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The Participation Of Women Believers And The Family In Later Languedocian Catharism, 1300-1308, William Grant Edmundson

Theses and Dissertations

This master’s thesis means to contribute to scholarship on the nature of lived Catharism in later medieval Languedoc. The study uses depositions from the inquisition registers of Jacques Fournier and Geoffroy d’Ablis, as well as Bernard Gui’s Liber sententiarum (book of sentences) to examine and compare how men, women, and families who were friends, relatives, accomplices, believers, and defenders of Cathar perfecti (the Cathar spiritual elite) participated in and supported the sect during the “Authié revival” from 1300 to 1308 by means of a case study on the Benet family from Montaillou and Ax.

The study argues that although the …

"To Conceive With Child Is The Earnest Desire If Not Of All, Yet Of Most Women": The Advancement Of Prenatal Care And Childbirth In Early Modern England: 1500-1770, Victoria E.C. Glover

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes medical manuals published in England between 1500 and 1770 to trace developing medical understandings and prescriptive approaches to conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. While there have been plenty of books written regarding social and religious changes in the reproductive process during the early modern era, there is a dearth of scholarly work focusing on the medical changes which took place in obstetrics over this period. Early modern England was a time of great change in the field of obstetrics as physicians incorporated newly-discovered knowledge about the male and female body, new fields and tools, and new or revived …