Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 13319
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Green , Monica H.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: The Possibilities of Literacy and the Limits of Reading: Women and the Gendering of Medical Literacy
  • Source: Women's Healthcare in the Medieval West: Texts and Contexts.  Edited by Monica H. GreenVariorum Collected Studies Series, 680.  Ashgate Publishing, 2000.  Pages 1 - 76.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Aldobrandino of Siena, Physician and Author- Regime du Corps Gender Gynecology Literacy Medical Manuscripts- Ownership of Medicine Physicians Readers Translation
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: General
  • Century: 12- 13- 14- 15
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table: Three tables. Table One Individual female owners of medical books. Table Two Medical texts commissioned by and/or addressed to women, 1100-1533. Table Three Comparison of medical texts owned by and addressed to women, sorted by subject of text and by language.
  • Abstract: Noting that previous studies on women's literacy have up to now ignored the topic of medicine and medical writing, Green assesses evidence that women might have turned their literate skills to reading about medical science or therapy. Surveying evidence from across western Europe, Green assembles a list of forty-three women who owned medical books. She also identifies some fifty-one different texts commissioned by women or addressed to female audiences. Green finds a notable concentration of both books owned by and texts addressed to women in French-speaking areas. Overall, however, she finds women's interactions with medical literature to be infrequent and characterized by little or no engagement with medical theory. [Abstract submitted by the author to the Medieval Feminist Index.]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation:
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2000.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0860788261