27 August 2026
The Ritual of Churching of Women after Childbirth in Denmark, 1500–1965
A Woman’s Rite explores the long-hidden history of churching after childbirth in Denmark (1500–1965), tracing its development from late medieval origins through its Lutheran reinvention, and offering new insights into women’s everyday lives, their religiosity, and experience of bodily regulation, and into broader conceptions of gender, ritual, and the shaping of social order across centuries, to enrich current debates on the ‘Long Reformation’.
Author: Mette Maria Ahlefeldt-Laurvig
