| dc.description.abstract | Hundreds of recipe collections survive from late medieval England. This thesis focuses on six manuscripts, which contain primarily medical advice as well as general tips for hygiene and well-being in English. These manuscripts were practical household books and they offered guidance to keeping households well and healthy. In this dissertation I study these collections with the aim of reconstructing the role of women in providing domestic medicine and promoting well-being in gentry households. The work of gentry women kept their families healthy and alleviated suffering, but historical research on their activities has been hindered by the paucity of surviving evidence. This dissertation innovates by exploring the practicalities of domestic medicine and maintaining wellness in the gentry home. It lays out a method that involves palaeographical and codicological analysis of the six manuscripts. This methodology focuses on the structure and materiality of them in addition to their scripts and contents. This enables us to understand these manuscripts as practical guides for health and wellbeing in the gentry home. This is contextualised by other traces of women’s medical activities as found in letter collections, literature, and conduct books. It is also supported with archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence to show in practice how medicines were produced in the home by gentry women. Throughout the dissertation I consider other aspects of daily life: education, cooking, cleaning, and bathing that formed the context for managing household health. The practice of maintaining health and wellbeing were at the core of the medieval daily experience. This dissertation breaks ground in showing how many spheres of gendered activity combined in gentry households and those who depended on them support towards wellness, and cure of illness. This dissertation thus offers an original contribution to both the history of medicine and the lives of medieval gentry women. | en_US |
