the difference between Jewish and Christian explanations of the postpartum rit-
ual. While the Jews explained their ritual as an act of atonement and thanksgiv-
ing, Christians explained churching as a ceremony of purification, atonement,
and thanksgiving. In my opinion, the difference here is telling. Purification, an
element clearly related to Mary, and devotion to her, was unconsciously sepa-
rated from the atonement and thanksgiving of the Jewish ritual.^103 The timing
of the ritual immersion was, of course, based on biblical instructions in Leviti-
cus, but the break between the Sabbath ritual and the immersion created a dis-
tance between the Jewish and Christian ritual. The most visible difference be-
tween the two was the absence of a candle-bearing procession in the Jewish
ritual. Of course, Jews could not have included candles in a ritual conducted on
the Sabbath, but the exclusion of candles contributed to the distinction.
An alternative argument might be that, as our earliest information on the
developed Jewish Sabbath ritual dates only from the fifteenth century, this cus-
tom might have gained popularity in Jewish society mainly after the Reforma-
tion and after Marian devotion lost some (though far from all) of its impor-
tance. This argument is for the moment inconclusive. Although we have no
sources concerning the Jewish Sabbath ritual before the fifteenth century, it is
impossible to determine when the ritual began. It may well have had ante-
cedents in medieval times. The first descriptions of the ritual appear before the
Reformation and at about the same time as the texts on changes in the obser-
vance of the laws of impurity after birth and the discussions on the question of
the presence of the mother at the circumcision ritual. When they are first men-
tioned in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century documents, all three issues—the
appearance of the postpartum ritual in the sources, the change in postpartum
purity laws, and the clear evidence that the mother of the infant was not at the
circumcision ritual—seem to have been fairly new. The evidence, however, is
far from conclusive. In addition, although historians have pointed to changes
in the view of Mary after the Reformation, Mary was still central in Protestant
theology. As Susan Karant-Nunn, who studied churching in Germany, has ar-
gued, this component cannot be easily dismissed.^104 Further study of medieval
Jewish attitudes toward Marian devotion, as well as components of Jewish prac-
tice related to Marian devotions are fascinating subject that that remain, how-
ever, beyond the scope of this study.
Chapters 2 and 3 have demonstrated how a careful analysis of birth rites can
facilitate a better understanding of the social context in which they were per-
formed. Furthermore, our study demonstrates the benefits of studying Jewish
and Christian rituals together. The Sabbath ritual, as well as the Hollekreisch
and the Wachnacht, were part of a complex of rituals that demonstrate the im-
portance attributed to birth and the social process undergone by the family of
the newborn. They also attest to the practices of the community in accepting
a new member into their midst and in receiving the mothers back into the reg-