Reading Time: 8 minutes

What are you learning today?

  • How the root of medicine began in the home setting at the hands of women 
  • What typical roles were held by women in medicine and laws/regulations that applied to these roles
  • Reasons why there is such misrepresentation of women in the historical account of medicine in medieval Spain

Medicine in the Domestic Setting at the Hands of Women: Root of Healthcare

  • Health care in the home was built upon maintaining a balance of the 6 non naturals: the factors contributing to disease: sleep/wake, exercise/rest, food intake, evacuation/retention, air, mind 
  • Activities to manage this balance practiced on daily basis in the home setting most often by women: cleaning, changing eating utensils, personal hygiene, cooking, emotional well-being, etc. 
  • Men often worked in recognized occupations, therefore leaving the role of the mitigation of disease in the home up to women 

Notice how we still practice these everyday skills to mitigate sickness! We simply forget the importance of these factors in relation to health and illness because they’ve been practiced for centuries!

Medicine in the Domestic Setting at the Hands of Women: Root of Healthcare

  • Medieval hospitals were last resort when care by family/friends not enough to treat the issue 
  • Healers often brought to home setting to collaborate in care 
  • Doctor care also avoided in many instances in lieu of family care, example: Bartomeu Sancho (peasant in Valencia) didn’t trust physicians, wife cared for his chronic illness via medications from another lady for many years 

Care within home often well organized system at hands of women in household, example: Guillemona de Togores recurrent illness in 1374, group of female friends provided care and housing at no charge with decisions to move her to new housing upon information of previous illness in other houses, resulted in significant improvement

Medicine in the Domestic Setting at the Hands of Women: Root of Healthcare

  • The nurturing nature of women shown to be effective in providing care to the ill, even in home setting with no medical training 
  • Example:  Guillemona de Togores recurrent illness in 1374 (previously mentioned) under much depression upon death of close relatives due to famine and plague, friends ensured to practice scheduled feeding to avoid starvation, rather than giving up upon de Togores’ decision to not eat 
  • Recipes are a key part of preventing/treating sickness in the home environment via women
  • Passed down through families and between other women, creates shared knowledge 

Recipe examples: Eye drops/creams/incense/oils/food preservation tactics/cosmetic/cooking

Midwives/Wet Nurses

  • Terms universally used to name female healers (rather than pertaining to specific tasks such as childbirth like modern society), “caretaker of all of women’s health concerns” (Green, 1989)
  • Example: document of 7647 practitioners for 12-15th century, of the total 121 females noted, 44 labelled as midwife 
  • Midwife was also termed “madrina” and Wet Nurse also termed “ama” in several languages within medieval Spain (castillian/catalan/etc.), interchangeable with “woman” – terms also translate to woman in many other languages 
  • Terms linked to gender of female, therefore identifying women as providing medical/healing care

Madrina and ama used interchangeably in many documents noting help of a woman in a medical issue, example: 1376 letter from Catalan-Aragonese crown outlining payment only mentions “those women who nurse [my] daughter” and no mention of the physician, the women are noted as ama and madrina in the same letter

Other Female Medical Roles

  • Proof of female contribution in roles of apothecaries/surgeons/physicians/barber-surgeons 
  • Women often worked alongside their husband, who would hold the occupational label, until becoming a widow, to then take the label for herself 

Virginity Tests: commonly conducted by women with proper medical background, example: 4 women in Zaragoza 1398 in judicial court assessed 9 year old girl upon charges of rape

Laws/Regulations of Women in Medicine

  • Valencian Furs of 1329: laws regarding medical practice extended to  Crown of Aragon in 1359, 
  • Required examination in a “stadium generale” (medieval university) to practice medicine, women/Jews/Muslims prohibited from universities 
  • Women shall only practice on small children and females 
  • Women shall not give medicine or potions
  • HOWEVER proof of these laws not being enforced or followed, royalty in cases even sought after female healers, laws could have been created due to regional pressure
  • Laws also varied between regions, many included women as contributing to medical world rather than creating laws to exclude 
  • Women often chosen to examine and treat the female body, example: childbirth/virginity tests 

Women in cases practiced with different titles and licenses (example: unlicensed or go-between)

Why are Women Overlooked?

