Attitudes towards menstruation and menstrual blood in Elizabethan England

Journal of Social History

Volumn 43, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 89-114

  Hindson, Bethan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 76049096610     PISSN: 00224529     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jsh.0.0246     Document Type: Article

References (192)

1. Patricia Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth Century England," Past and Present 91 (May 1981).
2. Bettina Bildhauer, Medieval Blood (Cardiff, 2006).
3. Gianna Pomata, "Menstruating Men: Similarity and Difference of the Sexes in Early Modern Medicine," in Valeria Finucci and Kevin Brownlee, (eds.) Generation and Degeneration: Tropes of Reproduction in Literature and History from Antiquity through Early Modern Europe (Durham, 2001), 109-152.
4. Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA, 1990).
5. Laqueur, Making Sex, 62.
6. Laqueur, Making Sex, Ibid, 35-37.
7. Cathy McClive, "Menstrual Knowledge and Medical Practice in Early Modern France, c.1555-1761," in Menstruation: A Cultural History (Hampshire, 2005), eds. Andrew Shail and Gillian Howie, 77-80.
8. Thomas Raynalde, The Birth of mankinde, otherwise named the Womans Booke (London, 1598), 47.
9. Thomas Raynalde, The Birth of mankinde, otherwise named the Womans Booke, Ibid, 47.
10. John Gerard, The Herball Or Generall Historie of Plantes, (London, 1597), 185.
11. William Turner, The first and seconde partes of the Herball of William Turner . . . corrected and enlarged with the thirde parte (Cologne, 1568), 117.
12. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, 47.
13. Michael Stolberg, "A Woman Down to Her Bones: The Anatomy of Sexual Difference in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries," in Isis 94 (2003): 274-299.
14. Pomata, "Menstruating Men".
15. McClive, "Menstrual Knowledge," 76-89.
16. Laqueur, Making Sex.
17. Michael Stolberg, "Menstruation and Sexual Difference," in Shail and Howie (eds.), Menstruation: a cultural history, 93-94.
18. For Raynalde, I have looked at Raynalde, Birth of mankinde and have drawn on Ian Gadd "Raynald, Thomas (fl. 1539-1552?)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23209, accessed 17 Sept 2006].
19. for Turner, I have looked at Turner, A new herbal, and Turner, The first and seconde partes of the Herball and have drawn on Whitney Jones, "Turner, William (1509/10-1568)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/ article/27874, accessed 26 April 2006];.
20. for Bright I have looked at Bright, Treatise of Melancholy and have drawn on Page Life, "Bright, Timothy (1549/50- 1615)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3424, accessed 26 April 2006].
21. For Jorden, I have looked at Jorden, Suffocation of the Mother and have drawn on J. F. Payne, "Jorden, Edward (d. 1632)," rev. Michael Bevan, DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15125, accessed 01 Sept 2006].
22. for Hester, I have looked at John Hester, A hundred and fouretene experiments and cures of the famous physitian Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus (London, 1596) and have drawn on John Bennell, "Hester, John (d. 1592)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13134, accessed 15 Nov 2006].
23. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Epistle A9, 82. For Gyer I have looked at Gyer, English Phlebotomy. There is no Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article for Gyer, so I have deduced his background from information given by him in his work.
24. for Gerard I have looked at Gerard, Herball and have drawn upon Marja Smolenaars, "Gerard, John (c.1545-1612)," DNB (Oxford, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10555, accessed 24 Apr 2006].
25. for Banister, I have looked at John Banister, The Historie of Man, Sucked from the sappe of the most approued Anathomistes (London, 1578) and have drawn on Andrew Griffin, "Banister, John (1532/3-1599?)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1280, accessed 01 Sept 2006].
26. For Forman, I have looked at B. H. Traister," 'Matrix and the pain thereof': A sixteenth-century gynaecological essay" in Medical History 35 (1991): 436-451.
