It is possible that women fashioned some sort of undergarment that would hold a menstrual rag in place though they did not write about it in the few female diaries that survived today and men didn’t include such female problems in their writing.
No matter which solution — medieval tampon or medieval pad — it is sure that there were leaks and accidents, soiled clothing and bedding. The solution? If you can’t prevent the stains, then try camouflaging them! Red petticoats became fashionable as the reason to mask the menses messes.
The only other option for medieval ladies was to try folk remedies to lessen a heavy flow. Medical tomes of the time included such recipes, including one that advised mixing blackberry, nettles and comfrey together and administering it while chanting magical phrases. Another tome mentioned biding the hair of an animal’s head to a green sapling or even to burning a toad and wearing the ashes in a pouch.
Medieval girls and women did not enjoy the postmodern conveniences of drugstores and pharmacies, but they had to make do with whatever they had when the medieval Aunt Flo paid her monthly visit. Twigs, cotton, moss and other readily available items were employed as proto-tampons or proto-pads.
While natural concoctions and folk remedies may have lessened the amount of flow, women embraced the color red in an attempt to camouflage menstruation messes.
THE HEALTH
Chapter Overview
We tend to think of the medieval time as a filthy, barbaric cesspool of an era, teeming with unwashed hands, full-on sneezes, and freely shared bodily fluids. True, the Middle Ages were categorically not the epoch of health care achievements.
However, medieval physicians were surprisingly familiar with the workings of the human body. Let us correct that: they were quite familiar with the workings of the male body. The female body was viewed as an inferior, under-developed version of the male body, therefore more attention and focus was placed on male health issues as it was vitally important to keep the men-folk alive and healthy. The health of women, although secondary to men, was not completely ignored; medieval physicians and surgeons and barbers (yes, barbers!) were tasked with unraveling the mysteries of the female body.
As one would imagine, the most complex and cryptic aspect of feminine health care centered on the reproductive system. Let us not forget that the only door into this dark and forbidding place was the vagina. Gynecology, as a medical specialty, did not exist in the Middle Ages. Yet male doctors did their best (mindful of the Hippocratic Oath and all) to treat female afflictions and ailments, crafting unique instruments of the trade or developing their own treatments and remedies (to varying degrees of effectiveness), as we will see in the following sections.
Gyno Gizmos: The Speculum, the Forceps and the Medieval Maiden
“Violence is the result of struggling feebleness, not of conscious power”
Let’s face it. The vagina is a dark and mysterious place but sometimes it is necessary to take a peek inside. Fortunately, doctors and midwives in the Middle Ages inherited a device designed from the ancient world just for this purpose (drum roll, please): the speculum. And, as any woman who has enjoyed her “annual” can attest, that marvelous invention is still being used today.
No one really knows when the very first curious explorer used penetrating and poking apparatus to peer into the unknown. However, two speculums were found during the excavation of Pompeii, dating back to 79 AD. Hippocrates, in his treatise on women’s health, mentioned a speculum made of pine planks that were, thankfully, well lubed before thrust into the vagina.
In the Middle Ages, physicians and midwives used a bronze speculum made of three blunted blades that expand outward at the turn of a screw. Medieval medical journals mentioned the use of speculum matricis for both diagnosing and treating a prolapsed uterus or to aid in delivering a stubborn separated placenta. It is also as a means for opening the vaginal canal to allow the physicians to apply ointments or herbal remedies to treat afflictions, such as cancer or ulcers, or to hasten childbirth.
As the Middle Ages drew to a close and the speculum became more widely used, this gyno gizmo stirred up some controversy. Religious figures, still clinging to the belief that any sexual contact that caused the female to experience pleasure was sinful, thought that women would orgasm if a speculum was used to examine her. Perhaps there was a grain of truth in it. Stories abounded about women climaxing on the examining table. Apparently a non-sterile, cold, hard, lube-free, metallic probe was preferred to the live show. Then again, these stories may have been purely fiction, fabricated by one opponent of the speculum in order to make his point known to others. In actuality, the speculum probably did more good than harm, either physically or morally.
The speculum was not the only medical instrument poking around in the vagina in medieval times. But while the speculum enjoyed a long and well-known history dating back to antiquity, the forceps was a true medieval innovation and one that was kept secret for generations.
The Chamberlen family, perhaps the family patriarch Peter the Elder, is credited with crafting the first forceps which was developed to assist with difficult births. Ironically, Peter the Elder, and his brother, Peter the younger, and his son, Peter, were not doctors: they were barbers. In the Middle Ages, barbers didn’t just trim hair; they performed a few minor medical procedures, including some surgeries.
The family of Peters also did some midwifery work. In fact, one of the Peters got into some trouble with the College of Physicians because he, number one, delivered babies which was considered woman’s work, and, number two, he advocated the formation of a midwives’ guild to educate practitioners and to elevate their status from dirty, backwoods healers to true para-medicals. Campaigning for the rights of women was not a way to win friends and influence people in the Middle Ages.
But back to the forceps. After the instrument was invented, tweaked and tested, it became a Chamberlen family secret. And they took great strides to keep the secret from getting out. One story says that a Chamberlen (want to bet his name was Peter!) arrived bearing a large ornately-carved wooden box at the home of a laboring woman. Two Chamberlens would struggle to carry the big box into the house, huffing and puffing under the false strain, thus perpetuating the ruse. The Peter would banish all others from the room, blindfold the mother-to-be, and to keep the mystery going, would ring bells, clang metal, and make other mechanical-sounding noises so that the family members, with ears pressed to the door no doubt, assumed some large, complicated modern machine was extracting the infant from its mother.
Why the secrecy? Were the Chamberlens afraid of persecution if their unique vaginal invention was discovered? Did they think they would be ostracized by the barber/surgeon community? Did they fear copycats? We can only speculate. Whatever the reason, vaginal forceps were known only to the family members and, indeed, would have been lost with the death of the heirless Hugh Chamberlen (We guess by this time the name “Peter” had Peter-ed out) had he not leaked the secret to several medical buddies, including a guy named Smellie (Seriously!). Then, in 1813, the original forceps designed by Peter the Elder were found under the floorboards in the attic of his former home. These were in remarkable condition and remarkably similar to the forceps still being used today.