The body of the women: medicine and literature in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

Analysis, from an embryologic view, of the theories women's bodies, widespread in the
Late Middle Ages, which state the inferiority of women with regard to men.
These theories take into account the different stages of the medieval embryology, fertilization
(and female semen), menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and lactation, from two scientific books
of popularizing character (the Lilium medicinae from Bernard of Gordon and the Dialogue de
Placides et Timéo) and a literary work written by Jaume Roig, a pysician from the Crown of
Aragon, called Espill (Mirror).