ANNALES DE DÉMOGRAPHIE HISTORIQUE 1989 Société de Démographie Historique - E.H.E.S.S., Paris, 1989.

BREAST FEEDING AND SEXUAL INTERCOURSE IN MEDIEVAL NORWAY

par Ole J0rgen BENEDICTOW *

I. — Introduction

S0lvi Sogner tries in a paper in ADH (1986) to prove that a taboo on sexual intercourse during the period of lactation was practised in médiéval Norway1. As such, the paper is a contribution to a current debate on the meaning of a provision in the earliest surviving Norwegian régional code of law (mainly eleventh century), the Borgarthing Law (south-eastern Norway)2. It is more specifically arguing against a paper we hâve written in a European and cross- cultural perspective on the subject of breast feeding, lactational amenorrhoea and infant mortality in médiéval Norway3. The ways Sogner goes about trying to make her points are, seen with the eyes of a trained Norwegian medievalist, so unconventional so as to call for a close analysis.

The provision under discussion runs as follows :

"No woman shall suckle her child longer than through two periods of fasting and until the third. If her husband tells her to take the child away from the breast but he is so henpecked [literally translated, "lives in such a woman's dominion"] that she ignores his words, then she shall be liable to a fine of three marks [of silver] from her own property. If he pays no more heed than she does [to this prohibition], then they shall both be liable to pay a fine of three marks from their properties4.

This provision clearly prohibits suckling of the same child through more than two periods of Lent fasting, setting an upper limit for the duration of breast feeding of 22,5-34,5 months. It has formerly been commented on by the légal historian Absalon Taranger, the ethnologist Lily Weiser-Aall and the légal historian Gudmund Sandvik, ail stressing that the crucial point was the