mekho’ar(ugly). His language is especially sharp, in that he advises anyone who
fears the Lord to leave the sanctuary. These statements suggest that the change
was not readily accepted, perhaps especially by women. After all, birth was an
exceptional arena dominated by women; perhaps some of them saw circum-
cision as an extension of their responsibilities toward the child.
In light of these sources and our discussion of the role of the male ba’al brit,
I would suggest that the role of the ba’alei brit became widespread in Ashke-
naz during the tenth and eleventh centuries. The task was allotted to men or
women and was called by the general term ba’al brit, regardless of the gender
of the person who held the baby. Sometimes the ba’al brit was a man and some-
times a woman, but both options were common. The task comprised many
roles and might be shared by several persons—washing and dressing the in-
fant, taking him to the synagogue and holding him during the ceremony. The
distinction between the ba’al brit and the ba’alat brit became more pro-
nounced as objections to women’s holding of infants in the synagogue grew.
Although it is impossible to pinpoint the first objections, as there might have
been an underlying dissatisfaction or discomfort with this custom throughout
the Middle Ages, these protests became more audible during the thirteenth
century, with the objections of R. Meir and others.
The changes in female involvement in the ritual may account for the wide
variety of roles linked with the ba’alei brit in the fragments that have reached
us. R. Jacob the Circumciser’s account of the ritual, in which the ba’alat brit
is the wife of the ba’al brit, marks the beginning of a period in which this be-
came her accepted role in the ceremony, once she was no longer allowed into
the male part of the sanctuary. In addition, the fourteenth-century sources’ in-
sistence that the prerogative of bestowing the honor of ba’al brit was that of the
men, testifies both to women’s desire to be part of the ritual process and the
struggle around the appointing of a ba’al brit.
This desire is hardly surprising if we remember that during this period of the
baby’s life he was in the sole care of women. Women took care of him from
birth to the circumcision ceremony and they resumed caring for him imme-
diately after the circumcision ritual. R. Meir of Rothenburg and others wanted
participants to be male, perhaps in order to emphasize the male character of
the ritual. In a comment made by R. Jacob Mulin, the separation of the male
circumcision space from the female birth space is conveyed very clearly:
Our teacher R. Jacob Segel said: Maharam [R. Meir of Rothenburg] declared that
the woman who is a ba’alat brit, and takes the infant from the parturient to carry
him to the synagogue to be circumcised, should bring him to the entrance of the
synagogue but should not enter to be a sandek and have the child circumcised on
her lap. For it is an act of immodesty for a woman to walk among men. And he
said that certain people who were chosen as sandikin, but whose wives were not
with them, go themselves to bring the child from the parturient. But he [Maharil]