Author : Helen Rodnite Lemay
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780791411445
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (114 download)
Book Synopsis Women's Secrets by : Helen Rodnite Lemay
Download or read book Women's Secrets written by Helen Rodnite Lemay and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1992-10-14 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Womens Secrets provides the first modern translation of the notorious treatise De secretis mulierum, popular throughout the late middle ages and into modern times. The Secrets deals with human reproduction and was written to instruct celibate medieval monks on the facts of life and some of the ways of the universe. However, the book had a much more far-reaching influence. Lemay shows how its message that women were evil, lascivious creatures built on the misogyny of the works Aristotelian sources and laid the groundwork for serious persecution of women. Both the content of the treatise and the reputation of its author (erroneously believed to be Albertus Magnus) inspired a few medieval scholars to compose lengthy commentaries on the text, substantial selections from which are included, providing further evidence of how medieval men interpreted science and viewed the female body.