Undergraduate Research at the Folger: The Birth of Mankinde

The Birth of Mankinde, Otherwise Named The Woman’s Booke stands as one of the most significant printed texts on childbirth and women’s medicine in early modern Europe. Originally written by the German physician Eucharius Rösslin as Der Swangern Frawen und Hebammen Rosengarten (The Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and Midwives) in 1513, it was first translated into English in 1540/1 and expanded on by Thomas Raynalde, an English physician, in 1545. Since the manual circulated during Shakespeare’s lifetime, it provides visual context to the ideas about childbirth and labor that shaped the world in which he wrote and lived. Other editions produced in the following years continued a long lineage of translations and reprintings that made the text a key part of early modern reproductive knowledge.¹

The book sits at an intersection between science and social instruction. On one hand, it sought to educate midwives and women about the physiology of childbirth, presenting new information once reserved for Latin medical scholars. On the other, it reinforced the gendered hierarchies of its time, granting women partial access to medical knowledge while maintaining male authority as the ultimate arbiter of reproductive expertise and guidance.  

The decision to print a manual on childbirth was radical for the sixteenth century. Midwifery had long been an oral and experiential tradition, passed down from woman to woman. The printed book disrupted that system, allowing men to insert themselves into a world that had been predominantly run by female knowledge. Raynalde’s English translation thus represents both a radicalization and domestication of knowledge. It made medical ideas about women’s bodies accessible to literate readers, mostly men, however it also translated women’s embodied experiences into a language controlled by male physicians. 

Each edition of The Birth of Mankinde included detailed woodcut illustrations that visualized anatomy, fetal positions, and famously, the birthing chair. These images provided instruction and offered a visual guide to what was otherwise hidden and private to most, especially men. In this 1604 edition, the woodcuts also reveal just how differently people in the early modern time period understood conception. The womb in these illustrations appear as a series of rounded chambers, as if pregnancy unfolded in separate chambers of the body. The fetus is drawn as a tiny fully formed child curled neatly, and, along with the pod-like ovaries, this highlights misunderstandings about women’s reproductive organs. These illustration also picture women as containers or incubators rather than humans. These visual assumptions about the female body would have shaped the views of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, informing how playgoers and readers would have understood and reacted to pregnancies in plays like Macbeth and The Winter’s Tale.  

By the early seventeenth century, The Birth of Mankinde had become a staple across Europe. Midwives, mothers, and curious men, could read its contents, bringing medical knowledge into the home and making it a part of everyday life. Two related materials found in the Folger Shakespeare Library reveal the text’s enduring influence. In the pamphlet To Dr. —— An Answer to His Queries Concerning the Colledg of Midwives (Folger C1663), Elizabeth Cellier argues passionately for the ability of women as medical practicioners. Drawing on biblical and classical writings, Cellier defends midwifery as an ancient art practiced and learned by women long before the rise of male physicians. This document stands in conversation with Raynaldes, highlighting the cultural tension between lived female expertise and the emerging dominance of male-authored medical texts.

Another important text preserved by the Folger is that of The Complete Midwifes Practice Enlarged (Folger C99.2), containing instruction from the midwife to Queen Marie de Medici of France, Louise Bourgeois Boursiers. Bourgeois Boursier’s work shares her practical experience and compassionate instruction, offering real insight drawn directly from her practice rather than academics. Her writing offers a rare female-authored perspective on childbirth, which balances Raynalde’s strictly medical tone.

To modern readers, The Birth of Mankinde reveals the contradictions of early modern medicine. It claimed to empower women by offering practical knowledge about pregnancy and birth, yet it often undermined their authority by framing them as subjects of observation rather than givers of life and participants in the birthing process. The title itself, “The Woman’s Booke” suggests inclusion, but the contents reflect a world in which women’s health was increasingly regulated by men trained in classical and university medicine. Nonetheless, the text also preserves traces of women’s voices. Descriptions of midwives’ practices, home remedies, and childbirth rituals reveal an enduring tradition beneath the medicalized surface. The book’s popularity ensured that these forms of knowledge, part practical, part experiential, remained in circulation long after new scientific information emerged. 

Viewed as a whole, The Birth of Mankinde is more than a medical manual, it is a mirror of early modern society’s efforts to understand and control the mysteries of life itself. Its woodcuts expose the intersections of gender, authority, and knowledge at a pivotal moment in print culture. The copy held at the Folger Shakespeare Library offers a rare glimpse into how this text was read, annotated, and reimagined across generations. In an exhibition on Shakespeare’s world, The Woman’s Booke would speak powerfully to Shakespeare’s themes of birth, creation, and the human condition, reminding us that the act of bringing forth life has always been both a physical and a cultural story.