Cathy McClive - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Cathy McClive
Brepols Publishers eBooks, 2023
This article criticizes the traditional perception of early modern elite male attitudes regarding... more This article criticizes the traditional perception of early modern elite male attitudes regarding menstruation as misogynist, arguing that a fuller and more nuanced analysis of these attitudes is needed. It proposes that this be reached through the heuristic application of a taboo subject to an analysis of one of the sources of elite religious attitudes toward menstruation: Leviticus 15, 18:19, and 20:18. It compares linguistic changes in the expression of menstrual taboos found in Leviticus 15, 18, and 20 among 35 Catholic and Protestant Bibles between 1530 and 1768 and in 22 contemporary dictionaries. It refutes the idea that the Levitical texts were misogynistic and argues that the early modern Catholic and Protestant translators placed the menstrual and seminal taboos in the context of procreation and conjugal sexuality. Far from expressing hatred or disgust for the menstruating woman, early modern French theologians and lexicographers respected the gender neutral tone of Leviti...
Medical History, 2001
Book Reviews biological and cultural. She sees clearly how the medieval world has been used by la... more Book Reviews biological and cultural. She sees clearly how the medieval world has been used by later writers, from the Renaissance onwards, with their own agendas for reform and their own reasons for writing the medieval world in particular ways. Thanks to Green's work, the medieval medical world is a far more clear, but also more varied, landscape than it was before; medical, social, and gender historians will find her a reliable and always stimulating guide.
Social History of Medicine, 2002
For early modern men and women and their medical practitioners, the experience and understanding ... more For early modern men and women and their medical practitioners, the experience and understanding of pregnancy was primarily uncertain. This uncertainty extended to the whole process of pregnancy--from the moment of conception to delivery, the detection and bearing of a 'true fruit' was doubtful. This 'uncertainty' was heightened by the fact that both body and language could conceal the truth. The woman herself was frequently uncertain and could be mistaken in her interpretation of the condition of her belly. This ambiguity is expressed in the vague and faltering language used to describe such experiences. Women's bodies were believed to conceal the truth more readily than their male counterparts. Equally a woman's physical narrative was more likely to be distrusted. Tensions surrounding the appropriate nature of women's 'knowledge' of such hidden 'secrets' also affected the ways in which women and their practitioners described the 'truths' of the belly. This article traces the ambiguities faced by women and their midwives/accoucheurs through three areas of pregnancy: quickening, false conceptions, and the threat of miscarriage. The much-neglected source of medical texts and observations is drawn upon, alongside letters and diaries and judicial material.
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2008
This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtr... more This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtroom through a close reading of three case studies: Marie Garnier, expert midwife tried for false testimony in 1665, and Angélique Perrotin and Barbe-Françoise D'Igard, accused of false accusation of rape and infant substitution, respectively, in the 1730s. The difficulties of determining the veracity of the corporeal signs of a crime were particularly acute with regard to the reproductive female body, which was perceived to be less reliable than its male counterpart. The ability of the female medical expert to accurately and truthfully interpret such signs was also questionable, and at times she seems to have been as much "on trial" as the bodies of those she examined.
UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) is an archive of life sciences journal literature.
History Workshop Journal, 2009
... Cathy McClive has been lecturer in early modern European history at Durham University since 2... more ... Cathy McClive has been lecturer in early modern European history at Durham University since 2005. ... 80 Several decades later his colleague at the Châtelet, Paris, Antoine-Gaspard Boucher d'Argis (170891), gave a more elaborate account of the difficulties of interpreting the ...
Annales de démographie historique, 2013
Social History of Medicine, 2016
[About the book] Les avancées des nouvelles techniques d’intervention sur le développement prénat... more [About the book] Les avancées des nouvelles techniques d’intervention sur le développement prénatal et la procréation, ainsi que l’essor des travaux sur l’histoire de la parenté, du corps et de la sexualité, ont favorisé l’émergence de nouveaux questionnements sur ce qui construit notre identité d’être humain et ses multiples dimensions culturelles. La figure de l’embryon est au cœur de ces interrogations. Pour saisir l’évolution des regards portés sur l’être humain en devenir, au confluent de l’histoire de la médecine, de la philosophie, des religions et des images, cet ouvrage rassemble des contributions des chercheurs de différentes disciplines qui se sont penchés sur l’histoire de la représentation scientifique, symbolique et imaginaire de l’embryon.
