themselves in need of charity, had wet nurses, then these wet nurses surely
could not have earned much.
Mother or Wet Nurse?We have examined some of the terms that regulated the employment of wet
nurses in medieval society. These detailed terms, as well as the frequency with
which wet nurses are mentioned in the sources, demonstrate that wet nursing
was a widespread practice. It is impossible to assess to what extent Jewish fami-
lies hired wet nurses, especially since halakhic responsa are our main source for
examining this issue. These sources discuss cases in which there were problems;
it is impossible to evaluate to what extent they represent the quotidian reality.
Nevertheless, the many discussions of difficulties that arose when employing
wet nurses demonstrate that hiring a wet nurse was a widespread practice.
Other than the general guidelines described above, many of which are based
on talmudic principles, there is little discussion in the Ashkenazic sources of
whether or not the practice of hiring wet nurses was a good or desired one. Ex-
plicit instructions that maternal breast-feeding is superior to hired help appear
only in Jewish sources from Spain and Italy. This is not surprising, as this ad-
vice is found in medical tractates written in Italy and Spain; such tracts were
almost nonexistent in medieval Ashkenaz.^77 Although we have little unequiv-
ocal evidence in the sources, I would suggest that the Jews in Ashkenaz, like
their counterparts in Spain and Italy, and like their Christian neighbors, be-
lieved that maternal breast-feeding was preferable.^78 The importance attrib-
uted to maternal nursing derived from the common belief that breast milk not
only gave nourishment, but also passed on personality traits. Therefore, in the-
ory, when hiring a wet nurse, it was important not only to ensure that she was
healthy and that her milk was plentiful, but also that she was of solid charac-
ter. Nevertheless, wet nursing was quite common, and, in reality, more atten-
tion was paid to the nutrition of wet nurses than to their personalities. R. Isaac
b. Moses, for example, quotes the Talmud, which emphasizes the importance
of proper nutrition and provides a list of foods considered unhealthy for wet
nurses. These include pumpkins, quince, unripe dates, small fish, lichen, and
earth.^79
Another way to learn about the importance attributed to maternal breast-
feeding is by examining stories popular among Jews and Christians that dis-
cussed the employment of wet nurses, as well as cases in which infants refused
to nurse from them. Many of these stories discuss the births and lives of heroes
and saints. For example, the Jewish sources discuss the infancy of Moses. Ac-
cording to the Talmud and the Midrash, Moses refused to nurse from Egypt-
ian women: “Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter: Shall I go and get you
a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you?” (Exod. 2:7). The medieval Jew-
ish commentators explain: “Why did Miriam say ‘a Hebrew nurse’? Couldn’t