Women Helping Women: Teaching Medieval Infertility for Modern Students

My section will focus on ways to teach on medieval infertility treatments. In particular I will discuss Anne of Bohemia, the Trotula, and Hildegard von Bingen’s Physica as key sources in highlighting the advanced understanding of infertility in the Middle Ages and the tension between the evident equal understanding that either men or women could be the infertile partners and the societal view of a woman’s key role as mother. In using these sources, particularly Trotula and Physica, I will also highlight how women were actively involved in discussing and treating infertility, for women in particular. This is a key aspect of my student learning outcomes- actively dispelling modern misconceptions that women were excluded from the medical field and did not have agency over their own health. In countering these misconceptions through students directly analyzing sources themselves, I allow students to formulate their own conclusions about the past and create their own connections to modern perspectives; thus, challenging modern political critiques that professors use the classroom to push modern liberal agendas on students.