This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtr... more This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtroom through a close reading of three case studies: Marie Garnier, expert midwife tried for false testimony in 1665, and Angélique Perrotin and Barbe-Françoise D'Igard, accused of false accusation of rape and infant substitution, respectively, in the 1730s. The difficulties of determining the veracity of
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2012
In the celebrated case of Claudine Rouge, the very ordinary medico-legal role of surgeons as witn... more In the celebrated case of Claudine Rouge, the very ordinary medico-legal role of surgeons as witnesses of the senses took on extraordinary proportions as Claude Champeaux and Jean Faissole were tried in the public and medical arenas for their role in the polemic that surrounded their reading of the signs of drowning in Rouge's putrefied corpse. Beneath concern for a potential miscarriage of justice and the condemnation of innocent men and women, Champeaux and Faissole were used as scapegoats for a trial of the epistemology of witnessing based on the evidence of the senses and the role of legal medicine itself within the ancien régime judiciary.
McClive, C. (2007) 'L'âge des fleurs: le passage de l'enfance à l'adolescence... more McClive, C. (2007) 'L'âge des fleurs: le passage de l'enfance à l'adolescence dans l'imaginaire médical du XVIIe siècle.', in Regards sur l'enfance au XVIIe siècle. Tubingen: Gunter Narr, pp. 171-185. ... Full text not available from this repository.
Attitudes to menstruation are explored in three inter-linked arenas: medicine, moral theology and... more Attitudes to menstruation are explored in three inter-linked arenas: medicine, moral theology and law across the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Drawing on a wide range of diverse sources, including court records and private documents, the author uses case studies to explore the relationship between the exceptional corporeality of individuals and attempts to construct menstrual norms, reflecting on how early modern individuals, lay or otherwise, grappled with the enigma of menstruation. She analyzes how early modern men and women accounted for the function, recurrence and appearance of menstruation, from its role in maintaining health to the link between other physiological and bodily processes, including those found in both male and female bodies. She questions the assumption that menstruation was exclusively associated with women by the second half of the eighteenth century, arguing that whilst sex-related, menstruation was not sex-specific even at the turn of the nineteenth. Menstruation remains a contentious topic today. This book is not, therefore, simply a study of periods in early modern France, but is also of necessity an exploration about the nature and constitution of historical evidence, particularly bodily evidence and how historians use this evidence.
Brepols Publishers eBooks, 2023
This article criticizes the traditional perception of early modern elite male attitudes regarding... more This article criticizes the traditional perception of early modern elite male attitudes regarding menstruation as misogynist, arguing that a fuller and more nuanced analysis of these attitudes is needed. It proposes that this be reached through the heuristic application of a taboo subject to an analysis of one of the sources of elite religious attitudes toward menstruation: Leviticus 15, 18:19, and 20:18. It compares linguistic changes in the expression of menstrual taboos found in Leviticus 15, 18, and 20 among 35 Catholic and Protestant Bibles between 1530 and 1768 and in 22 contemporary dictionaries. It refutes the idea that the Levitical texts were misogynistic and argues that the early modern Catholic and Protestant translators placed the menstrual and seminal taboos in the context of procreation and conjugal sexuality. Far from expressing hatred or disgust for the menstruating woman, early modern French theologians and lexicographers respected the gender neutral tone of Leviti...
Medical History, 2001
Book Reviews biological and cultural. She sees clearly how the medieval world has been used by la... more Book Reviews biological and cultural. She sees clearly how the medieval world has been used by later writers, from the Renaissance onwards, with their own agendas for reform and their own reasons for writing the medieval world in particular ways. Thanks to Green's work, the medieval medical world is a far more clear, but also more varied, landscape than it was before; medical, social, and gender historians will find her a reliable and always stimulating guide.
Social History of Medicine, 2002
For early modern men and women and their medical practitioners, the experience and understanding ... more For early modern men and women and their medical practitioners, the experience and understanding of pregnancy was primarily uncertain. This uncertainty extended to the whole process of pregnancy--from the moment of conception to delivery, the detection and bearing of a 'true fruit' was doubtful. This 'uncertainty' was heightened by the fact that both body and language could conceal the truth. The woman herself was frequently uncertain and could be mistaken in her interpretation of the condition of her belly. This ambiguity is expressed in the vague and faltering language used to describe such experiences. Women's bodies were believed to conceal the truth more readily than their male counterparts. Equally a woman's physical narrative was more likely to be distrusted. Tensions surrounding the appropriate nature of women's 'knowledge' of such hidden 'secrets' also affected the ways in which women and their practitioners described the 'truths' of the belly. This article traces the ambiguities faced by women and their midwives/accoucheurs through three areas of pregnancy: quickening, false conceptions, and the threat of miscarriage. The much-neglected source of medical texts and observations is drawn upon, alongside letters and diaries and judicial material.
