(© Unknown Artist – Going Medieval)
Since the dawn of time, all women have suffered the same monthly curse of their menstrual period, something so widely discussed nowadays but something that was rarely even mentioned by women and men of the Tudor period. Something so simple as a woman’s period to us was considered an unutterable topic of conversation and harboured negative connotations that, to some of the most extreme religions, are still believed today. It has so many names; flowering, coming of age, a period, menstrual cycle but it was known by the Tudors mostly by the titles of ‘bleeding’ or ‘monthly course’. Yet the different titles were not the only difference in menstrual periods between us and the Tudors, oh no. Even the symbolism and meaning behind a woman’s monthly suffering was different, more negative than it is now.
In today’s society, we know that when a woman first gets her menstrual period, it means that she has begun puberty and that with each monthly period that comes, her fertility increases and therefore her ability to procreate also increases. Nowadays, a woman (in most countries) can only have sexual intercourse at the age of either sixteen or eighteen because that is the age that the law believes a woman is physically and mentally mature enough to both have intimate relations as well as conceive a child. However, in the Tudor times, this was not the case.
Tudor England was more religious than it is now and that was a very dangerous time to live in; religion practically almost dictated everything and this included women’s physical and mental abilities. In the story of Leviticus in the bible, Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden because Eve took a bite out of the forbidden fruit after allowing a serpent of the Devil. It is therefore the Church’s belief that a woman’s monthly course was a punishment on women by God for Eve’s temptation and therefore, it is impure and unclean. Many men would not touch their wives or mistresses or lovers during their monthly course because of this belief and they did not want to be tempted or unclean themselves. Some extremists even went as far to believe that a woman’s menstrual blood was dangerous and could poison the man’s penis, preventing them from being able to perform the sexual acts they required, and others went as far to claim that if a child was conceived whilst a woman was on her period, it would be born with deformities and red hair—considering that the King of England himself had red hair, you can understand that this belief was considered hokum and its validity was disregarded. Some men did not even care that their women were bleeding, if they wanted to be intimate, they would.
But what did the Tudors understand about a woman’s body during her menstrual period?
The Tudors believed that “a woman's reproductive cycle and genitals were seen to be imperfect versions of the male sexual organs. A woman's sexual organs were turned inwards, inside of their body. A woman's internal body was considered to be cold and wet while a man's was dry and hot and thus a woman needed the dry hot seed of a man to balance her. This of course could only come from her husband as sex outside of marriage was strictly forbidden by the Church … a woman’s monthly bleeding was believed to be the womb ridding itself of excess blood”. {1}
These ideas, as you might expect, were very critical and negatively suggestive towards women and the Church often spoke of women in a negative light with only the purest of women (most likely virgins or priestesses or women who had devoted their lives to the will of God) were spared from their judgement. Society in the Tudor era was male-dominated which meant that almost every aspect of a woman’s life was controlled and dictated by the men in her life e.g. her father, her brothers, her husband and eventually her son, should she be fortunate enough to have one.
Life for women in the Tudor era was far from the free, unrestricted lives that most women experience today and some of the things we take for granted, being able to choose who we can talk to or who we are romantically involved with, were things that the women of the Tudor era could only hope and dream of being free to do.
For the women of the past, their lives were not to be envied but pitied.
As for girls and women, the moment that a girl got her first period, she was believed to be able to conceive children regardless of whether they were ready or not and it is then that a girl would be married off, although in most cases they would have had their marriages arranged years in advance (sometimes from the moment they were born) in order to secure an advantageous political marriage for their power-hungry, money-grabbing fathers.
What made this even worse is the fact that, because menstrual periods were considered unnatural and punishment for all women given by God, women were not permitted to take any form of pain reliever for their cramps or severe pains during their period by order of the Church. Naturally, as you might expect, many women did not agree or care for this order and would secretly buy and distribute a concoction of herbs that would elevate the pain. In order to achieve this without being punished, women were only aware of these herbs and able to purchase them via word of mouth amongst the women and some outsiders who could be relied upon. The Church also made the most religious of women suffer furthermore by declaring that all women would refrain from taking the Holy Communion whilst on their period as if God was turning his back on them as he did Eve. But this wasn’t the only way that a woman dealt with her monthly cycle and despite what you might think, our methods of keeping ourselves clean and dealing with the blood during our periods are not that much different to the methods used by the Tudors.
That leads us to today’s big question—how on earth did women of the Tudor period handle the horrific pains and unpleasant blood that came with their menstrual cycles without the modern-day comforts of sanitary pads, painkillers and of course, lots and lots of delicious chocolate to soothe our aching tummies?
