A Fifteenth-Century Physician’s Attitude Toward Sexuality: Dr. Johann Hartlieb’s Secreta Mulierum Translation

Johann Hartlieb’s Secreta mulierum translation affords a perfect opportunity to examine the context of vernacular gynecological literature, since both the translator, Hartlieb, and the immediate recipient, A consideration of Hartlieb’s Secreta mulierum in the context of his life and oeuvre provides a first indication of authorial self-consciousness. Certain key passages reveal something about Hartlieb’s attitude toward women and female sexuality. Hartlieb’s Secreta mulierum and Trotula translations, for a variety of reasons, offer an ars erotica as well as a scientia sexualis. One can easily imagine how, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and in a different class setting, such material becomes incorporated into so-called “housefather” books, guides for paternal management of the household. The chapter concludes with a pro-feminist apology about women who restore virginity by tightening the vulva with a salve. Hartlieb, referring to Trotula, defends such methods which may be used to protect women’s honor and virtue.