The Trotula

Download or read book The Trotula written by David D. Gilmore and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2001-04-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trotula was the most influential compendium on women's medicine in medieval Europe. Scholarly debate has long focused on the traditional attribution of the work to the mysterious Trotula, said to have been the first female professor of medicine in eleventh- or twelfth-century Salerno, just south of Naples, then the leading center of medical learning in Europe. Yet as Monica H. Green reveals in her introduction to this first edition of the Latin text since the sixteenth century, and the first English translation of the book ever based upon a medieval form of the text, the Trotula is not a single treatise but an ensemble of three independent works, each by a different author. To varying degrees, these three works reflect the synthesis of indigenous practices of southern Italians with the new theories, practices, and medicinal substances coming out of the Arabic world. Arguing that these texts can be understood only within the intellectual and social context that produced them, Green analyzes them against the background of historical gynecological literature as well as current knowledge about women's lives in twelfth-century southern Italy. She examines the history and composition of the three works and introduces the reader to the medical culture of medieval Salerno from which they emerged. Among her findings is that the second of the three texts, "On the Treatments for Women," does derive from the work of a Salernitan woman healer named Trota. However, the other two texts—"On the Conditions of Women" and "On Women's Cosmetics"—are probably of male authorship, a fact indicating the complex gender relations surrounding the production and use of knowledge about the female body. Through an exhaustive study of the extant manuscripts of the Trotula, Green presents a critical edition of the so-called standardized Trotula ensemble, a composite form of the texts that was produced in the mid-thirteenth century and circulated widely in learned circles. The facing-page complete English translation makes the work accessible to a broad audience of readers interested in medieval history, women's studies, and premodern systems of medical thought and practice.

Download or read book The Trotula written by and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-07-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trotula was the most influential compendium on women's medicine in medieval Europe. Scholarly debate has long focused on the traditional attribution of the work to the mysterious Trotula, said to have been the first female professor of medicine in eleventh- or twelfth-century Salerno, just south of Naples, then the leading center of medical learning in Europe. Yet as Monica H. Green reveals in her introduction to this first edition of the Latin text since the sixteenth century, and the first English translation of the book ever based upon a medieval form of the text, the Trotula is not a single treatise but an ensemble of three independent works, each by a different author. To varying degrees, these three works reflect the synthesis of indigenous practices of southern Italians with the new theories, practices, and medicinal substances coming out of the Arabic world. Arguing that these texts can be understood only within the intellectual and social context that produced them, Green analyzes them against the background of historical gynecological literature as well as current knowledge about women's lives in twelfth-century southern Italy. She examines the history and composition of the three works and introduces the reader to the medical culture of medieval Salerno from which they emerged. Among her findings is that the second of the three texts, "On the Treatments for Women," does derive from the work of a Salernitan woman healer named Trota. However, the other two texts—"On the Conditions of Women" and "On Women's Cosmetics"—are probably of male authorship, a fact indicating the complex gender relations surrounding the production and use of knowledge about the female body. Through an exhaustive study of the extant manuscripts of the Trotula, Green presents a critical edition of the so-called standardized Trotula ensemble, a composite form of the texts that was produced in the mid-thirteenth century and circulated widely in learned circles. The facing-page complete English translation makes the work accessible to a broad audience of readers interested in medieval history, women's studies, and premodern systems of medical thought and practice.

Download or read book Making Women's Medicine Masculine written by Monica H. Green and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-03-20 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making Women's Medicine Masculine challenges the common belief that prior to the eighteenth century men were never involved in any aspect of women's healthcare in Europe. Using sources ranging from the writings of the famous twelfth-century female practitioner, Trota of Salerno, all the way to the great tomes of Renaissance male physicians, and covering both medicine and surgery, this study demonstrates that men slowly established more and more authority in diagnosing and prescribing treatments for women's gynaecological conditions (especially infertility) and even certain obstetrical conditions. Even if their 'hands-on' knowledge of women's bodies was limited by contemporary mores, men were able to establish their increasing authority in this and all branches of medicine due to their greater access to literacy and the knowledge contained in books, whether in Latin or the vernacular. As Monica Green shows, while works written in French, Dutch, English, and Italian were sometimes addressed to women, nevertheless even these were often re-appropriated by men, both by practitioners who treated women and by laymen interested to learn about the 'secrets' of generation. While early in the period women were considered to have authoritative knowledge on women's conditions (hence the widespread influence of the alleged authoress 'Trotula'), by the end of the period to be a woman was no longer an automatic qualification for either understanding or treating the conditions that most commonly afflicted the female sex - with implications of women's exclusion from production of knowledge on their own bodies extending to the present day.

