ABSTRACT
As the essays in this volume demonstrate, the history of midwifery may be placed within a number of different frameworks-medical practice, women’s work, relations between women, women’s place in the community. In earlier studies, I chose to analyse midwifery within the context of women’s work, viewing it as women’s most important occupation and the one which offered them the greatest opportunity for independence.1 In this article, I would like to examine it from a slightly different perspective by exploring how midwifery fits in with what many historians perceive as a growing split during the period 1400 to 1700 between a male public and female private realm. As we shall see, at least in the south German towns that are the focus of this study, midwives continued to be public officials with a municipal salary throughout this period, though their primary responsibility was taking care of women within a private household setting. They thus appear to have maintained a position that bridged the gap between public and private, but changes in their status and role need to be explored more carefully to see if or how this ‘new division between personal and public life’ affected them.2
