Editing Caul (section)

==Folk traditions==
According to [[Aelius Lampridius]], the boy-emperor [[Diadumenian]] (208–218) was so named because he was born with a [[diadem]] formed by a rolled caul.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}}

In medieval times, the appearance of a caul on a newborn baby was seen as a sign of good luck.<ref>{{cite web |first=Vikki |last=Campion |date=2008-12-31 |url=http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24857363-5001021,00.html |title=Dolores Pancaldi's birth in protective membrane |work=The Daily Telegraph |via=News.com.au |access-date=2011-10-15 }}</ref> It was considered an [[omen]] that the child was destined for greatness. Gathering the caul onto paper was considered an important tradition of childbirth: the midwife would rub a sheet of paper across the baby's head and face, pressing the material of the caul onto the paper. The caul would then be presented to the mother, to be kept as an [[heirloom]]. Some Early Modern European traditions linked caul birth to the ability to defend fertility and the harvest against the forces of evil, particularly witches and sorcerers.{{efn|The story of these so-called [[benandanti]] is recounted in [[Carlo Ginzburg]]'s 1983 study.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ginzburg |first1=Carlo |translator-last1=Tedeschi |translator-first1=John |translator-last2=Tedeschi |translator-first2=Anne |author1-link=Carlo Ginzburg |title-link=The Night Battles |title=The night battles: Witchcraft and agrarian cults in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries |date=1983 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |location=London |isbn=0710095074 |edition=1st |doi=10.4324/9780203819005}}</ref>}}

Folklore developed suggesting that possession of a baby's caul would bring its bearer good luck and protect that person from death by drowning. Cauls were therefore highly prized by [[sailor]]s. Medieval women often [[Sailors' superstitions|sold them to sailors for large sums of money]]; a caul was regarded as a valuable [[Amulet|talisman]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Oliver|first=Harry|title=Black Cats & Four-Leaf Clovers: The origins of old wives' tales and superstitions in our everyday lives |pages=141–160 |year=2006|publisher=Penguin Books|location=New York|isbn=978-0-399-53609-0|chapter=12: Birth}}</ref>

In Polish the idiom ''{{lang|pl|w czepku urodzony/a}}'' ('born in a bonnet'), in Italian ''{{lang|it|nato/a con la camicia}}'' ('born with a shirt') and in French ''né(e) coiffé(e)'' ('born with a hat on') all describe a person who is always very lucky.{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}

The Russian phrase {{lang|ru|родился в рубашке}} (''rodilsya v rubashke'', literally 'born in a shirt') refers to caul birth and means 'born lucky'. It is often applied to someone who is oblivious to an impending disaster that is avoided only through luck, as if the birth caul persists as supernatural armor, and in this sense commonly appears in titles or descriptions of Russian [[dashcam]] videos.{{citation needed|date=February 2015}}

Not all cultural beliefs about cauls are positive. In [[Folklore of Romania|Romanian folklore]] babies born with a caul are said to become [[strigoi]] upon death.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Andreesco |first=Ioanna |author-link=Ioanna Andreesco |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BhdwAAAACAAJ |title=Où sont passés les vampires ? |date=2004 |publisher=Payot |isbn=978-2-228-89913-0 |language=fr}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Barber |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQBangEACAAJ |title=Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality |date=2010 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-16481-7 |language=en}}</ref> It was also believed that "he who is born to be hanged will never drown" - that anyone born with a caul was destined to leave the world in a hangman's hood in place of the caul with which they were born. The belief in cauls as omens persisted well into the 20th century.<ref name="bbc history">{{cite magazine|title=How were the births of babies born with cauls viewed in the past? |url=https://issuu.com/immediatemediaco/docs/bbchistorymagazine_20220901_october2022 |last1=Read |first1=Sara |magazine=[[BBC History Magazine]] |number=10 |publisher=Immediate Media Company London Ltd. |date=October 2022 |volume=23 |page=57 |language=en |via=Issuu |department=Q&A: A selection of historical conundrums answered by experts}}</ref>

The 16th-century Dutch physician [[Levinus Lemnius]], author of ''The Secret Miracles of Nature'', remained skeptical of superstitious claims about preserved cauls. Comic writer [[Thomas Hood]] even ended his poem "The Sea-Spell" with a lament about a drowning sailor's futile reliance on a protection charm:<ref name="bbc history"/>
{{poem quote|
Heaven never heard his cry,
Nor did the ocean heed his caul.
}}