Heilkunde im Habit : Heilkundliches Wissen und Krankenpflege in den Lüneburger Frauenklöstern im 15. / 16. Jahrhundert (Wissensliteratur im Mittelalter)

Buelters, Timo

Reichert; Reichert Verlag（2026発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版
• 商品コード 9783752007695

Description

How did nuns deal with illness in the late Middle Ages and early modern period? Using the example of the so-called Lüneburger Frauenklöster, this study explores a hitherto little-noticed aspect of female monastic culture: nuns as bearers, producers and transmitters of medical knowledge, as well as active participants in medical practice - as diagnosticians, pharmacists and therapists. By bringing together the medical and practical literature, letters, account books and artefacts preserved in the convents, the study reconstructs medical knowledge in active use - from its transmission, adaptation and communication to its practical application within the convent - thereby revealing the reality of healing within and between late medieval women's convents. How did nuns deal with illness in the late Middle Ages and early modern period? Who diagnosed illnesses, prepared medicines and cared for sick nuns? What medical knowledge did the nuns have at their disposal? This study delves deep into the world of medicine within the so-called Lüneburger Frauenklöster (Ebstorf, Isenhagen, Medingen, Lüne, Walsrode and Wienhausen). It focuses on a previously little-noticed aspect of female monastic culture: nuns as diagnosticians, pharmacists and therapists - and thus as bearers of medical knowledge.
Particularly under the conditions of cloistered life, the care of the sick had to be organised to a considerable extent within the convent walls. Women's convents were therefore not merely religious communities. They were also centres of medical care, where relevant knowledge had to be made available, passed on and put into practice. The exceptionally rich collection of medical writings from the Wienhausen convent opens up this hitherto unexplored realm of knowledge. Recipes, treatises, collections of recipes, a fragment of a pharmacopoeia and a comprehensive handbook document a remarkably broad spectrum of medical literature. This is being researched in its entirety for the first time here.
Medical knowledge did not stop at the monastery walls within the six communities; it circulated beyond the boundaries of the individual monasteries: in their letters, the nuns describe symptoms of illness, seek diagnostic advice, share prescriptions and report on successful treatments. The lively correspondence between the six women's monasteries reveals a cross-monastery network of medical knowledge.
But what did healing behind convent walls actually look like? The answer is not to be found in recipes, treatises and letters alone. This study not only reconstructs the body of medical knowledge accessible through texts, but also takes into account the economic and material dimensions. Account books provide information on the purchase of medicinal substances, remedies and other materials for the care of the sick; surviving artefacts offer a tangible perspective. In this way, the reality of healing in the Lüneburger Frauenklöster is not only documented comprehensively for the first time, but becomes almost tangible.
The study offers a new perspective on women's monasteries in the late Middle Ages. The nuns were far more than simply 'brides of Christ': they copied and wrote down recipes, diagnosed and treated illnesses, produced medicines, exchanged experiences and organised the care of their patients. They were skilled practitioners within a multifaceted culture of healing and part of a cross-monastic network of medical knowledge. Timo Bülters (born 1990) studied German Studies and History at Ruhr University Bochum from 2010 to 2016. In 2016/2017, he worked as an Academic Visitor at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages/Chair in Medieval German at the University of Oxford on the project 'Netzwerke der Nonnen. Edition und Erschließung der Briefsammlung aus Kloster Lüne (ca. 1460-1555)' (led by Prof. Dr Henrike Lähnemann and Prof. Dr Eva Schlotheuber). From 2017 to 2022, he worked as a Research Assistant on the DFG-project 'Die Jagd in deutschsprachigen Texten des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit' (led by Prof. Dr Simone Schultz-Balluff) and, from 2018 to 2021, as a Lecturer at the Department of German and Comparative Literature and Culture/Chair in Medieval German at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Since April 2022, he has been working as a Research Assistant in the Department of German Studies/Chair in Medieval German at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (led by Prof. Dr Simone Schultz-Balluff). In December 2022, he received his doctorate at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.
His main areas of research include textual and knowledge cultures, as well as the realities of monastic life (particularly Lüneburger Frauenklöster), Historical Knowledge and Practical Literature (particularly medical literature of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period), Middle Low German language and literature, Manuscript and Textual Transmission Studies, as well as Digital Philology and the History of Medicine.
https://www.germanistik.uni-halle.de/germanistische_mediaevistik/team/buelters/