ritual of Churching

   • Paula M. Rieder

   Pages 81-103

7. Si Vero Mulier Gravi Infirmitate: Churching and Childbirth

   • Paula M. Rieder

   Pages 105-121

8. Toute Bonne Femme: Churching as a Women’s Rite

   • Paula M. Rieder

   Pages 123-145

9. Le Jour de la Feste: Churching, Honor, and Social Order

   • Paula M. Rieder

   Pages 147-163

10. Epilogue and Conclusion

    • Paula M. Rieder

    Pages 165-171

11. Back Matter

    Pages 173-257

    PDF

This book is a social history of the ritual and custom of churching, a liturgical rite of purification after childbirth performed on a woman's first visit to church after giving birth. The book describes the development of the rite from its original meaning as a response to blood pollution to its redefinition as a rite that honoured marriage.

• France
• history
• marriage
• social history
• women

"An important part of the success of Rieder's study is her emphasis on the possiblities for women to take a seemingly prescriptive ceremony and imbue it with their own meanings....Rieder successfully insists on the alternative meanings of churching." - Medieval Feminist Forum"Paula M. Rieder's learned, careful book examining the ritual reincorporation of postpartum mothers into the parishes of medieval France offers a useful corrective to the broad generalizations about churching, a topic that has become visible only recently.....Certainly, the book offers a useful model for the kind of painstaking research that is needed to fully understand the churching of women in medieval Europe." - The American Historical Review

"In her investigation of the rite of churching that dates to the early Middle Ages, Rieder sheds light on a custom that influenced medieval attitudes and values and reinforced the social order. The approach the author takes is interdisciplinary, consistent with the general thrust of the new series, and, therefore, the work is of interest to specialists in gender studies and to sociologists, as well as historians." - The European Legacy

PAULA RIEDER is Assistant Professor at University of Nebraska, USA.

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