Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS vii
3. Contributors ix
4. Acknowledgements xiii
5. Abbreviations xv
6. Introduction 1
7. PART I MARY THE PHYSICIAN
8. 1 Mary the Physician: Women, Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages 25
9. 2 CHAUCER’S PHYSICIANS: RAISING QUESTIONS OF AUTHORITY 45
10. PART II FEMALE MYSTICISM AND METAPHORS OF ILLNESS
11. 3 Heavenly Vision and Psychosomatic Healing: Medical Discourse in Mechtild of Hackeborn’s The Booke of Gostlye Grace 65
12. 4 BATHING IN BLOOD: THE MEDICINAL CURES OF ANCHORITIC DEVOTION 85
13. 5 ‘MAYBE I’M CRAZY?’ DIAGNOSIS AND CONTEXTUALISATION OF MEDIEVAL FEMALE MYSTICS 103
14. PART III FIFTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND THEOLOGICAL PROSE
15. 6 Purgatory and Spiritual Healing in John Audelay’s Poems 121
16. 7 REGINALD PECOCK’S READING HEART AND THE HEALTH OF BODY AND SOUL 139
17. PART IV DISFIGUREMENT AND DISABILITY
18. 8 Disabled Children: Birth Defects, Causality and Guilt 159
19. 9 MARKING THE FACE, CURING THE SOUL? READING THE DISFIGUREMENT OF WOMEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 181
20. 10 DID DRUNKENNESS DIM THE SIGHT? MEDIEVAL UNDERSTANDINGS AND RESPONSES TO BLINDNESS IN MEDICAL AND RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE 203
21. 11 BETWEEN PALLIATIVE CARE AND CURING THE SOUL: MEDICAL AND RELIGIOUS RESPONSES TO LEPROSY IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND, C. 1100–C. 1500 221
22. AFTERWORD 237
23. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 249
24. INDEX 281
25. GENDER IN THE MIDDLE AGES 294