The Education of Women

    The Education of Women

Héloïse’s story reveals much about the education of women in the Middle Ages. Intellectually brilliant, she became Abelard’s private student because women were not allowed to study at the university. There were some exceptions, particularly in Italy.

At Bologna, Novella d’Andrea (1312–66) lectured on philosophy and law. At Salerno, in southern Italy, the chair of medicine was held by Trotula (d. 1097), one of the most famous physicians of her time, although some scholars debate whether she was actually a woman, and convincing evidence suggests that her works are actually compendiums of works by three different authors. Concerned chiefly with alleviating the suffering of women, the major work attributed to her is On the Diseases of Women, commonly known throughout the Middle Ages as the Trotula. As the author says at the beginning of the treatise:

    Because women are by nature weaker than men and because they are most frequently afflicted in childbirth, diseases very often abound in them. … Women, from the condition of their fragility, out of shame and embarrassment do not dare reveal their anguish over their diseases (which happen in such a private place) to a physician. Therefore, their misfortune, which ought to be pitied, and especially the influence of a certain woman stirring my heart, have impelled me to give a clear explanation regarding their diseases in caring for their health.

In 63 chapters, the book addresses issues surrounding menstruation, conception, pregnancy, and childbirth, along with general ailments and diseases. The book champions good diet, warns of the dangers of emotional stress, and prescribes the use of opiates during childbirth, a practice otherwise condemned for centuries to come. It even explains how an experienced woman might pretend to be a virgin. The standard reference work in gynecology and obstetrics for midwives and physicians throughout the Middle Ages, the Trotula was translated from Latin into almost all vernacular languages and was widely disseminated.

        Thomas Aquinas and Scholasticism 420

In 1245, Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), a 20-year-old Dominican monk from Italy, arrived at the University of Paris to study theology, walking into a theological debate that had been raging for nearly 100 years, ever since the conflict between Abelard and Bernard: How does the believer come to know God? With the heart? With the mind? Or with both? Do we come to know the truth intuitively or rationally? Aquinas took on these questions directly and soon became the most distinguished student and lecturer at the university.

Aquinas was accompanied to Paris by another Dominican, his teacher Albertus Magnus (ca. 1200–80), a German who taught at both Paris and Cologne and who later produced a biological classification of plants based on Aristotle. The Dominicans had been founded in 1216 by the Spanish priest Dominic (ca. 1170–1221) as an order dedicated to the study of theology. Aquinas and Magnus, and others like them, increasingly trained by Dominicans, were soon labeled scholastics. Their brand of theological inquiry, which was based on Abelard’s dialectical method, was called Scholasticism.

Most theologians understood that there was a seeming conflict between faith and reason, but, they argued, since both proceeded from God, this conflict must, by definition, be a misapprehension. In the universities, rational inquiry and Aristotle’s objective descriptions of physical reality were all the rage (see Chapter 5), so much so that theologians worried that students were more enthralled with logical argumentation than right outcomes. Instead of studying heavenly truths and Scriptures, they were studying pagan philosophy, dating from the fourth century bce. Scholasticism sought to reconcile the two. One of the greatest efforts in this direction is Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, begun in 1265 when he was 40 years old. At Albertus Magnus’s request, Aquinas set out to write a theology based entirely on the work of ancient philosophers, demonstrating the compatibility of Classical philosophy and Christian religion. The Summa Theologica takes on virtually every theological issue of the age, from the place of women in society and the Church, to the cause of evil, the question of free choice, and whether it is lawful to sell a thing for more than it is worth. The medieval summa was an authoritative summary of all that was known on a traditional subject, and it was the ultimate aim of every highly educated man to produce one.