Women in Medieval Science

Abstract

Medieval science, or natural philosophy, was grounded in the Latin encyclopaedic tradition and a small number of surviving texts, most of which were Platonic. The 12th-century translation movement introduced works of Greco-Arabic and Aristotelian natural philosophy into the Latin West where they informed the university curriculum. Both before and after the foundation of universities, medieval science flourished in male-dominated spaces from which women were excluded. Despite their exclusion from the formalised study of natural philosophy, women contributed to theoretical and practical science. Hildegard of Bingen wrote learned treatises on the natural world, cosmology, and medicine, while Trota of Salerno wrote a medical text on women’s health. The written works Hildegard and Trota, however, were unique. Beyond the text, medieval women provided informal healthcare to their families and communities. Recent scholarship reveals that formal midwifery as a female profession, however, diminished throughout the Middle Ages, only to emerge in the 15th century as subordinate to male medicine.