and all the many feast days, as well as the 20 days before Christmas, the 40 days before Easter, and often the 20 days before Pentecost, as well as three or more days before receiving Communion (which at that time was offered only a few times a year). These forbidden days altogether totaled about 40% of each year. Some church leaders warned believers that children conceived on holy days would be born leprous, epileptic, diabolically possessed, or crippled. Penalties of 20 to 40 days of strict fasting on bread and water were imposed on transgressors. Intercourse was forbidden during the menstrual period and after childbirth, since "physicians mistakenly believed that the blood of a menstruating woman or one who has just given birth was poisonous". It was also forbidden during pregnancy, with concern for protecting the fetus as the main reason. "Christian theologians", including Pope Gregory I, held that abstinence should continue until a baby was weaned. Scholastic theologians from the 11th to 13th centuries shifted the time scheme to motives; the desire to procreate with "joy in a new servant of God" was considered the best motive for intercourse. Bertold of Regensburg considered a woman innocent if she was forced to do it on the prohibited times by her husband and she did not will it. Because intercourse was only allowed for procreative reasons, various penitentials (rule books) also forbade intercourse between sterile or older partners, although never assigning a penalty. Heinemann says that oral and anal intercourse were often punished by more years of penance than for premeditated murder, as they prevented conception from occurring. Although practice varied, menstruating women were often forbidden to attend Mass or receive Communion, in which the Latin Church took a more moderate stance than the Eastern Churches. Since the blood from childbirth was believed more harmful than menstrual blood, the Synod of Trier (1227) ruled that women who had just given birth had to be "reconciled with the Church" before they allowed to enter church. They often could not buried in the cemetery if they died in childbirth before had undergone a purifying ritual, a policy which was rejected by several synods. The Council of Trent (1566), and several synods after that, did not impose abstinence from intercourse on certain times as an "obligation", but as an "admonition". Early modern theology In the Counter-Reformation and early modern periods, theologians continued to write