will now turn to examine one last figure, the mother of the infant, before ad-
dressing this more general context.
the motherOne figure is remarkable in her absence from all the sources examined to this
point—the mother of the newborn. Aside from a comment in a fourteenth-
century source regarding her ineligibility in deciding who would be the ba’al
brit,^92 she has not been mentioned.^93 We must ask where she was and what
part she took in the circumcision ceremony. The source that describes the
mother’s presence most explicitly is also one of the latest sources included in
our discussion. R. Jacob Mulin reports that the mother remained at home. He
discusses the ba’al/at brit, who “takes the infant from the parturient to bring
him to the synagogue.”^94 The fact that the mother remained at home is also
noted in other fifteenth- and sixteenth-century sources, some of which will be
discussed in the next chapter.^95
One must ask, however, whether the parturient stayed at home throughout
the Middle Ages or whether this was a late medieval change. The descriptions
of the circumcision ceremony that appear in the Gaonic sources as well as in
Mah·zor Vitry mention that it was customary to let the mother drink from the
wine that was blessed during the ceremony. This custom was often accompa-
nied by another custom—the sprinkling of wine on the infant. In Gaonic
times, these actions were preceded by two blessings in Aramaic for the health
of mother and child.^96 The Ashkenazic sources report sprinkling the child with
wine, and some sources report letting the mother drink from the wine, but
these Aramaic prayers were no longer recited.^97 Additional Ashkenazic sources
from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries also mention the mother drinking
from the wine. From the description of the ceremony proceedings, it seems
that the mother drank from the wine at more or less the same time as the baby
was sprinkled with it. The description of the ceremony does not differentiate
between her and the baby receiving the wine. This would seem to imply that
she was present at the ceremony and that a change occurred between the
twelfth century, when Mah·zor Vitry was compiled, and the fifteenth century,
when the Maharil spoke of the mother being at home.
An alternative solution might be that the wine was brought to the mother
at home. Many of the sources state that the wine was sent to the mother, using
the verb leshager.^98 R. Jacob the Circumciser says the wine is sent to the
mother (lishloah·).^99 Both of these verbs could refer to the sending of the cup
to the women’s section or, alternatively, out of the synagogue. The Maharil’s
book of customs, for example, quotes R. Isaac Or Zaru’a and says that the
cup is sent to the mother; we know that the custom in the period of the Ma-
haril was that the woman remain at home.^100 This argument is strengthened
by another halakhic issue. There is a discussion in the sources of what to do
with wine used for circumcision ceremonies that took place on fast days.^101