Monstrous birth

An early reference to monstrous birth is found in the apocryphal biblical text 2 Esdras, where it is linked to menstruation: "women in their uncleanness will bear monsters.

[5] Such explanations are found in many medieval literary texts, including Jean Maillart's fourteenth-century Roman du Comte Anjou and Geoffrey Chaucer's "Man of Law's Tale.

An illustration made its way to a Prague astrologer, who "discovered that the monster did indeed signify something terrible, indeed the most awful thing possible--Martin Luther.

[12] Luther's anti-papist pamphlet appeared together with a tract by Philipp Melanchthon[13] which discussed a fictional monster, the Pope-Ass, a hybrid between a man and a donkey supposedly found near Rome after the 1496 flood.

[14] Circulated in 1523, Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon's pamphlet was titled The Meaning of Two Horrific Figures, the Papal Ass at Rome and the Monk Calf Found at Freyberg in Meissen.

Variations of Luther and Melanchthon's pamphlet eventually were circulated, including one that depicted the Papal Ass and the Monk Calf in "an encounter between the two creatures.

Although the connections between a monstrous birth and improper maternal behavior were eventually dismissed by reliable authorities, a particularly late incident involving such allegations took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.