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Chapter 9 - Women’s Learning and Lore

Magic, Recipes, and Folk Belief

from III - Health, Conduct, and Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2023

By
Martha W. Driver
Edited by
Corinne Saunders  and
Diane Watt
Corinne Saunders
Affiliation:
Durham University
Diane Watt
Affiliation:
University of Surrey
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Summary

Starting with the early Middle Ages and offering a broad survey through to the start of the early modern period, this essay examines a range of charms, incantations, prayers, talismans, amulets, recipes, and remedies. Many of these were certainly used for women and sometimes by women, such as charms on birthing scrolls or girdles. The analysis reveals the unexpectedly wide range of areas of expertise ascribed to medieval women, as is illustrated by Christine de Pizanߣs writings on warcraft and chivalry, and the guide to hunting, hawking and heraldry attributed to Dame Juliana Berners (The Book of St Albans). Finally, the essay looks at the extremely varied and encyclopaedic advice available to women found in the compendium known as The Kalender of Shepherds (c. 1490), an important source of folk belief, demonstrating the diversity of medieval womenߣs lore.

Keywords

esoteric knowledgecharmsrecipesfolk lorebirthing scrollsChristine de PizanDame Julian BernersThe Kalender of Shephers
Type
Chapter
Information
Women and Medieval Literary Culture
From the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century
 , pp. 179 - 205
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Barratt, Alexandra, ed. (2001). The Knowing of Woman’s Kind in Childing: A Middle English Version of Material Derived from the Trotula and Other Sources, Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, Turnhout: Brepols.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, Louise M. (2007). Words, Stones, Herbs: The Healing Word in Medieval and Early Modern England, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Bühler, Curt F. (1964). Prayers and Charms in Certain Middle English Scrolls. Speculum 39, 270–8.Google Scholar
de Pizan, Christine (1999). The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry, ed. Willard, Charity Cannon, trans. Sumner Willard, University Park: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Driver, Martha (2003). When Is a Miscellany Not Miscellaneous? Making Sense of the Kalendar of Shepherds. Yearbook of English Studies 33, 199–214.Google Scholar
Erler, Mary C., ed. (1993). Robert Copland, Poems, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Green, Monica H. (2001). The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Jolly, Karen L. (1996). Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Kieckhefer, Richard (1990). Magic in the Middle Ages, Cambridge Medieval Textbooks, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Riddle, John M. (1992). Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Saunders, Corinne (2010). Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skemer, Don C. (2006). Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Sommer, H. O. (1892). The Kalender of Shepherdes, The Edition of Paris 1503 in Photographic Facsimile: A Faithful Reprint of R. Pynson’s Edition of London 1506, 3 vols. in 1, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.Google Scholar
Sponsler, Claire (2009). The English How the Good Wiif Taughte Hir Doughtir and How the Wise Man Taught His Sonne. In Johnston, Mark D., ed., Medieval Conduct Literature: An Anthology of Vernacular Guides to Behaviour for Youths, with English Translations. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar

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