MedCat

Darrera modificació: 2021-08-05
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat

Green, Monica H. - Mooney, Linne R., "The Sickness of Women", dins: Tavormina, M. Teresa (ed.), Sex, Aging, and Death in a Medieval Medical Compendium: Trinity College Cambridge MS R.14.52, Its Texts, Language, and Scribe, Tempe, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Medieval and Renaissance texts and studies, 292), 2006, pp. 455-568.

Resum

This is a complete edition of and commentary on a Middle English gynecological text probably compiled in the mid-fifteenth century. We edit it here from its latest exemplar, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.14.52, ff. 107r–135v, but we draw on all three other extant copies for variant readings: London, British Library, Sloane MS 249, ff. 180v–205v; London, Royal College of Surgeons, MS0175 (here referred to under its old shelfmark, MS 129), ff. 1r–45v; and British Library, Sloane MS 2463, ff. 194r–232r. It was already established by Green in 1992 that the first version of the text 'Sickness of Women' was simply the independently circulating chapters of a fuller Middle English translation, made in the early 15th century, of the Latin 'Compendium medicine' of Gilbertus Anglicus. Then, in the mid-15th century, a redactor took that original translation, rearranged the chapters, and added new material, especially on the topic of childbirth. That redactor also incorporated the fetus-in-utero images from the late antique text, the 'Gynaecia' of Muscio, and a number of untranslated Latin passages, some of which address peripheral topics such as male impotence. Finally, the redactor placed at the beginning of the text a preface stating that its intent was that “one woman may help another in her sickness.” Our introduction to the edition summarizes this textual history, but also addresses the question of the intended audience. We argue that despite the prologue's formulaic claim to be addressing women, 'Sickness of Women' was included in Trinity R.14.52 not because it was meant to be used by women, but because it was of interest to the male compilers, who not only were concerned (as the other contents suggest) with matters of natural science broadly defined, but had correctly assessed that this second version of 'Sickness of Women' had always been meant for male as well as female readers.

Addendum: In the original edition we referred to Gilbertus Anglicus as having lived “in the early part of the thirteenth century” and the 'Compendium' as having been composed ca. 1240 (p. 456). New work by Michael McVaugh has corrected our biographical narrative of Gilbertus, who now seems likely to have flourished in the middle decades of the century. There is no firm evidence that he studied at Salerno, though his training at either Montpellier or Paris now seems certain. McVaugh estimates that the 'Compendium medicine' was written in the 1250s, perhaps late in the decade; it is thus not much older than its oldest extant copy, which is dated 1271. See Michael R. McVaugh, “Who Was Gilbert the Englishman?,” in 'The Study of Medieval Manuscripts of England: Festschrift in Honor of Richard W. Pfaff', ed. George Hardin Brown and Linda Ehrsam Voigts (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2010; also published by Brepols), pp. 295-324. Also, McVaugh adds an additional 10 items to the list of 27 Latin MSS referred to here (p. 456, n. 2). We have since identified four more copies (several of them fragments), raising the total to 41 extant copies.

Matèries

Dones
Medicina - Ginecologia, obstetrícia i cosmètica
Manuscrits
Història de la medicina