  • Occupational labels in the medical world of medieval Spain were typically only linked to males
  • Example: a list of over 500 medical professionals in the Crown of Aragon in the years 1350-1410 included 3 female apothecaries 
  • Many female healers in Crown of Aragon rarely even titled a midwife, example: 13th century and on much record of midwifery, however number of babies does not nearly match small number of recorded midwives 
  • Terms also used interchangeably (midwife/mother/healer/wet nurse) making research incredibly challenging 
  • Much of medical knowledge shared between women was in the form of recipes – not often viewed as medically significant 

Medical research not often viewed as a continuum stemming from household setting at hands of women

Why are Women Overlooked?

  • Those supporting misogyny and strict  tradition in medieval Spain wrote poorly of female healers, example: The Spill by Jacme Roig in 1460
  • Many historical documents in general speak of female medical practice with dismissive language 
  • Many historians accept the idea that medical care was divided between genders, females cared for females/males cared for males, HOWEVER no significant evidence of this

Documents containing information of females in medicine are only created for a specific purpose – example: tax records, criminal charges – creating sparse number of sources

Conclusion

Women had a huge contribution to the world of medicine in medieval Spain, when all aspects are taken into account, and more research is undoubtedly needed to fully understand the exact degree to which women aided in developing and running medicine in medieval Spain

Bibliography

Cabre, M. (2008). Women or healers? Household practices and the categories of health care in late medieval Iberia. Johns Hopkins University Press. 82(1), 18-51. https://doi.org/10.1353/bhm.2008.0040

Green, M. (1989). Women’s medical practice and health care in Medieval Europe. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 14(2), 434-473.

Harman, A. C. (2009) Midwives and medical texts: Women’s healing practices in the Crown of Aragón, 1300-1600. Undergraduate Honors Theses. 3-79. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/279

McVaugh, M. R. (1993). Medicine before the plague: Practitioners and their patients in the crown of aragon, 1285-1345. Cambridge University Press.

Public Record of the Labour of Isabel de le Cavalleria (1990). Homenaje al Profesor Emerito Antonio Ubieto Arteta. (M. Cabre, Trans.). (Original work published 1490).

 

 

 

Lesson Plan Outline

Title of Lesson: The Misconstrued Topic of Women in Medicine in Medieval Spain
Name: Shelby Betker Age Group: University level health studies students

 

  1. Learning Objectives: What do I want the students to learn?
  • The roots of medicine at the hands of women in the domestic setting (example: recipes/potions/homemade remedies/hygiene care/offering houses as recovery spaces)
  • The roles of women in the medical world of medieval Spain, and the laws/guidelines/norms regarding this (example: surgeons, apothecaries, midwives, wet nurses, completing virginity tests, emergency baptisms)
  • The misrepresentation of women in medicine throughout medieval Spain in historical accounts due to differences in occupational labels, healthcare contribution from the home setting

 

  1. Assessment: How will the students show their learning and how will I determine if it was successful?
How will the students demonstrate their learning?

 

The students will demonstrate their learning through a group conversation of what they learned from the lesson, and a class kahoot at the end of the lesson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 How will I track their success?

 

I will track the student’s success by asking questions prior to the lesson to provoke deep thinking rather than simply listening to me talk, and ensure to ask if everyone understands what I am teaching. I will also ensure to mention that no question is a bad question, and there is a good chance that whatever someone wants to ask will probably be the same question someone else has, as I know from experience it always eases the stress of asking a question.

