Childbirth In The Trotula

Here we can see a blatant expression of the phrase, “history repeats itself.” In the time of Hippocrates, the temples of healing had been in decline, due to what Hippocrates saw as an excess of “…sophistry and priestcraft…” Even before the time of The Trotula, there was a great deal of theological influence in the field of medicine. As it is today, men dominated the medieval Catholic Church. In keeping with the image of the bridge, the twelfth century Church’s involvement in women’s medicine, particularly in regards to midwives, was a crag around which the bridge needed to be worked if it wanted to continue, a crag which would prove insurmountable. The involvement of the Church was very gradual, and it began with the midwives, the witnesses to the miracle of childbirth. The sacrament of baptism would be the gateway for the Church into the lives of these women, indeed, in the event of a birth where there was a danger the child may die, the midwife was obligated to perform an emergency baptism, in order to ensure the child’s soul went to heaven if it were to perish. While it was preferable to prevent a stillbirth, the midwife must be able to cope …show more content…
It has been argued that medieval sexual division of labor was so unconditional, that knowledge of obstetrics was not included in many medical texts, as women’s medicine was women’s business. This sexual division did not exist in Galen’s time; indeed, we can see quite easily that Galen was sufficiently versed in, and concerned with, female anatomy. The answer seems rather obvious: they would have had to consult texts such as The Trotula to acquire the medical information their previously studied texts were lacking. Indeed, a Dutch translation of The Trotula was reworked and reworded to shift the audience from midwives and female practitioners to the men of the Church and very early learning institutions who were supervising