Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Women as Healers, Women as Food Producers
- 2 Medieval Theories of Nutrition and Health
- 3 The Special Problem of Nutrition and Women’s Health
- 4 Theoretical Medicine vs. Practical Medicine
- 5 The Trotula and the Works of Hildegard of Bingen
- 6 The Legacy of the Trotula
- 7 Women’s Diets and Standards of Beauty
- 8 Religious Conflict and Religious Accommodation
- 9 Evolving Advice for Women’s Health Through Diet
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Women as Healers, Women as Food Producers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Women as Healers, Women as Food Producers
- 2 Medieval Theories of Nutrition and Health
- 3 The Special Problem of Nutrition and Women’s Health
- 4 Theoretical Medicine vs. Practical Medicine
- 5 The Trotula and the Works of Hildegard of Bingen
- 6 The Legacy of the Trotula
- 7 Women’s Diets and Standards of Beauty
- 8 Religious Conflict and Religious Accommodation
- 9 Evolving Advice for Women’s Health Through Diet
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Women have served as providers of food and basic medical care for their families both in the European Middle Ages and worldwide, especially for the majority of people who do not have the means to hire either a physician or servants. These roles have significant symbolic meanings within cultures. Uncovering the reality of women in domestic spaces in the Middle Ages has its challenges, especially for the lower classes, for reliable information is scarce. The everyday lives of women were not typically thought important enough to document. A look at a variety of textual and non-textual evidence through the lens of the disciplines of folklore and anthropology can help suggest interpretations which fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge.
Keywords: foodways, anthropology of food, medieval women, domestic Spaces
The preparation of food is an intimate act, as is feeding others. Women are the first food providers we know. The act of feeding from the breast was and is normal, and provides an infant with its first sustenance. To medieval people, breastfeeding would have been a common, everyday sight. It was also lauded in images of the lactating Virgin – Maria lactans – Mary feeding the infant Jesus. From then on women, as far as we can tell, were the primary food providers in the families of common people. It is not until we reach the level of the aristocracy, or in later medieval times, the haute bourgeoise, that we begin to see cooking become the province of professional male cooks. The majority of people were fed by a wife, mother, or other women if the food they ate was prepared in the home. In some places, such as England, women also provided the drink (Vaughan 2011). Food was and is one area in which women had power within the family. Sometimes that power was seized and acted upon in a refusal to eat – such was the case with ‘holy anorexia’ – most clearly explained by Carol Walker Bynum (1987). Women eating are sometimes shown in artwork, occasionally reported in tales, but more frequently framed in terms of gluttony: women and men eating too much. The Church steadily preached against gluttony, morality plays and didactic writing warned of its danger (Knight 1983; Vigarello 2010).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Women, Food, and Diet in the Middle AgesBalancing the Humours, pp. 23 - 46Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020