„Women’s Rosegarden“ and „Women’s Herbgarden“: Two Symposia on the Sexuality of Medieval Women

„Women’s Rosegarden“ and „Womens Herbgarden“ :
Two Symposia on the Sexuality of Medieval Women
HELLE REINHOLDT – BODIL M0LLER KNUDSEN
In 1985 and in 1987, two Nordic symposia were held on the topic that in modern
terminology is defined as women’s sexuality. Medieval scholars from Denmark,
Iceland, Norway and Sweden participated, representing the disciplines
of history, including legal history, philology, religion, literature, archaeology,
anthropology and ethnology.
The title of the symposia was taken from the handbook dealing with pregnancy,
childbirth, and midwifery, which was written by Eucharius Rösslin and
published in 1513 as Den Swangeren frawen und hebammem Roszgarten. A
translation into Danish was made shortly after but never printed and exists
only as a rns. at the Royal Library in Copenhagen.
The first symposium, entitled „K vinders Rosengard“ (Women ’s Rosegarden)
was held on August 4-8, 1985, at Moesgaard near Aarhus, Denmark, and
the following papers were presented:
The fifteenth-century ms. „Kvinders Rosengaard“ .
„Thomas Aquinas‘ view of sexuality“ which included a discussion of his views
on marriage and original sin.
„The Mortality of Women due to pregnancy and childbirth in prehistoric and
medieval times“ which was based on anthropological material and archaeological
finds.
„Exposure of infants“ which dealt with infanticide in Old Norse literary and
legal sources.
„Unwelcome children?“ which included a discussion of nursing and the care of
infants in leeland from the earliest times to around 1850.
„Secret births “ , which criminalized young women during the early modern
period was discussed by a Danish criminologist.
A discussion of the medieval concept of Virginity.
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A presentation of the medieval and early modern Icelandic mss. of the Legend of
Saint Margaret, patron saint for parturient women. The mss. were apparently
used as aids during births in Iceland.
„Women’s sexuality in Swedish Miracula“ .
„Women in Languedoc“ , a study of the sexuality of the women of Montaillou
in the early fourteenth century.
The second symposium, entitled „Kvinders Urtegä.rd “ (Women’s Herbgarden)
was held on September 19-23, 1987, in Visby on Gotland, Sweden,
where the following papers were presented:
„Women and medical magic“ , presented by a philologist and historian of religwn.
„The diseases of women in the medieval Danish medical literature“ .
„Menstruation“ which focused on more recent Swedish history and presented
by a Swedish ethnologist.
„The health and diseases of women“ discussed by an anthropologist on the
basis of skeleton finds.
„The diseases of women in the Nordic medieval towns“ which was based on
archaeological finds .
„Rules concerning health and illness at the Bridgittine convent of Vadstena in
Sweden“ .
„Women, medicine and health in legends and folk-lore“ discussed by an ethnologist.
„Hildegard of Binge11“ .
The papers from the symposia will be published together as Kvinnors
rosengard och örtagard. Skrifter utgivna av Centrum för Kvinnoforskning.
Stockholms Universitet. Expected date of publication : January 1989.
The articles are written in the Scandinavian languages with summaries in
English.
It should be noted that the symposia were part of the biennial meetings
of Nordic scholars to discuss aspects of the Jives of medieval women. Meetings
have been held in Sweden ( 1979), leeland (1981) and Norway ( 1983) .
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The Nordic symposia grew out of the international St. Gertrud Symposium on
„Women in the Middle Ages“ , held in 1978 in Copenhagen.
Papers from the symposia have been published as :
A spects of Fernale Existence: Proceedings from the St. Gertrud Symposium
„Women in The Middle Ages“, Copenhagen, September, 1978. Ed. by Birte
Carle, Nanna Damsholt, Karen Giente, Eva Trein Nielsen. Copenhagen, Gyldendal,
1980. All articles in English or French.
Kvinnans ekonomiska ställning under nordisk medeltid. Uppsatser framlagda
vid ett kvinnohistoriskt symposium i Kungälv 8-12 oktober 1979. Red. Hedda
Gunneng and Birgit Strand. Göteborg, 1981; distributed by Viktoria Bokforlag,
Box 320, S-44127 Alingsäs, Sweden. With English summaries.
Förändringar i kvinnors villkor under medeltiden. Upppsatser framlagda vid ett
kvinnohistoriskt symposium i Skalholt, Island, 22. -25. juni 1981. Red. Silja
Adalsteinsd6ttir and Helgi Torlaksson. Reykjavik: Sagnfreedistofnun Hask6la
Islands, 1983; distributed by Forlaget Valmuerne, Badstuestreede 8 , DK-8700
Horsens, Denmark. With English summaries.
K vinnearbeid i Nordenfra vikingtiden til reformasjonen: Foredrag fra et nordisk
kvinnehistorisk seminar i Bergen 3-7 august 1983. Bergen, 1985; distributed
by Forlaget Valmuerne, Badstuestreede 8, DK-8700 Horsens, Denmark. With
English summaries.
For a survey of sources, dealing with pregnancy and childbirth, in English see
Grethe J acobsen, „Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Medieval North: A Typology
of Sources and a Preliminary Study,“ Scandinavian Journal of History,
volume 9 , nr. 2 (1984), p . 91-1 1 1 .