 

  1. Prerequisite Knowledge: What do the students need to know before we start?
  • Background knowledge of historical leadership of medieval Spain per time period (eg. Muslim conquest lasting 7th century to 10th century) as the leading religious group may affect laws and accepted norms of women in medicine and treatment of females in general, and time period will also play a role.
  • Typical life of a female in medieval Spain and societal norms regarding gender (example: primogeniture system of inheritance to the throne, equal inheritance rights among different gendered children) to get an understanding of how females were treated in comparison to males.
  • Medical knowledge regarding terms and different activities of different specialties in modern society and medieval spanish society (example: apothecary/mid wife/etc.)

 

  1. Supplies Needed: What supplies do I need for this lesson?
  • Laptop and backdrop screen to play powerpoint and kahoot
  • Cell phones for students to join and participate in kahoot

 

  1. Layout of Lesson:

Total Allotted Time: 1 hour 30 minutes  

Set Up:

What do I need to do prior to beginning my lesson?

 

 

 

 

 

 –          Charged laptop

–          Required internet windows/documents open and ready to go

–          Items for exercise ready to go to be handed out after the reading of the birth document – this includes enough potions/recipe cards/scalpels/balms/creams/pills/wash basins/apple
Hook:

How will I attract the attention of the students and make this learning worthwhile?

 

 

 

 

 

 Read the primary source outlining the birth of a woman named Isabel’s son on account of a notarist on January 10th 1490 in Zaragoza. Prior to reading I will explain what I am about to read, what to take note of when listening and a few repeatedly mentioned terms (eg. aforesaid) to yield increased understanding when reciting the document.

Events I will list that my students should look for when listening are the tasks the midwives complete for the birth, the religious tasks completed by the midwives, the role of the notarist, and what differences would be seen today in this situation in modern healthcare.

The link to the document: https://the-orb.arlima.net/birthrecord.html
Lesson:

How will I present the information they need to learn?

 

 

 

 

 

  After hooking with the story of the birth I will give each student an object that was used for medical or healthcare-related uses by a woman in medieval Spain, these objects will include examples like a recipe card, a potion, a metal pot, a scalpel, etc. I will then ask those who think their object was a medical tool utilized by women in medieval Spain to raise their hand, and then I will repeat the question for those in opposition who do NOT think their object was a medical tool used by a woman in medieval Spain. The purpose of this exercise is to help the students realize that women made a huge contribution to healthcare (because ALL of the tools were used), that medical care stemmed from the home setting (even recipe cards are a contribution to the medical world) and that the healthcare scene in medieval Spain was not only ran by men.

I will present the bulk of the information via powerpoint slide to my class to appeal to visual as well as audible learners, as I will lecture with the slides. The slides will include colour and key terms and takeaway points will be bolded.
Activity:

How will the students demonstrate their learning?

 

 

 

 

  I will use the quiz game Kahoot to test their knowledge and appeal to the competitive ones! My Kahoot will consist of 7 questions – winner gets a needle replica pen (cuz healthcare woohoo!!)

Q1: Which term was most often used to generally describe a woman in the medical field in medieval Spain? (Ans: Midwife)

Q2: T/F A law was set that noted women were to only practice on children and other women (Ans: T)

Q3: What is a key object that contributed to medicine in the household setting that was often passed between women, and through generations (Ans: recipe cards)

Q4: T/F Occupational labels were typically held by women rather than men (Ans: F)

Q5: What is the name for the factors that were maintained in the household setting (most often by women) to mitigate disease? (Ans: The 6 non-naturals)

Q6: T/F The Furs of Valencia were NOT fully followed or enforced (Ans: T)

Q7: T/F The information regarding female contribution to medicine in medieval Spain requires MUCH more research (Ans: T)
Conclusions:

How will I end the activity?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  I will end the activity by providing the winner with their prize and summing up my lesson by noting that I hope my lesson provided new knowledge, a greater understanding of the female contributions to medieval medicine, and a different outlook on what is encompassed in the term “medicine”
Review and Summary:

How will I summarize the learning and affirm that the students understood?

 

 

 

 

 

  I will affirm the students understood the lesson by going around the room and getting each student to share something new they learned from the lesson, as this approach does not stem stress of the feeling of being assessed and allows informal conversation to support true and raw feelings and take aways from the lecture.