Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: The Birth of Julius Caesar (Commentaires de Cesar)
  • Creator: Master of the London Wavrin
  • Description: This manuscript page depicts the birth of Julius Caesar by Caesarean section. Unlike illustrations of Caesar’s birth from the fourteenth century, this illumination does not feature any midwives, and thus does not possess the intimate character prevalent in earlier examples of this scene. Instead the midwives and their helpers are replaced by male surgeons, and the atmosphere of the birthing chamber is that of a public event and a classroom. The eye of the viewer is primarily drawn to the medical aspects of this picture. The operating table and the cool expressions on the faces of the surgeons make this scene feel more like a dissection than a birth. One of the surgeons standing over Caesar’s mother drags a long, sharp knife down her abdomen while the surgeon beside him calmly draws the infant Caesar out of the bloody cavity of his mother’s stomach. Neither of these men appears to be disturbed by the violent and gruesome actions they are carrying out. Meanwhile, an older surgeon with white hair and beard points at the baby from across the room and speaks to a man behind him who appears to be listening to his instructions. None of these male surgeons acknowledge or lament the blatant pain on the gasping mother’s face. Rather, they observe the Caesarean procedure with the detached and professional eye befitting their profession. Caesarean birth was promoted by the Church beginning in the late thirteenth century in order to ensure the salvation of infant souls. Doctors and midwives, as well as lay people in general, were instructed to "cut out" living infants when mothers died in childbirth and baptize them immediately.
  • Source: British Library
  • Rights: Public Domain
  • Subject (See Also): Caesarean Birth Childbirth Gynecology Infants Mothers Physicians Surgeons Surgery
  • Geographic Area: France and Low Countries
  • Century: 15
  • Date: 1473-1476
  • Related Work: Bellum Gallicum (Les commentaires de Cesar): http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=7979&CollID=16&NStart=160708
  • Current Location: London, British Library, Royal 16 G VIII, f. 32r
  • Original Location: France, N. (Lille) and Netherlands, S. (Bruges?)
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital Images; Manuscript illuminations
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Vellum (parchment); Paint
  • Donor: Jean Duchesne (or Du Quesne), scribe and translator, addressed the manuscript to Charles the Bold (b. 1433, d. 1477), duke of Burgundy
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 39.5 cm/28.5 cm/
  • Inscription:
  • Related Resources: Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean Birth in Medieval and Renaissance Culture, Cornell University Press, Ithica, New York, 1990, pgs. 74-77, 86