27. James Orchard Halliwell, (ed.) The Autobiography and personal diary of Dr. Simon Forman, the celebrated astrologer, from AD 1552 to AD 1602 (London: privately printed, 1849).
28. Lauren Kassell, Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist and Physician (Oxford, 2005) and have drawn on Lauren Kassell, "Forman, Simon (1552-1611)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9884, accessed 15 June 2006];.
29. for the 'homish apothecarye' I have looked at Anon, "A most excellent and perfecte homish apothecarye or homely physick booke for all the grefes and diseases of the bodye" inWilliam Turner, A new herball wherein are conteyned the names of herbes (London, 1551).
30. For Dee I have looked at John Eglington Bailey, (ed.) Diary for the years 1595-1601 of Dr John Dee, Warden of Manchester, 1595-1608 (London: privately printed, 1880).
31. Edward Fenton (ed.), The Diaries of John Dee (Oxfordshire, 1998).
32. have drawn upon Julian Roberts, "Dee, John (1527-1609)," DNB, Oxford, Sept 2004.
33. online edn, May 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7418, accessed 15 June 2006].
34. For Hoby I have looked at Dorothy Meads, (ed.) Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby: 1599-1605 (London, 1930).
35. drawn on Paul Slack, "Hoby, Margaret, Lady Hoby (ba 1571, d. 1633)," rev., DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/ 37555, accessed 22 July 2006].
36. for Herbert I have looked at Margaret Hannay," 'How I these studies prize': The Countess of Pembroke and Elizabethan Science," in Women, Science and Medicine 1500-1700: Mothers and Sisters of the Royal Society, eds. Lynette Hunter and Sarah Hutton (Thrupp, 1997).
37. drawn on Margaret Patterson Hannay, "Herbert [Sidney], Mary, countess of Pembroke (1561-1621)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/13040, accessed 22 June 2006].
38. for Mildmay I have looked at Pollock, With Faith and Physic and drawn on Linda Pollock, "Mildmay, Grace, Lady Mildmay (c.1552-1620)," DNB, Oxford, Sept 2004.
39. online edn, Oct 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/45817, accessed 26 June 2006].
40. For Partridge I have looked at John Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure (London, 1599).
41. John Partridge, The Treasury of commodious Conceits, and hidden Secrets (London, 1584) and drawn on Joyce Boro, "Partridge, John (fl. 1566-1582)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/ 21483, accessed 17 Sept 2006].
42. For example, see SarahWigges, medical receipts, 1616: Royal College of Physicians, London, MS. 654, fo.73, in Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 71.
43. Andrew Wear, "Medicine in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700," in The Western Medical Tradition: 800BC to AD 1800 eds. by Lawrence Conrad et al. (Cambridge, 1995), 231, 234, 298.
44. For Napier I have looked at Michael MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1981) and drawn upon Jonathan Andrews, "Napier, Richard (1559-1634)," DNB, Oxford, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19763, accessed 16 June 2006];.
45. Nottingham Record Office, Saville MS 221/97/7, in Pollock, With Faith and Physic, 94.
46. Napier casebooks, Bodleian library, Ashmolean MS. 239, fol. 152, in Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 69.
47. Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure and Partridge, Treasury of commodious Conceits.
48. Mary Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1999), 109-119, 194.
49. See for example, Gyer, English Phlebotomy; Edward Jorden, A Briefe Discovrse of a Disease called the Suffocation of the Mother (London, 1603).
50. Timothie Bright, A Treatise of Melancholy (London, 1586).
51. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, 6-8.
52. Galen, Opera, 11:165-166.
53. in Pomata, "Menstruating Men," 138-139.
54. Parts.
55. On Seed, II, I.
56. I, vii, in Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, science, and culture (Cambridge, 1993), 33-34.
57. Aristotle, Generation of Animals 2.4.738b20-23.
58. in Laqueur, Making Sex, 29-30, 42.
59. Pliny, Natural History, VII, xv.
60. Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, 41.
