ABSTRACT
The midwife's art produces natural forms as she is instructed to reform the backward birth from top to toe. At the same time, when the midwife mishandled an unnaturally positioned delivery she might end up deforming the newborn body. The midwife was expected to correct physiological defects and thus assist in the production of "natural" forms. Working from the teachings of Soranus and others that the midwife should swaddle the newborn and "mould every part according to its natural shape," early modern writers continued to pass this duty on to birthroom women. Damning treatments of the French midwife who not only assists but enacts deformity appeared with regularity in English texts following the Civil War—part of a larger backlash to the Catholic queens Henrietta Maria and Catherine of Braganza. Whereas the English text emphasizes the narrative production of Richard's body, More's Latin version brings the material acts of the midwife into the legend as well.
