medieval medicine – Going Medieval

On women’s anatomy and the power of paying attention

Pretend you are me – the nicest, cutest, sweetest person who deserves a relaxing little Sunday, where she just goofs and maybe reads a ghost book ever. Nice right? Well, I also will have to imagine it as well because unfortunately my Sunday was irrevocably disfigured by the rantings of an idiot on the internet, and I was forced to think about my job. Yes, that’s correct no one has suffered in the way that I do. Thank you for noticing. What can you do to help? Well you are going to have to look at this right here:

On the Black Death in Africa and Asia, and the interconnected Middle Ages

Friends, I get angry sometimes. Yes, I know you are aware of that because this blog is, more or less, a catalogue of the various righteous indignations which I seize upon from time to time. Often this comes from seeing something silly in the wild and getting worked up about it, but this week it happened because I was talking to a colleague of mine, Prof. Philip Slavin, about the Black Death, as one does.

Doctor does actually mean someone with a PhD, sorry

You know those little jokes that centre around a person with a PhD being on a plane, and someone asks for a doctor, and they say they aren’t that kind of doctor but the emergency involves their field of study? I love those. If you don’t know what I am rabbiting on about I mean these:

On sickness and conspiracy

I woke up this morning on, October the fifth in the year of our lord 2023, and was not a zombie. This is notable for reasons which will shortly become clear. Because I am not a zombie, this means that I had to get up and do my job. Unfortunately, as a part of said job, a thing that I have to deal with on a frustratingly regular basis is the fairly pervasive idea that medieval Europeans were somehow uniquely stupid. The foolish medieval person is usually proffered in comparison to the total brain genius who is making the statement, who is somehow simultaneously smarter than a medieval person, and yet hasn’t read a single book on medieval history or considered how to make any sort of social analysis at all.

On periods, and the dudes who fear them

So today I had to see what is probably a joke about men’s attitudes towards periods, but which also might be a really stupid take about periods from some man on the internet, and I thought that was as good an excuse as any to talk about conceptions of menstruation in the medieval period. In theory, we have come a long way towards understanding how and why uterus’s bleed. In practice there’s a sad number of guys like this out in the world who just…feel the need to say things like this:

On semen retention

Mostly because my life is cursed/an unending nightmare, I have been subjected to a lot of takes about semen retention lately. Part of this has to do with the fact that it is a specific alt-right talking point, with certain nazis going so far as to make statements like, “The (((elites))) [Jewish people] fear men who practice semen retention”, which…IDK man I don’t even know where to start with that one. Also, like, whatever the hell this is, which made me take psychic damage earlier this week:

A Very Short Introduction to the Black Death

The Department of Transportation invited me to come give a talk on the Black Death, and have kindly shared it on YouTube. One note for myself! In the talk I incorrectly state that peasants’ wages in England went from 15 Denarii to 17 Denarii. That is way too much! It is actually 5(.12) Denarii to 7(.22) Denarii. This simply reflects my desire to give all peasants a raise. I hope you enjoy!

On women having sex with themselves

This week I have extremely been back on my bullshit talking about and thinking about medieval dildos, as ones does. Real fans of the blog, of course will remember that I have written about dildos before, but this week over on the We’re Not So Different Podcast Luke and I were having a bit of a chat about them as well. One of the things I mentioned there was the fact that dildos have a specific place in the medieval mind because of the way that medical and religious writers thought about sex. Then I opened twitter this morning, because I am a masochist, and saw an honest to god neo-Nazi talking about dildos in the exact same way. Behold:

Podcast alert: Medieval medicine on Sick to Death

I was lucky enough to chat with my friend Rebecca Rideal on the Sick to Death podcast about medieval medicine. It’s a really great podcast which focuses on telling history through objects. I hope you will enjoy it!

Plague Police round up, or, I am tired, and you people give me no peace

Look it is hot here in London. The sort of hot that London is not supposed to be and was also not built for. Your girl doesn’t like or function well in the heat. As a result, my brain is very tired and slow. Also, petty. So, this week despite the fact that this blog has called for the abolition of the police, I am back on my Plague Police bullshit. This is because we all live in hell, and as a result are dealing with the generalised basics who are still, still, still, even now going around saying stupid things about the plague. Presumably this is just to wind me up when I am already in a bad mood about the heat.

Well congrats, bitches. Here’s a rant about how you are wrong and I hate you.