Download or read book The Good Wife's Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris) written by and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the closing years of the fourteenth century, an anonymous French writer compiled a book addressed to a fifteen-year-old bride, narrated in the voice of her husband, a wealthy, aging Parisian. The book was designed to teach this young wife the moral attributes, duties, and conduct befitting a woman of her station in society, in the almost certain event of her widowhood and subsequent remarriage. The work also provides a rich assembly of practical materials for the wife's use and for her household, including treatises on gardening and shopping, tips on choosing servants, directions on the medical care of horses and the training of hawks, plus menus for elaborate feasts, and more than 380 recipes. The Good Wife's Guide is the first complete modern English translation of this important medieval text also known as Le Ménagier de Paris (the Parisian household book), a work long recognized for its unique insights into the domestic life of the bourgeoisie during the later Middle Ages. The Good Wife's Guide, expertly rendered into modern English by Gina L. Greco and Christine M. Rose, is accompanied by an informative critical introduction setting the work in its proper medieval context as a conduct manual. This edition presents the book in its entirety, as it must have existed for its earliest readers. The Guide is now a treasure for the classroom, appealing to anyone studying medieval literature or history or considering the complex lives of medieval women. It illuminates the milieu and composition process of medieval authors and will in turn fascinate cooking or horticulture enthusiasts. The work illustrates how a (perhaps fictional) Parisian householder of the late fourteenth century might well have trained his wife so that her behavior could reflect honorably on him and enhance his reputation.

Download or read book The Knowing of Woman's Kind in Childing written by Alexandra Barratt and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2001 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study comprises a critical edition, using all the five extant MSS, of the most popular of the Middle English gynaecological texts deriving from the Latin Trotula-text. The Knowing of Women's Kind in Childing is a short fifteenth-century prose treatise which claims to be translated from Latin texts (or Latin and French, according to some manuscripts) that derive ultimately from the Greek. It has a unique importance as it was written by a woman, for a female audience, and on the subject of women. The text considers women's physical constitution, what makes them different from men (primarily the possession of a womb) and, in particular, the three types of problem that the womb causes. That it was written for a female audience is made explicit in the Prologue where the writer explains that he has translated this text out of French and Latin into English because literate women are more likely to read English than any other language and can then pass on the information it contains to illiterate women. More controversial must be the claim that this text was written by a woman. The text is a translation, no doubt by a man, but one of his ultimate sources was a text attributed to 'Trotula', in the Middle Ages believed to be the name of a midwife or gynaecologist from Salerno, who wrote extensively on women's ailments, childbirth and beauty care. Recent work shows that such a woman, probably named Trota, did exist and that she did write a gynaecological treatise, the Trotula or 'little Trota', which became closely associated with two other texts not by her. All three however became very popular and were widely disseminated under her name. Large sections of The Knowing of Woman's Kind come, via an Old French translation, from a version of the Liber de Sinthomatibus Mulierum (the Cum auctor), the first element in this Trotula ensemble.

Download or read book A Medieval Woman's Companion written by Susan Signe Morrison and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What have a deaf nun, the mother of the first baby born to Europeans in North America, and a condemned heretic to do with one another? They are among the virtuous virgins, marvelous maidens, and fierce feminists of the Middle Ages who trail-blazed paths for women today. Without those first courageous souls who worked in fields dominated by men, women might not have the presence they currently do in professions such as education, the law, and literature. Focusing on women from Western Europe between c. 300 and 1500 CE in the medieval period and richly carpeted with detail, A Medieval Woman’s Companion offers a wealth of information about real medieval women who are now considered vital for understanding the Middle Ages in a full and nuanced way. Short biographies of 20 medieval women illustrate how they have anticipated and shaped current concerns, including access to education; creative emotional outlets such as art, theater, romantic fiction, and music; marriage and marital rights; fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, contraception and gynecology; sex trafficking and sexual violence; the balance of work and family; faith; and disability. Their legacy abides until today in attitudes to contemporary women that have their roots in the medieval period. The final chapter suggests how 20th and 21st century feminist and gender theories can be applied to and complicated by medieval women's lives and writings. Doubly marginalized due to gender and the remoteness of the time period, medieval women’s accomplishments are acknowledged and presented in a way that readers can appreciate and find inspiring. Ideal for high school and college classroom use in courses ranging from history and literature to women's and gender studies, an accompanying website with educational links, images, downloadable curriculum guide, and interactive blog will be made available at the time of publication.

Download or read book A History of Jewish Gynaecological Texts in the Middle Ages written by Rôn Barqây and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1998 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study fills a major gap in the history of medicine, namely the history of medieval Hebrew medicine, in particular of Jewish women's medicine. A general introduction to the history of medieval Jewish medicine, its origins in Muslim countries, the main Arabic and Judeo-Arabic texts, and the renaissance of Hebrew as a language of science in the 12th-15th centuries is followed by a survey and analysis of the 15 extant medieval Jewish gynaecological texts (including translations from Greek, Latin and Arabic as well as original Hebrew treatises) and a comparison of the particular characteristics of Jewish gynaecology to the Latin and Arabic traditions. In the second part of the work the author presents critical editions with translations of six medieval Jewish gynaecological texts.