Description
| Product ID: | 9780271093468 |
| Product Form: | Paperback / softback |
| Country of Manufacture: | GB |
| Title: | Visualizing Household Health |
| Subtitle: | Medieval Women, Art, and Knowledge in the Regime du corps |
| Authors: | Author: Jennifer Borland |
| Page Count: | 240 |
| Subjects: | History of art, History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400, General studies and General knowledge, European history, History, Gender studies: women and girls, Medical sociology, General studies, European history, Medieval history, Gender studies: women, Medical sociology |
| Description: | In 1256, the countess of Provence, Beatrice of Savoy, enlisted her personal physician to create a health handbook to share with her daughters. Written in French and known as the Régime du corps, this health guide would become popular and influential, with nearly seventy surviving copies made over the next two hundred years and translations in at least four other languages. In Visualizing Household Health, art historian Jennifer Borland uses the Régime to show how gender and health care converged within the medieval household. Visualizing Household Health explores the nature of the households portrayed in the Régime and how their members interacted with professionalized medicine. Borland focuses on several illustrated versions of the manuscript that contain historiated initials depicting simple scenes related to health care, such as patients’ consultations with physicians, procedures like bloodletting, and foods and beverages recommended for good health. Borland argues that these images provide important details about the nature of women’s agency in the home—and offer highly compelling evidence that women enacted multiple types of health care. Additionally, she contends, the Régime opens a window onto the history of medieval women as owners, patrons, and readers of books. Interdisciplinary in scope, this book broadens notions of the medieval medical community and the role of women in medieval health care. It will be welcomed by scholars and students of women’s history, art history, book history, and the history of medicine. |
| Imprint Name: | Pennsylvania State University Press |
| Publisher Name: | Pennsylvania State University Press |
| Country of Publication: | GB |
| Publishing Date: | 2024-04-23 |