Guest Post - An interview with historian and author Stephanie Kline.
Hi Stephanie, and welcome to the Tudor Notebook. Stephanie’s second book ‘Raising the Tudors: Motherhood in sixteenth century England,’ has just been released. Thank you so much for agreeing to stop by today Stephanie, I’ve read your book and really enjoyed it.
Before we start could you tell us a little about yourself please.
Sure! I am a mom of two (a five year old boy and a three year old girl), a wife, and an office worker by day. My 'regular' job is in the information technology field, but my real love is history and writing. I'm lucky that I get to pursue my passion projects as time allows! We live in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
What first inspired your interest in history?
I've been interested in history (particularly British) since I was about 15. I'm really not sure what initially sparked the fascination, but I know it had something to do with many of the Tudor fiction novels that came out around that time. The Other Boleyn Girl was very popular around then, and when the movie came out I remember being absolutely enamored by Anne Boleyn's story and her relationship with Henry VIII. From there, I gained an interest in her daughter, Elizabeth I - and at that point I was hooked. I used to go into my high school history teacher's classroom early in the mornings before the bell rang, just so we could chat about British history. He didn't even teach British history, but he humored me. To this day, I credit those conversations with fanning the flame of my interest.
Why did you choose Tudor motherhood as the subject of your latest book?
Like many history lovers, I often look around at the things I'm doing in my modern life and think "What would this have looked like in the year xxxx?" For me, that time period is always the sixteenth century, because that's my area of interest. So particularly when I became a mom in 2020 (and again in 2022), I found myself wondering all the time how sixteenth-century mothers handled some of the same tasks that I now had. I wondered about it when I was rocking my babies in the middle of the night while my husband slept, while I was struggling with breastfeeding or dealing with sleep-deprivation. As I found so much joy in my babies and their milestones, I pictured the joy of a mother in the 1500s who was teaching her own child to walk, or listening to their first words. I just questioned everything about the parallels (because I'm a history nerd and that's what we do!). Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and I just had to write a book proposal. I was too fascinated by the idea of it and I couldn't find any books that looked really in depth at the entire life of the Tudor mother - from before conception all the way until after menopause. Since I couldn't find it to read, I decided to write it.
Can you tell us a bit about your book please.
It is just that: an in-depth look at the entire timeline of Tudor motherhood, from a young woman's transition into physical adulthood (i.e. menarche, or her first menstruation) until after she has reached menopause and ended her childbearing years. Everything in between is covered - from the ways the Tudors looked at and understood the female body, to how they viewed romantic love and marriage. From there, the processes of conception, pregnancy, and childbirth are all detailed - which include some pretty wild theories about how sixteenth-century individuals (and doctors!) understood these topics. Then the mothering years are covered, all the way from infancy to adulthood, and how a mother's role changed throughout the course of her children's lives. Subjects like diapering, sleeping, feeding, educating, chores, and playtime are all discussed - as well as plenty of focus on the 'typical' Tudor mother's daily life. Of course, attention is paid to the different levels of social standing - a wealthy, aristocratic (or even royal) mother was certainly not the same as the destitute single mother, or even the 'ordinary' mother married to a middle-class shopkeeper... so, at every possible opportunity, I have tried to account for the many changes and variables at play between different mothers' lives and in different corners of society. All in all, the book is a comprehensive look at the sixteenth-century woman's entire reproductive and mothering journey.
As I said, I read your book and really enjoyed it. In particular I enjoyed learning more about the four humours theory. Could you tell us a bit more about that, and why it was so important please? (To give our readers a brief taste of the sort of subjects you discuss)
For the Tudors, the Four Humors Theory was the basis of their medical understanding. Some of it sounds absolutely wild to us now in the modern age, but the idea of these four humors needing to be in balance within a human's body was really, really central to how they viewed physical health. The humors were identified as blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile - and depending on the individual person, the ratio of each of these humors might have been slightly different in order to constitute 'optimal' health. They were associated with a number of things - bodily temperature, mood and disposition, and even physical appearance. And they were 'balanced' or corrected by changing certain elements of one's lifestyle - such as their diet, physical activity, sleeping habits, and much more. This influenced the Tudors' way of understanding food, which I find really fascinating - because certain foods had particular qualities (like heat vs. cold, wetness vs. dryness) that directly impacted how well-balanced the four humors were within a person's body. It is really interesting stuff, and entire books can (and have been) written on the subject because it really is so complex. But for my purposes when writing this book: I chose to include a chapter on this theory because it sets up the sixteenth-century medical perspective - which of course, is necessary if we are to understand how these people viewed the female body, female health, and the process of conception and childbearing. It all felt very connected and applicable, and I learned so much myself!
You talk a lot about pregnancy portraits in your book, sort of the Tudor equivalent of a pregnancy photo shoot, do you have a favourite one from the Tudor period?
Yes, I really like the portrait of an unknown woman in white, painted by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger around 1595. I've included that portrait in my book because, although the woman's identity is not known, I just love the pride on her face. She's smiling directly at the viewer, while dressed in beautiful clothes that clearly show off her status. But it's her facial expression that really gets me because clearly pregnancy was such a point of pride for these women, just as it often is today. Of course, pregnancy can come with a variety of emotions and intricacies, but whatever the reason for this woman's smile (whether it was because she was genuinely thrilled to be expecting a baby or she was beaming with pride because she was giving her husband an heir), I love to see the humanity and relatability in the Tudor subjects I study and write about. For me, it's those glimpses of connection that I can feel with women who lived 500 years ago that makes all of this so fun and tangible.
You use a lot of primary sources, which one was most useful to you when writing the book?