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2008
This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtr... more This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtroom through a close reading of three case studies: Marie Garnier, expert midwife tried for false testimony in 1665, and Angélique Perrotin and Barbe-Françoise D'Igard, accused of false accusation of rape and infant substitution, respectively, in the 1730s. The difficulties of determining the veracity of the corporeal signs of a crime were particularly acute with regard to the reproductive female body, which was perceived to be less reliable than its male counterpart. The ability of the female medical expert to accurately and truthfully interpret such signs was also questionable, and at times she seems to have been as much "on trial" as the bodies of those she examined.
UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) is an archive of life sciences journal literature.
History Workshop Journal, 2009
... Cathy McClive has been lecturer in early modern European history at Durham University since 2... more ... Cathy McClive has been lecturer in early modern European history at Durham University since 2005. ... 80 Several decades later his colleague at the Châtelet, Paris, Antoine-Gaspard Boucher d'Argis (170891), gave a more elaborate account of the difficulties of interpreting the ...
Annales de démographie historique, 2013
Social History of Medicine, 2016
[About the book] Les avancées des nouvelles techniques d’intervention sur le développement prénat... more [About the book] Les avancées des nouvelles techniques d’intervention sur le développement prénatal et la procréation, ainsi que l’essor des travaux sur l’histoire de la parenté, du corps et de la sexualité, ont favorisé l’émergence de nouveaux questionnements sur ce qui construit notre identité d’être humain et ses multiples dimensions culturelles. La figure de l’embryon est au cœur de ces interrogations. Pour saisir l’évolution des regards portés sur l’être humain en devenir, au confluent de l’histoire de la médecine, de la philosophie, des religions et des images, cet ouvrage rassemble des contributions des chercheurs de différentes disciplines qui se sont penchés sur l’histoire de la représentation scientifique, symbolique et imaginaire de l’embryon.
This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtr... more This article explores the obstacles faced by the female medical expert in the early modern courtroom through a close reading of three case studies: Marie Garnier, expert midwife tried for false testimony in 1665, and Angélique Perrotin and Barbe-Françoise D'Igard, accused of false accusation of rape and infant substitution, respectively, in the 1730s. The difficulties of determining the veracity of
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2012
In the celebrated case of Claudine Rouge, the very ordinary medico-legal role of surgeons as witn... more In the celebrated case of Claudine Rouge, the very ordinary medico-legal role of surgeons as witnesses of the senses took on extraordinary proportions as Claude Champeaux and Jean Faissole were tried in the public and medical arenas for their role in the polemic that surrounded their reading of the signs of drowning in Rouge's putrefied corpse. Beneath concern for a potential miscarriage of justice and the condemnation of innocent men and women, Champeaux and Faissole were used as scapegoats for a trial of the epistemology of witnessing based on the evidence of the senses and the role of legal medicine itself within the ancien régime judiciary.
McClive, C. (2007) 'L'âge des fleurs: le passage de l'enfance à l'adolescence... more McClive, C. (2007) 'L'âge des fleurs: le passage de l'enfance à l'adolescence dans l'imaginaire médical du XVIIe siècle.', in Regards sur l'enfance au XVIIe siècle. Tubingen: Gunter Narr, pp. 171-185. ... Full text not available from this repository.
Attitudes to menstruation are explored in three inter-linked arenas: medicine, moral theology and... more Attitudes to menstruation are explored in three inter-linked arenas: medicine, moral theology and law across the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Drawing on a wide range of diverse sources, including court records and private documents, the author uses case studies to explore the relationship between the exceptional corporeality of individuals and attempts to construct menstrual norms, reflecting on how early modern individuals, lay or otherwise, grappled with the enigma of menstruation. She analyzes how early modern men and women accounted for the function, recurrence and appearance of menstruation, from its role in maintaining health to the link between other physiological and bodily processes, including those found in both male and female bodies. She questions the assumption that menstruation was exclusively associated with women by the second half of the eighteenth century, arguing that whilst sex-related, menstruation was not sex-specific even at the turn of the nineteenth. Menstruation remains a contentious topic today. This book is not, therefore, simply a study of periods in early modern France, but is also of necessity an exploration about the nature and constitution of historical evidence, particularly bodily evidence and how historians use this evidence.