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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Medieval Womb: Hildegard of Bingen's Views on the Female Reproductive Body

The Medieval Womb: Hildegard of Bingen's Views on the Female Reproductive Body

Lee, Minji

Hardcover

Series: Borderlines

PhilosophyMedical ReferenceLiterary Criticism

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1802700390
ISBN13: 9781802700398
Publisher: ARC Humanities Press
Published: Oct 1 2025
Pages: 142
Weight: 1.14
Height: 0.60 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.10
Language: English

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.

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