Schmotzerin @museum.de

F: If we are to believe the story, there was once a local woman who gave birth to no fewer than 53 children. They're said to have included one lot of sextuplets and one of septuplets.

M: There's a written record of this "child miracle of Bönnigheim" – in fact, more than one. In December 1498, for example, the notary Friedrich Deumling recorded the story of the woman nicknamed "Schmotzerin". She's said to have borne more children than any other woman in the Holy Roman Empire.

F: Her real name was Barbara Stratzmann, née Schmotzer. In the account of 1498, she explains how this impressive number of children was made up. Based on her story, Barbara Stratzmann fell pregnant 29 times. 19 children were stillborn. Some of the others died shortly after being born. The oldest child is said to have lived to the age of nine. All according to the woman's own statement.

M: Another account of this unusual reproductive success is to be found in the "Gemmingische Chronik", the Gemmingen Chronicle. It was written in the late 16th century. And in 1509, even the emperor, Maximilian the First, insisted on being kept up to date on this extraordinary abundance of babes.

F: At the Protestant Church of St Cyriac in Bönnigheim, there's a painting that shows Barbara Stratzmann's children. It's a panel painting in the late Gothic style and dates to around 1525. The upper section shows the birth of Christ in the stable of Bethlehem, and below, there's another family: mother, father and 53 children. The Stratzmanns.

M: To this day, there's a dispute about whether the story can possibly be true. Some medical experts suspect that Barbara Stratzmann may have had a double uterus. Or that she had multiple pregnancies in which some foetuses died prematurely and were then expelled.

F: Others, however, consider it completely out of the question that a woman in the late Middle Ages would have survived so many births. But why should the various people who reported the story lie? Barbara Stratzmann died in 1503, aged around 55.

M: There are actually some even more improbable childbearing records. The woman with the most children in the world is said to have been an 18th century Russian peasant who, reports claim, gave birth to 69 children.