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Full-Text Articles in Women's History
Medieval Infertility: Treatments, Cures, And Consequences, Zia Simpson
Medieval Infertility: Treatments, Cures, And Consequences, Zia Simpson
The Forum: Journal of History
Since the first civilizations emerged, reproductive ability has been one of the most prominent elements in assessing a woman’s value to society. Other characteristics such as beauty, intelligence, and wealth may have been granted comparable consequence, but those are arbitrary and improvable. Fertility is genetic, and for centuries it was beyond human control. Among the medieval European nobility, fertility held even greater power. The absence of an heir could, either directly or indirectly, bring about war, economic depression, and social disorder. Catholicism provided a refuge by allowing barren women to retain their hopes, while simultaneously enriching Rome’s coffers. Other women …
Miraculous Monstrosity: Birth And Female Sexuality In The Illuminated Scivias And Cloisters Apocalypse, Jenna M. Mckellips
Miraculous Monstrosity: Birth And Female Sexuality In The Illuminated Scivias And Cloisters Apocalypse, Jenna M. Mckellips
Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality
This paper compares the illuminations in two medieval apocalypses, the Cloisters Apocalypse and Hildegard von Bingen’s Scivias, to inspect their similar constructions of female sexuality, motherhood, and monstrosity. It first analyzes the monstrosity of female sexual organs found in Hildegard’s portrayal of the Church and the Mother of the Antichrist. The paper then goes on to consider the uncanny slippage between images of birth and death in the Cloisters’s depiction of John and the Woman of Revelation 12. Ultimately, the paper not only explores the monstrosity of female bodies in apocalyptic manuscripts, but also concludes that medieval women’s …