Educated Women. The Case Of Trotula Of Salerno

Education in the Middle Ages |
Educated women. The case of Trotula of Salerno |
|
Maria Eugenia |
Degree in Pre-School Education1ºA |

Introduction
This individual work has been designedto be worked within the field of Education in the Middle Ages and the topic I have chosen is “Educated women. The case of Trotula of Salerno”.
The main goal of this work is to know her biography anddiscover how important she was by writing texts about women´s health.

Trotula de Salerno (1110-1160)

Also known as Trotula di Ruggiero, Trota and Trocta, was a doctor who lived in Salerno inthe eleventh and twelfth centuries and who wrote several influential works of female medicine .Her name always appears associated with the Salerno School of Medicine Studying. Some researchers claimthat she was the wife of one of the founders of the Centre, Johannes Platearius. The work of Trotula was attributed to him later.
If we talk about the historical context, we can mention that before thefoundation of the universities in the middle ages, knowledge was in the hands of the Church. Monasteries, especially male, guarded all antique and contemporary knowledge. The art of medicine was alsoreserved for men. Women could only exercise such as midwives. The rest of medical knowledge was banned for women. But an exceptional school was based in Salerno in the eleventh century. Close to themajor Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, in the vicinity of Naples, the first secular medical school was founded and women had access to it.
As a result, Trotula was professor of medicine at theMedica Salernitana school (which was the first medical center without connection with the Church and is considered by some authors as the first European University). Her books focus on the medicalproblems of the women, including menstruation and childbirth. Her writings reflected ideas very advanced for its time: an example is her support to some opiate for women during childbirth to alleviate...