Browsing all posts in "medieval".

Beatrice de Planissoles Tells it All

In the year of our Lord, 1320, Beatrice de Planissoles was called to confess before the Inquisition in Pamiers, in the Midi-Pyrenees department of France (that’s 1320 CE, for those of you who care about that stuff). Her crime was heresy. We don’t know for sure how the Inquisition knew that Beatrice was a heretic, [...]

Dawn

To recap: The Middle Ages, enlightened as they were compared to the Dark Ages, really didn’t have much on ancient Rome or Greece. Learned medicine was based on Galen and Hippocrates, who could do no wrong and knew all. Plebeian medicine was in the hands of the midwives, those folk heroes of the day who [...]

How to Fake Virginity, Medieval Style

In “On Treatments for Women,” Trota says that, before we treat a woman, we need to know whether she is hot or cold. The test is easily performed. Soak a piece of lint tied on a string in pennyroyal oil, tie the string around one thigh, and insert it into the vagina while the woman [...]

Why Don’t We Stock Pepper in L&D?

“When God the creator of the universe in the first establishment of the world differentiated the individual natures of things each according to its kind, He endowed human nature above all other things with a singular dignity, giving to it above the condition of all other animals freedom of reason and intellect. And wishing to [...]