Negotiating Childlessness in the Middle Ages: Stories of Desired, Refused, and Regretted Parenthood

by Regina Toepfer

This book examines the ways in which people wrote about and engaged with infertility in the German Middle Ages. Striking differences emerge across the vernacular stories, legends, and romances concerned. For some, childlessness is a huge problem, for others, a high ideal. Regina Toepfer considers the reasons for these differences, and how ideas changed over the period, revealing different narrative patterns that shape stories of childlessness right...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 180270244X
• ISBN13: 9781802702446
• Release Date: January 2025
• Publisher: ARC Humanities Press
• Length: 230 Pages