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Alexandra Barratt (ed.), The knowing of woman's kind in childing: a Middle English version of material derived from the Trotula and other sources, Medieval Women: Text and Contexts, vol. 4, Turnhout, Brepols, 2001, pp. xii, 169, euro55.00 (hardback 2-503-51073-6).
This book by Alexandra Barratt presents the edition of a Middle English treatise on gynaecology, written for a female audience, one of whose five surviving manuscripts is entitled The knowing of woman s kind of childing. It claims to have been translated from French and Latin texts, which derive ultimately from Greek. The editor demonstrates that the source of a large part of the treatise is an Old French translation of the Liber de sinthomatibus mulierum, one of the three texts which some time in the thirteenth century became part of the compendium of women's medicine known in Europe as Trotula, attributed to the female physician and writer, Trota of Salerno. Other sources are a Latin epitome of a text by Muscio known as Non omnes quidem, an Old French version of which could have existed, and some recipes taken from the Genicia Cleopatras ad Theodatam, a Latin text attributed to Cleopatra. Barratt explains that there is at least one source that has not been identified, and argues that part...