Oh, I loved the midwifery manuals a lot - like The Midwives Book, written by Jane Sharp (even though it's from the seventeenth century). It provided such a great amount of detail about the understanding of pregnancy - how to determine the gender of an unborn baby, how to conduct oneself throughout pregnancy, how to know that labor was beginning, and of course, how to birth the baby. There was such a huge amount of detail in this book - and quite a few theories and dubious practices that were absolutely head-scratching. But that's the fun of this research! I'd say that would be my favorite source, closely followed by The Byrth of Mankynde, which was written in 1540 and published to huge popularity, as it had been the first book of its kind to circulate to such a wide range of people. Again, the level of detail in explaining a woman's body and what was going on during her pregnancy was absolutely fascinating. This book was a wealth of information and I referenced it daily for months of writing.
What was the most surprising fact you came across when writing your book?
Wow, there are too many to name. I think I was constantly shocked by some of the things the Tudors did (or said, or believed) about a huge number of topics in my research. One of the wildest things was probably the Wandering Womb theory, which I cover early on in the book as I'm setting up the sixteenth-century medical understanding of the female body. I was astounded to learn how pervasive this idea was - that a woman's uterus could actually float throughout her body and cause disease (or mood disorders!). The ways that doctors then encouraged the womb back into its correct place were just as wild - with vaginal fumigation or pessaries, as examples. Their whole understanding of this one vital female organ was so interesting, because they saw the uterus as actually being dangerous to a woman's health and needing to be 'controlled'. In some cases, the way a woman acted or felt physically was seen as being a direct correlation to what her uterus was doing (and thus causing her to do). In fact, the entire concept of a woman acting 'hysterically' is rooted in the Latin word hystera (for 'womb') - which shows just how interconnected medical professionals of the time thought the uterus was with the female mind.
What do you think the best and worst parts of Tudor motherhood would have been?
I was charmed to learn through my research that the best parts of Tudor motherhood were likely the same best parts that we experience in modern-day motherhood. I learned (much to my delight) that Tudor mothers often 'baby talked' to their infants the same way that we do, and that they laughed and were entertained by the silly things their babies and toddlers did as they were learning to walk, talk, and play. They snuggled and rocked their kids when they had nightmares or suffered from teething pain, and they kissed boo-boos and hugged their babies goodnight. I think so many of the joys of mothering are universal and transcend time periods - and that's exactly what I had hoped to find when writing this book. As for the worst parts of motherhood - I think that really depends on a woman's social class in the sixteenth century. For a poor woman - particularly an unmarried one - her options for a good life for herself and her child were virtually nonexistent. Tragically, many of the mothers in these situations turned to absolutely dire actions - like infanticide, which was extremely difficult for me to read and write about. I think it goes without saying that for those of lower status and little means, being a mother would have been very difficult in the sixteenth century. On the flip side, for a rich, noble, or royal woman, I'd assume one of the worst parts of motherhood would have likely been that she was nearly always pregnant. It was commonplace for women of higher status to almost constantly reproduce (largely because of the relatively high child mortality rate at the time). Some women in these circles might have been pregnant every other year for the entirety of their childbearing years - and can you imagine that?
What was the greatest challenge you faced when researching Tudor motherhood?
I love writing social history, but one of the biggest challenges when researching and writing about topics that span all of sixteenth-century society is that there's a notable deficit of written material for those of lower status. Most history is written about the people who were high-born, wealthy, and within the upper crusts of society. There's no shortage of written records for royal Tudor women's pregnancies, child nurseries, or nursery staff. There are plenty of letters that have been preserved between wealthy family members of well-known families, discussing so-and-so's pregnancy or young children. But so little exists for the people who were far down the social ladder, and that's an obvious limitation in my research. As much as possible, I tried to draw parallels between the wealthy Tudor mother and the poor Tudor mother - but in many cases, the information just wasn't there, and I had to infer and make some educated guesses. This is not a unique problem to my own research - it's well-known to anyone with a focus on social history (of any time period) that poor, ordinary people's lives were just not as well recorded (or preserved). I did the best I could with the limited resources available
Can you tell us your most memorable moment relating to your writing/history career?
My writing career is pretty short, as this is only my second published book! My first - a biography of Edward VI, titled Edward VI: Henry VIII's Overshadowed Son was published in 2023, and I'd say that has to be my most memorable highlight thus far. I earned my Master's Degree in Modern British and European History at the University of Oxford in 2015, but I never really thought I'd be writing history books - particularly because I chose not to go down the path of academia after graduation. So, stumbling into the world of writing was such a happy surprise, and holding my first published history book for the first time (seeing my name printed on the cover!) was a thrill I never really thought I'd have. I'm sure nothing will ever beat that moment and the realisation that I'm actually writing real history books that people want to read.
Are you working on anything at the moment? If so, can you spill the beans a little?
I am! I signed my third contract with Pen and Sword Books last Fall, and I've been writing this third history book for about six months now. I haven't announced the subject yet, but I'll be sharing about it very soon on social media... so, stay tuned!
Where can people find you?
I can be found on Facebook by searching 'The Tudor Enthusiast', and on Instagram @thetudorenthusiast - where I post relatively infrequently and only when I have something exciting to say! I'm also on X @TudorEnthusiast, where I post more frequent updates about my writing progress and occasional behind-the-scenes glimpses into my writing sessions and fun facts I'm learning along the way. Finally, my original blog and website The Tudor Enthusiast can be found at www.thetudorenthusiast.weebly.com - but be warned, I'm awful at updating it! There's a whole host of old blog posts from the last fourteen years there, but very little new content because, well, now I'm writing books. :)
Thank you so much for your time, your answers are really interesting. I highly recommend everyone go and buy this - it’s a fascinating and well reached book.