Lactation and Plague...?

I found this marvelous book called Medieval and Renaissance Lactations. So first things first, go to Amazon and stock up on a few copies for baby showers.

I'm using one chapter of this book for my research called "Mother London and the Madonna Lactans in England's Plague Epic," by Rebecca Totaro and it's full of great stuff. It talks a lot about the decreasing frequency of plague outbreak right at the end of the 16th century, and the few really bad years of plague right after James' accession (1603-11). His coronation was literally postponed because there was a really bad plague outbreak in London in the summer of 1603.

The reactions people had were pretty understandable. They felt like they'd been making a lot of medical and religious progress during Elizabeth's reign, and for the plague to come back in full force right after her death and James' accession really rattled everyone. They thought a lot about whether England's religious reforms might be wrong, and that God was angry with their belief that they could even attempt to assign scientific meaning to the plague.  

Totaro explains the artistic reaction to these feelings: the "plague epic." What she calls the plague epic, is a versified account and exploration of plague epidemics. Compared to 16th century representations, which were mainly prosaic and focused on documentation, the plague epic is set in heroic verse that mourns England's losses. A prominent figure in many of these works is Mother London, "a new kind of hero, a model for how to suffer through and survive the plague" (151). She is designed (according to Totaro) to represent all Christians and to posit moral reform, and the destruction that will result if no reform is made.

Totaro then compares this image of Mother London to the Catholic iconography of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding (the Madonna Lactans). This link is really interesting, because it expresses all the doubt that the English people suddenly felt about Protestantism, and the resurgence of some Catholic ideas as a result.

Anyway, super interesting essay. This is a great book, and she makes all sorts of references to Elizabeth's self-fashioning, legislative history, etc. A lot of the other essays deal with wider European issues, but this one has some killer footnotes on all sorts of things, so let me know if you want to take a look.

Totaro, Rebecca. "Mother London and the Madonna Lactans in England's Plague Epic." Ed. Jutta G. Sperling. Medieval and Renaissance Lactations: Images, Rhetorics, Practices. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Limited, 2013. 147-64. Print.