61. Isidorus Hispalensis, Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, bk XI, Ch. I, fol. 141.
62. in Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, 175.
63. Albertus Magnus, Quaestiones, lib. IX, Q.9, 265.
64. Helen Rodnite Lemay, Women's Secrets: A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus' De Secretis Mulierum with commentaries, (Albany, 1992), 49.
65. Gerard, Herball, 341.
66. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, 50.
67. Geneva Bible, Leviticus 15: 19-25 http://www.genevabible.org/files/ Geneva-Bible/Old-Testament/Leviticus.pdf.
68. Kocher, "God in Elizabethan Medicine," 24.
69. Linda Pollock, With Faith and Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman: Lady Grace Mildmay, 1552-1620 (London, 1993) 111, 121.
70. Turner, The first and seconde partes of the Herball.
71. Bright, Treatise of Melancholy.
72. Bright, Treatise of Melancholy, iii.
73. See, for example, Raynalde, who defends himself against what women might think of his work, Birth of mankind.
74. defends.
75. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 57-65.
76. Ian Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance: The Case of Learned Medicine (Cambridge, 2002), 256-259.
77. Timo Joutsivuo, Scholastic Tradition and Humanist Innovation: The Concept of Neutrum in Renaissance Medicine (Helsinki, 1999).
78. Andrew Wear, Knowledge and Practice in English Medicine, 1550-1680 (Cambridge, 2000), 136-137.
79. Jorden, Suffocation of the Mother, 19-20.
80. Jorden, Suffocation of the Mother, Ibid., 19-20.
81. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, 56.
82. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, Ibid., 48-49.
83. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, Ibid., 56.
84. Life, "Bright, Timothy".
85. Bright, Treatise of Melancholy.
86. Bright, Treatise of Melancholy, 264.
87. Anon, "A homish apothecarye," 28, 11.
88. Jorden, Suffocation of the Mother, 20.
89. John Hester, A hundred and fouretene experiments of Paracelsus, 2, 4-5, 5, 9, 10, 12, 13.
90. Traister," 'Matrix and the pain thereof'," 444.
91. Traister," 'Matrix and the pain thereof', ", Ibid., 438.
92. Alfred Leslie Rowse, The Case Books of Simon Forman: Sex and Society in Shakespeare's age' (London, 1974), 167.
93. Pollock, With Faith and Physic, 121-125, v.32, fols. 36r-42v.
94. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 70-71.
95. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, 39.
96. Anon, "A homish apothecarye," 28.
97. Pollock, With Faith and Physic, 120, v. 32, fol. 32r.
98. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 69.
99. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation, ", Ibid., 112, v. 32, fols.9v-10r.
100. Hester, A hundred and fouretene experiments of Paracelsus, 8.
101. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Epistle A9, 82.
102. Traister," 'Matrix and the pain thereof'," 442.
103. Rowse, Case Books of Simon Forman, 203.
104. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, 22.
105. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Ibid., 39.
106. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Ibid., 125.
107. Galen, On Seed, II, I.
108. I, vii, in Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, 34.
109. Aristotle, Generation of Animals 2.4.738b20-23.
110. in Laqueur, Making Sex, 30.
111. Pliny, Natural History, VII, xv, 66 and vi-xiv.
112. in Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, 41.
113. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, 48-49.
114. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, Ibid., 65.
115. Traister," 'Matrix and the pain thereof'," 441.
116. Jorden, Suffocation of the Mother, 17.
117. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, 157, 32-34.
118. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, 58.
119. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, 155-157.
120. Rowse, Case Books of Simon Forman, 230, 9.
121. Bodleian library, Ashmolean MS. 1491, 738.
122. Kassell, Medicine and Magic, 188.
123. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, 66.
124. Fenton, The Diaries of John Dee, 45, 227, 236.
125. Kassell, Medicine and Magic, 188.
126. Traister," 'Matrix and the pain thereof'," 440.
127. Rowse, Case Books of Simon Forman, 95.
128. Traister," 'Matrix and the pain thereof'," 440.
129. Rowse, Case Books of Simon Forman, 226-7.
130. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 70.