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MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
NEWSLETTER 15
QUOTIDIAN UM
SEPTENTRIONALE
ASPECTS OF DAILY LIFE IN MEDIEVAL DENMARK
Edited by
GRETHE JACOBSEN
and
JENS CHR. V. JOHANSEN
KREMS 1988
Herausgeber: Mediwn Aevum Quotid.ianwn. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
Kultur des Mittelalters. Kömermarkt 13, A-3500 Krems, Österreich. – Für den Inhalt verantwortlich
zeichnen die Autoren, ohne deren ausdrückliche Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdruck,
auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist. – Druck: HTU-Wirtschaftsbetrieb Ges. m. b. H.,
Wiedner Haupstraße 8-10, A-1050 Wien.
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Inhaltsverzeichnis/ C ontents
Introduction 4
N anna Damsholt:
The Legencis of Danish Saints as Sources to Daily Life 7
Brian Patrick McGuire:
D aily Life in Danish Medieval Monasteries 14
Ebbe Nyborg:
Kirchliche Kunst und mittelalterliche Wirklichkeit 23
M arianne Jobansen – Ingrid Nielsen:
The Danish Medieval Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Jens E. Olesen:
In der Kanzlei des Königs.
Die Kanzlei im mittelalterlichen Dänemark 43
Jens E. Olesen:
Tolls and Toll Collectors in Medieval Denmark 60
Bj!llrn Poulsen:
Possibilites et limitations du paysan danois
dans le bas moyen age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Helle Reinholdt – Bodil M!llller Knudsen:
„Women’s Rosegarden“ and „Women’s Herbgarden“ :
Two Symposia on the Sexuality of Medieval Warnen 84
Biographies of the authors 87
Berichte – Besprechungen – Mitteilungen 92
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Introduction
The articles in this issue all deal with current research on life in medieval Denmark.
Though comprehensive within their respective fields, they represent only
a part of the multi-faceted research currently being undertaken in Denmark, in
spite of the adverse work and job situation of many younger scholars. Due to
a very short deadline for articles, many scholars were unable to comply with
our request for a contribution but expressed interest in participating in international
communication of current research. We hope to bring more articles
on research on medieval Danish life at a later date.
In Denmark, no particular stress is laid on the topic: medieval daily life .
Yet, the by now established social and economic history as well as the renewed
interest in political history, has made historians focus on daily life and on its
material as well as mental aspects. The articles by N anna Damsholt and Brian
Patrick McGuire concern the religion and the Church of medieval Denmark
and their fusion with secular life.
With the development of the discipline of medieval archaeology, our understanding
of the material aspects as well as the physical frames for medieval life
has been greatly expanded. In contrast to the finite number of written documents,
the quantity of archaeological sources keeps increasing, adding valuable
information to our knowledge of medieval society. The challenge to historians
and archaeologists has been to combine and interpret written, artistic and material
sources as Ebbe Nyborg discusses in his article while Marianne Johansen
and Ingrid Nielsen present a project combining achaeology and written sources.
All three authors are historians as well as archaeologists. In this connection, one
might mention the periodical hikuin (published by Forlaget Hikuin, Moesgä.rd,
DK-8270 H95jberg, Denmark) which began in 1974 and appears at irregular
intervals, the latest volume being number 14 (1988). The periodical brings
articles on medieval archaeology primarily in Danish but also in Swedish and
Norwegian with resumes in English. Special issues have been devoted to church
archaeology, urban archaeology, coins and pottery. We should also like to mention
the research tool Nordic Archaeological Abstract (NAA) which indexes all
articles on medieval archaeology (see p. 95).
4
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50 km
The Julland peninsular and the Danish islands. The borders of the core of the Medieval kingdom are mark ed with dotted
lines and the modern boundaries with broken lines. The areas in present-day Sweden were the medicval province of Skäne
(Scania), Hailand and Blekinge.
Ingrid Nielsen has also produced the map, accompanying the introduction,
which shows the medieval as weil as the present boundaries of Denmark. As
she and Marianne Jobansen point out in their article, the latter boundary also
determines the boundaries of much archaeological and historical research. In
part to make up for this, meetings have been held between Danish and Swedish
historians and archaeologists (the latter primarily from Skane) dealing with
aspects of the town-country relationship. The publications of these meetings
are mentioned in the article by Bj􀞹rn Poulsen.
The article by Jens E. Oiesen on tolls and toll collection deals with a topic,
hitherto seen as part of political or financial history; but this was, in fact, of
great importance to the common people, especially the many men and women
engaged in trade or commerce whether on international, inter-regional or lo­
cal Ievel. Similarly, his other article, describing the development of the royal
chancellery, rerninds us that bureaucracy and bureaucrats, whether viewed negatively
or positively by contemporaries, are neither modern phenomena nor
ones, appearing during Absolutism.
Bj􀅞rn Poulsen’s article makes us aware that medieval people did not live
and produce in isolation but were integrated into the European economy,
though the extent of involvement and the awareness of international connections
would vary according to time and place. Poulsen also stresses that town
and country, so often seen as mutually exclusive, were both part of the daily
life of many medieval women and men.
The contribution by Helle Reinholdt and Bodil M􀅞ller Knudsen points to
the gender aspect, so often overlooked in traditional history which has concerned
itself mainly with the action of men. We have chosen not to have an
article on “ Women and Daily Life“ which would make women merely one ingredient
in the daily life of men but have urged the authors to include the
gender aspects, making the reader aware that history, whether of daily life or
of extraordinary events, is made by women as weil as men.
September 1988 Grethe Jacobsen, Jens Christian V. Jobansen
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