- Menah·em Ibn Zerah·, Sefer Z·edah laDerekh, part 1, rule 3, chapter 14.
46.R. Judah b. Nathan, Perush Masekhet Yevamot leRabbenu Yehuda ben Nathan, ed. Efraim
Kupfer (Jerusalem, 1977), 42b, s.v., “Memasmasa” as well as Rashi’s comment ad locum. - R. Solomon b. Isaac, Responsa Rashi, no. 217.
- An additional method used to determine the duration of breast-feeding by demographers is
the spacing of children. Unfortunately, the surviving documentation for medieval Jewish com-
munities does not enable us to reach an unequivocal conclusion. See introduction, pp. 18–19. - This practice is one of the reasons it is so difficult to distinguish between nannies and wet
nurses in medieval Latin sources, as the word nutrixserves for both functions: Grieco, “Breast-
Feeding,” 36–38; Valerie Fildes, Wet Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present(New York,
1988), 44. - Klapisch-Zuber, “Blood Parents,” 144–45.
- Grieco, “Breast-Feeding,” 45–47; DeMaitre, “Idea of Childhood,” 474.
- R. Menah·em Ibn Zerah·, supra n. 6; R. Moses of Couçy, Semag, negative commandment
no. 81: “And she nurses him/her until s/he is twenty-four months old, and it is the same for male
and for female.”
53.For Christian society, see: Shah·ar, Childhood, 60–65; McLaughlin, “Survivors and Surro-
gates,” 115–16; Shah·ar, “Infants, Infant Care,” 288–91, 296–98. For Jewish sources, see Ketub-
bot 5:8; R. Moses b. Maimon, Mishne Torah, Hilkhot Ishut, ch. 21, nos. 5–6, who states that if a
woman has two servants she need not nurse her children. Some texts reveal an interesting twist on
this principle. It was customary that if a woman came from a family where women did not nurse
their children, even if the man she married was not wealthy, she should not have to nurse her own
children. Rashi, Ketubbot 61a, s.v. “DeLav orh·a.” - Klapisch-Zuber, supra, n. 9.
- We have no sources that provide a full description of these relationships from medieval
Ashkenaz. A fascinating demonstration of the consequences of these social circumstances in early
modern Italy can be found in Kathy Beller, Jews before the Modenese Inquisition: 1600–1645,
Ph.D. Diss., Haifa University, (Haifa, 2002). I thank the author for sharing her findings with me. - Christiane Klapisch-Zuber discusses legal contracts in Christian society between the in-
fant’s family and the wet nurse’s husband. See “Blood Parents,” 143–53, 159. I do not know of
any extant contracts from medieval Ashkenaz. Kenneth Stow discusses one such contract from
sixteenth-century Rome (Jews in Rome(Leiden, New York, and Köln, 1995), 1: case 952). - R. Eliezer b. Nathan, Sefer Even haEzer. Sefer Ra’avan(Jerusalem, 1984), no. 294.
- BT Bava Kama, 116b; Bava Mez·i’a 10a.
- This source appeared in Moshe Weinberger, “Teshuvot H·akhmei Ashkenaz,” in Sefer
haZikaron leRabbi Yaacov Bez·alel Zolty, ed. Joseph Boxbaum (Jerusalem, 1987), 250. My thanks
to Dr. Rami Reiner who referred me to this source. - Although the source does not explicitly state that the wet nurse was Jewish, I would suggest
that, as the question is directed to a religious authority, this must be the case. - R. Asher b. Yeh·iel, Shut haRosh, rule 17, no. 7.
- See rule 53, no. 2. This similarity applies to Christian Europe as a whole (with the excep-
tion of Iceland). Shah·ar, Childhood, 60–63. - Klapisch-Zuber demonstrated that in mid-fourteenth-century Florence, the average period
that an infant stayed with a wet nurse was ten months. See “Blood Parents,” 145. - Mordekhai, Ketubbot, no. 289; Yevamot, no. 3.
- This emerges from Ra’avan’s discussion of the issue, supra n. 57.
- For example: R. Meir b. Barukh, Shut Maharam(Prague edition), no. 863; Sefer Or Zaru’a,
1: no. 740. - For Christian Society, see Klapisch-Zuber, “Blood Parents,” 145–47. For Jewish cases, see
above, pp. 129–30. - R. Solomon ben Aderet, She’elot uTeshuvot, 1: no. 723.
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