Of the Dützbetterins, or Lying-in Women.
Of the Dützbetterins, or Lying-in Women.
HE xvth chapter is about the Dützbetterins.
These are the beggarwomen who
lay themselves before the churches all over
the country. They spread a sheet over themselves,
and set wax and eggs by them, as tho’ they were in
childbed, and say, their babe died xiiij days ago,
altho’ some of them have not had one these x or xx
years; and they are called Dützbetterins. To
these nothing is to be given,—causa: There lay once,
at Strasburg, a man underneath a sheet before the
cathedral, and it was pretended he was a woman in
childbed. But he was taken by the town serjeants,Pg 34
and put into a halsong, and in the pillory, and then
he was forbidden the country. There are likewise
some women who pretend they have been pregnant
with a monster and have brought forth such, as did
a woman who came to Pforzheim in the year one
thousand five hundred and nine. This same woman
said that a short time before she had given
birth to a child and a live toad; and that this very
toad she had carried to Our Lady at Einsiedeln,
where it was still alive, and that it must have a
pound of meat every day,—being kept at Einsiedeln
as a miracle. Thus she begs alms as if she were on
her way to Ach, to Our Lady. She had also a letter
with a seal, which was proclaimed from the pulpit.
The same woman, however, had a lusty young man
whom she kept in food by such villany, sitting in
an alehouse in the suburb waiting for her. All this
was found out by the gate-keeper; and they would
have been seized, but they had been warned and so
took themselves off. Nota: All this was utter
knavery.