131. Kassell, Medicine and Magic, 188.
132. Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure, A2, A5.
133. Gerard, Herball, 298.
134. Anon, "A homish apothecarye," 10.
135. Gerard, Herball, 298.
136. Fenton, Diaries of John Dee, 204.
137. Kassell, Medicine and Magic, 188.
138. Bildhauer, Medieval Blood.
139. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation.".
140. Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, 59-62.
141. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 50-51.
142. Gadd, "Raynald, Thomas".
143. Raynalde, Birth of mankinde, 56.
144. Gadd, "Raynald, Thomas.".
145. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 49.
146. Barnabe Barnes, The Devil's Charter (London, 1607), in Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 58.
147. For example, see Katharine Park, Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection (New York, 2006), 186.
148. Gianna Pomata, "Menstruating Men: Similarity and Difference of the Sexes in Early Modern Medicine," in Valeria Finucci and Kevin Brownlee, (eds.) Generation and Degeneration: Tropes of Reproduction in Literature and History from Antiquity through Early Modern Europe (Durham, 2001), 109-152.
149. Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure, E5.
150. Gerard, Herball, 290-291.
151. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, 268.
152. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Ibid., 39.
153. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Ibid., 58.
154. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Ibid., 249-251.
155. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Ibid., 21-22.
156. Gyer, English Phlebotomy, Ibid., 58.
157. Laqueur, Making Sex, 5.
158. Pomata, "Menstruating Men.".
159. Stolberg, "Menstruation and Sexual Difference," 95-97.
160. Stolberg, "Menstruation and Sexual Difference, ", Ibid., 95-97.
161. Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure, A2, A5.
162. Kassell, Medicine and Magic, 188.
163. Anon, "A homish apothecarye".
164. Gerard, Herball, 298.
165. Wear, "Medicine in Early Modern Europe," 234.
166. Statement that women were expected to be familiar with and provide medicine to their families and communities taken from Wear, "Medicine in Early Modern Europe," 231, 234, 298.
167. Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation," 69.
168. Pollock, With Faith and Physic, 35, fol. 46.
169. Pollock, With Faith and Physic, Ibid., 98.
170. Meads, Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby.
171. Pollock, With Faith and Physic, 119, v. 32, fol. 32r.
172. Partridge, Widowes Treasure, A2 .
173. Raynalde, Birth of Mankinde, 1.
174. Turner, The first and seconde partes of the Herball, 40.
175. Gerard, Herball, 555.
176. Traister," 'Matrix and the pain thereof'," 438.
177. Wear, Knowledge and Practice, 67.
178. Margaret Pelling, "Food, Status, and Knowledge: Attitudes to Diet in Early Modern England," in Margaret Pelling, The Common Lot: Sickness, Medical Occupations and the Urban Poor in Early Modern England (London, 1998), 38-62.
179. Hester, A hundred and fouretene experiments of Paracelsus, 2-5.
180. Wear, Knowledge and Practice, 116.
181. Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure, A2, A5.
182. Kassell, Medicine and Magic, 188.
183. Anon, "A homish apothecarye".
184. Gerard, Herball, 298.
185. Clark, The Working Life of Women, 258.
186. Pollock, With Faith and Physic, 94.
187. Partridge, The Widdowes Treasure and Partridge, Treasury of commodious Conceits.
188. Richard Banister, A Treatise of One Hundred and Thirteene Diseases of the Eyes, (London, 1622), no. 279, in Pollock, With Faith and Physic, 109.
189. Raynalde, Birth of Mankinde, 66.
190. Raynalde, Birth of Mankinde, Ibid., 60.
191. Franz Kudlein, "The Seven Cells of the Uterus: The doctrine and its roots," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 39 (1965): 415-423.
192. Raynalde, Birth of Mankinde, 29.