MS Ashmole 399, folios 14r-15r

The foetus-in-utero illustrations in Ashmole 399, a 13th-century English manuscript containing the nine-figure set, immediately follow a uterus diagram. The images compliment the texts inserted around the uterus, which contain recipes for aiding conception and childbirth.

For more on medical texts concerning women in the Middle Ages, particularly those in Ashmole 399, see Monica Green, 'From “Diseases of Women” to “Secrets of Women”: The Transformation of Gynaecological Literature in the Later Middle Ages’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 30:1 (Winter 2000), pp. 5-39.