The Medieval Womb by Minji Lee
This study of the twelfth-century German abbess Hildegard of Bingen examines her understanding of the womb through her medical work Cause et cure and visionary work Scivias. Medieval tradition viewed female bodies negatively, seeing their porous nature as easily polluted. Women were considered weaker and more vulnerable to spiritual invasion. This volume shows how Hildegard’s revolutionary understanding of the female reproductive body reversed these assumptions. She connected female bodily flows not to pollution but to purification, presenting menstruation and reproductive fluids as vital components in natural cleansing and healing processes. The book concludes with a chapter showing how Hildegard's concept of beneficial bodily flow remains relevant in modern Western and non-Western alternative medicine, in which female bodily porosity and fluid exchange continue to be understood as sources of regenerative power.
Minji Lee’s slim volume provides not only an engaging close reading of Hildegard’s idea of the reproductive body, but also a thoughtful contextualization of the medieval German polymath’s visionLee argues persuasively that, in cultural as well as medical terms, Hildegard’s conceptualization of the female reproductive body was distinctive.[...]
The fact that the Latin is included in extenso--rather than assuming that interested readers will have knowledge of and access to editions of Hildegard’s works--makes The Medieval Womb particularly accessible to graduate seminars. Its length also means that it could be productively and feasibly assigned in advanced undergraduate courses, presuming classroom environments where most students would have strong reading skills and some background in medieval and/or women’s history.[...]
Shortly after I received a copy of this book for review, I found myself in conversation with a student doing an undergraduate thesis on Hildegard of Bingen. His starting point for research was reflection on how Hildegard’s embodied experiences were similar to his own; but he observed dispiritedly to me that he felt he could not write about his physical and emotional experiences in an academic context. Rather than attempt an abstract rebuttal, I reached for this book, and told him to read its preface. In it, Lee discusses both her personal experiences of menstruation and her scholarly encounters with it. I myself had been struck by the vulnerability and boldness of this, and anticipate that this will be rewarded in the ways it stimulates and facilitates conversations like the one I had with my student.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781802703771 |
| ISBN 10 | 1802703772 |
| Title | The Medieval Womb |
| Author | Minji Lee |
| Series | Borderlines |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Arc Humanities Press |
| Year published | 2026-07-31 |
| Number of pages | 142 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |