ABSTRACT
Despite the belief that that the menstrual cycle was predictable and therefore treatable, many of the extant charms to prevent excessive menstrual bleeding, miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death suggest that medical intervention was either unavailable or unsuccessful. The textual evidence for remedies for women’s medicine assumes the care and cure by an educated medical practitioner. However, the actualities of care for women who were not part of the privileged elite is less easy to deduce. Through an examination of extant penitentials and homilies, this chapter demonstrates the men of the church were aware of – and condemned – the treatment, prevention, and prognostication involved in “women’s medicine” by those not sanctioned by the church: midwives and others.
