1. This paper arises out of a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship to study women's lives in medieval southern Italy, and a subsequent award made by the Wellcome Trust to study healthcare in the same area. I am grateful for the financial support received. It benefited from the comments made at the conference Parents and Children in the Middle Ages, held at King's College London in December 1994. My personal perceptions of modern day motherhood in the Mediterranean, which is only now beginning to change from an earlier pattern, were shaped by a period spent in Crete with my mother. This article is an acknowledgement of her continuing support for and huge influence on my work
2. C[odex] D[iplomaticus] C[ajetanus], I-II, [Montecassino, 1887, 1891), 348. (References to primary charter collections throughout cite the document, rather than the page, number.)