Women, Food, and Diet in the Middle Ages: Balancing the Humours

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Cover Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Women as Healers, Women as Food Producers Anthropological approaches Work by medievalists How can we approach medieval sources? Women as healers Women as food producers Nurturing and gender Pushed out of the medical profession, pushed out of the kitchen 2. Medieval Theories of Nutrition and Health The Greek tradition Galen of Pergamum Anthimus Medical writers in the medieval Islamic world The medieval west 3. The Special Problem of Nutrition and Women’s Health Class, gender, diet, and humoral theory Aristotle The Hippocratic Corpus Soranus of Ephesus Galen of Pergamum The Islamic texts of the Arabic systematists The Trotula Hildegard of Bingen De secretis mulierum Regimina sanitatis and Tacuina sanitatis Michele Savonarola Other writers Non-medical texts and folk beliefs 4. Theoretical Medicine vs. Practical Medicine The medieval diet Folk medicine Medieval medicine and folk medicine Women and folk medicine Theoretical medicine and folk medicine Efficacy and folk belief Women as healers Magic and belief 5. The Trotula and the Works of Hildegard of Bingen From Book on the Conditions of Women From On Treatments for Women Hildegard of Bingen Hildegard on natural philosophy and medicine Dietary recommendations from Causae et Curae Physica Alcohol consumption Hildegard on alcohol Similarities and contrasts in the Trotula and the works of Hildegard Were Hildegard and Trota practitioners of folk medicine? 6. The Legacy of the Trotula Tacuinum sanitatis Early cookbooks and health guidebooks Religion and the body Medieval gynaecological texts The Sekenesse of Wymmen 7. Women’s Diets and Standards of Beauty Cosmetics Beauty and morality Medieval conduct literature Medieval ideas of beauty Obesity The body as symbol 8. Religious Conflict and Religious Accommodation The female body in medieval literature Food, sexuality, and religion Consequences of overindulgence Women and fasting Religion and medical recommendations for diet 9. Evolving Advice for Women’s Health Through Diet Women’s diet advice in the Early Modern Period The death of humoral theory Consciousness of health, consciousness of fashion Pregnancy and diet in the modern era Are women’s diets consistent across cultures? Conclusion Bibliography Index