Lessons Of History - The Suppression Of Women Healers 1

I am a historian by training and I use history to give a reality to my books. I deliberately don’t fix the books in a specific time or place, but the subject matter and the details are influenced by my knowledge of and research into events in history. In this blog I intend sharing with you some of those “lessons of history.”

In Girl in the Glass my heroine Judith is warned about the dangers of becoming a healer. In the second book in the trilogy Love of Shadows (which I am writing now) she pursues her calling and puts her life at risk. The subject of the suppression of women healers over the centuries is a fascinating one.

Up to the 13thcentury women traditional healers (wisewomen) were practising their arts throughout Europe relatively without hindrance. Their medicines were born of traditions handed down through the generations and tested by use. In addition they were midwives and bonesetters. They were the only medical help available to most people and they had status in their communities as a result.

Then in the 14thcentury things changed. A new medical practitioner was being created – the university-trained physicians – one whose services were more expensive and elitist. Not better. The university medical training at that time was based on Galen’s concepts of the humours and governed by Christian doctrine. It did not have the empirical approach of the women healers and was mostly mumbo jumbo. Nevertheless the new male (nearly all universities were closed to women) physicians, supported by the Church, pushed for and got laws forbidding the practice of medicine by non-university trained healers. Suddenly women could not legally practice medicine. Of course given the low numbers of university medical students, these laws were unenforceable across the board, but they could be applied selectively.

The first targets were not the peasant women healers, but literate urban women healers who were in direct competition for the male physicians. In 1322 Jacoba Felice was put on trial in Paris – her crime practising medicine illegally. No matter that she produced witnesses verifying that she had cured them where the university physicians had failed, her competence was evidence of guilt.

The court found that: “Her plea that she cured many sick persons whom the aforesaid masters could not cure, ought not to stand and is frivolous, since it is certain that a man approved in the aforesaid art could cure the sick better than any woman

1. Perhaps the true reason for her prosecution and other women like her can be found in
2. Her accuser was a university-trained male physician.

One witness Jean St Omer stated that Jacoba had visited him repeatedly throughout a grave illness, never asking for payment prior to a cure. He affirmed that she had done more for him, and with far less demand on his purse, than any licensed physician. As her punishment Jacoba was excommunicated and fined. Nothing more is known of her. In some ways she was lucky, from then on the suppression of women healers started to a more deadly turn. More of that in a future post.

Notes From A Story Editor - Background

When I started to write novels I was encouraged to do so by a close friend. And not just any friend: Hannah Kodicek was one of the best story editors in the business. Hannah had had a varied and successful career as an actress, director, writer and latterly story editor in the film industry. She was story editor on the Oscar-winning Counterfeiters and occasionally advised friends with their novels – including Danny Scheinmann (Random Acts of Heroic Love) and of course me. 

Hannah was considered such an expert that she lectured on story structure and other aspects of story-making to people in the business on the EU funded ARISTA and MAIA programmes. Many writers will know of The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler – a book which is film industry required reading – which sets out in easily accessible form the mythic form of stories. Fewer will have read the works of Carl Jung and his followers, specifically The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell on which Vogler based his book. Hannah had gone direct to the source, studying myths and fairytales and Jung, Campbell, Von Franz and other Jungian writers. Her lectures therefore had an authority that few others in the business could muster. They also had a practicality and realism, that were important features of my friend.

She was moreover a wonderful educator, which made her work as a story editor all the more powerful. I never sat in one of her lectures, but I had my own private tutorials. We had wonderful sessions talking about story structure and what is more I asked her to read and feedback about my novels. I could tell that at first she was nervous, worrying that I might be sensitive about my babies and that it might impact on our friendship. She needn’t have worried, I loved out sessions. She had a way of not telling me what to do, but rather, like all great teachers, asking questions that made me think. She would send me off spinning unforeseen possibilities. She in turn enjoyed seeing what I then came up with. I was, she told me, the best of all her clients. 

Sadly Hannah died of cancer last year. I was writing Girl In The Shadows at the time and although we discussed it, Hannah never got to read the novel. “Don’t worry,” she said, “You don’t need me anymore, you’ve learned everything.” I’m not sure about that, but I have her notes and my memories of our conversations. Once it became apparent that she was dying, we talked about whether her notes could be made into the book she had always wanted to produce or maybe a website, so that future writers could learn as I did from what she had to say. Again she ran out of time. So I have decided to share with you some of what I learned as a tribute to a great story editor in this series of posts Notes From A Story Editor.  

A few weeks ago I agreed to do a guest post on The Indie Exchange – advice to other indie writers was the brief – the content was obvious, Hannah’s advice on the basics of storytelling.