Mothers and Children. Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe - Elisheva Baumgarten

88. R. Jacob Mulin, Sefer Maharil, Hilkhot Mila, no. 22, comment no. 3, “for it is the way of
    women to help their husbands to bring him [the infant] to the synagogue and then her husband
    takes from her.”


89. It is hard to determine whether the Maharam’s instructions became common practice be-
    fore the fifteenth century. While some sources from the fourteenth century refer to the ba’alat brit
    consistently as the wife of the ba’al brit, they do not provide many details as to her tasks. See, for
    example, R. Moses Parnas, Sefer he Parnas, no. 237.
    90.Sefer Leket Yosher, 2:52.


90. Compare: Grossman, Pious and Religious, 321–24.


91. See. p. 68.


92. Some scholars have suggested that the ba’alat brit mentioned in these sources was the
    mother (see, for example, Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 196–97). I think, however, that the
    sources clearly show that the ba’alat brit, like the ba’al brit, was not the infant’s parent.


93. R. Jacob Mulin, Sefer Maharil, Hilkhot Mila, no. 22, comment 3.


94. See pp. 101–5.
    96.Seder R. Amram Gaon, 180.


95. For example: Mah·zor Vitry, no. 506; Sefer Or Zaru’a, 2: no. 107.


96. Ibid.
    99.Zikhron Brit, 111.


97. It is possible that Maharil is simply quoting the Or Zaru’a, even if this was not the custom
    at his time. Other custom books from the period do not mention sending the cup of wine to the
    mother.


98. Israel M. Ta-Shma, “Birkhot haMila al haKos beTish’a beAv,” Early Franco-German Rit-
    ual and Custom, 327–35; Daniel Sperber, “Al Hashka’t haYayin biVrit Hamila”; Milet, 1(1983),
    221–7; Idem, Minhagei Yisrael(Jerusalem, 1989), 1;60–66.


99. Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 252, discusses the circumcision when it took place
    at home. He writes that the wine was sent to another room for the mother. It is difficult, however,
    to know how this worked when the ceremony took place in the synagogue.
    103.Mah·zor Vitry, no. 499. For recent research on this point, see Jeffrey Robert Woolf, “Me-
    dieval Models of Purity and Sanctity: Ashkenazic Women in the synagogue,” in Purity and Holi-
    ness: The Heritage of Leviticus, eds. M.J.H.M. Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz (Leiden, Boston, and
    Köln, 2000), 263–80, as well as Israel M. Ta-Shma,“Synagogal Sanctity—Symbolism and Reality,”
    in Knesset Ezra. Literature and Life in the Synagogue. Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer, eds. Shu-
    lamith Elizur et al. (Jerusalem, 1994), 351–64 [in Hebrew].
    104.Mah·zor Vitry, 612.


100. The reasons for this change are discussed in greater detail in chapter 3.


101. This is clear in discussions on when women should wash themselves after birth. See Baum-
     garten, “Midwives,” 69, as well as Barkai, Les infortunes de Dinah, 236.


102. R. Moses of Zurich, Semak of Zurich, 2: commandment 154, no. 77.


103. R. Joseph b. Moses, Sefer Leket Yosher, 2:52. The term kvattertakes on a new explanation
     in the fifteenth century when R. Jacob Mulin explains that the kvatter is called by this name be-
     cause of a play on the words kvatter and k’toret(incense). He compares the kvatter to someone
     burning incense before God (Sefer Maharil, Hilkhot Mila, no. 1). The term kvatter is, however,
     the German gevatter.


104. Hermann von der Hardt, in discussing the circumcision ceremony, calls the ba’alei brit
     co-parents (Juris Judaeorum canonici prodromus, de circumcisione(Helmstadt, 1700), 79–84).


105. Lynch, “Spiritale Vinculum,” 181–204.


106. Supra. n. 25.


107. van Molle, “Fonctions du parrainage,” 12; Lynch, Godparenthood, 305–22.
     113.Sefer Or Zaru’a, 2: no. 107.


108. The instruction not to honor the same person as ba’al brit more than once is made by SHB,

212 NOTES TO CHAPTER 2