Let us take a trip back in time…
HISTORY BEHIND MENSTRUAL PERIODS
Contrary to popular belief, the Tudors did not just let women bleed into their clothes nor did they believe a woman should as they still had to act as graceful and ladylike as they normally would. But before we take a look at what options the women of the Tudor era had, we shall be taking a brief trip back to the civilisations that came before them as well as what other countries offered their women and what their beliefs were.
In terms of other civilisations, there are examples of a woman’s menstrual cycle being viewed as a positive instead of the negativity that the Tudors connected to it. Ancient civilisations such as the Babylonian, Hindu and Chinese believed that the menstrual cycle was a sign of fertility whilst the Aztecs and Mayans took it a step further by believing that a menstruating woman was a very important person within the society and should be treated with the utmost respect at all times for she was responsible for bringing more life to the community. On the other hand, many other civilisations shared the same associations for menstrual periods as the Tudors that the menstrual cycle was a sign of witchcraft in women and their ability to control many things such as the weather, death and even illness. Of course, we now know this to be nonsense but it's amazing to think that something as common as a period would be used to try and trick the population into thinking all women were witches. {2}
What is even more amazing is to know that some of the feminine products available to us today were also available in ancient times! Tampons, for example, were believed to have been used by the Ancient Egyptians and were made of rolled-up cotton or sometimes softened papyrus that was cheap to make so even the poorest of women could afford this. And since they also believed the blood had the ability to heal, it was also used in many remedies, for example, breast ptosis. Over in Ancient Greece, their tampons were crafted by ‘wrapping bits of wood together, others used sea sponges as tampons’ whilst the Romans made pads and tampons from wool since it was softer for the women {2}.
The Medieval Times in England brought a lot of challenges for women because of the increasing amount of shame brought upon them by the Church. Women were forced to become more cautious when out in public so that no one would suspect they were enduring their menstrual period as some within society would not even engage with them, including other women. This constant shame forced many women to do some pretty weird things to conceal the presence of their monthly course; to dispel any smell of blood, they wore scented herbal pouches on their necks and waists whilst more than often, you could see a woman carrying the remains of a cremated toad close to their waist as a way of relieving the aches and pains of their cramps.
Talk about ewwww.
Other methods included women using tampons made with wool wrapped around wooden twigs (that must have hurt) and pads made of sphagnum cymbifolium (also known as blood moss) since it was extremely absorbent and since it was also used for toilet paper, it would not arise suspicion. A scene from The Spanish Princess also shows a method used in both the Medieval and Tudor eras; where women would use rags to absorb the blood since underwear was not commonly available at this point and therefore some would wear shorts (often red ones to conceal staining) to keep the rag in place and throw it in the fire once it was used up since the fire would destroy any evidence of the woman’s menstrual cycle and fire was often seen by the Church as a means of purifying a sinner—hence why many religious rebels were burnt as it meant their souls would be purified by the flames.
An interesting thing to note is that a woman’s menstrual cycle was not as regular as it is for the women of today; things such as pregnancy, early menopause and body weight impacted how many menstrual cycles a woman had a year. In the Medieval and Tudor eras, women reached menopause much earlier than today (which is around the age range of the 40s to 50s) because, by the time a lady was in her early thirties, society believed that she would no longer be able to have children since some women entered menopause as early as their late thirties. And with the general diet of most women being poor during these periods, it had an impact on their weight with the average woman being underweight which can cause irregular periods or amenorrhea (absent periods) and these problems still occur in women today. Extreme fasting could also cause difficulties with menstrual periods as well as pregnancy as Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, often experienced irregular periods because of her religious fasting which meant her body was not receiving the food and nutrients it needed. And, of course, with the Tudors being quite focused (dare I say, obsessed) with pregnancy, if a woman was pregnant quite a lot, it means a lower number of periods each year.
For example, Thomas Boleyn (the father of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn) is recorded saying in a letter;
“When I married I had only £50 [nearly £2,500 in today’s money] a year to live on for me and my wife [Elizabeth Boleyn], as long as my father lived, and yet she brought me every year a child’ (Weir, 2011, p.11). {1}
In this letter, Thomas Boleyn states that his wife was pregnant every year from their marriage and birthed a child each year. Although we know that only three of them would reach adulthood (Anne, Mary and George), we believe that Elizabeth had a total of six pregnancies with three of her children dying young. Therefore, since she would have been pregnant for nine out of the twelve months of the year and with how often she conceived, it is possible that she only experienced maybe two or three courses each year before falling pregnant once again. {1}
Fun fact—did you know that in the reign of King Louis XIV of France, the perception of period blood was viewed so positively that women actually put their blood into perfume to attract a lover’s attention, even more disgusting is the belief that some even put it into their food, even the King was said to be a victim of this!
It’s amazing to see how a woman’s period blood had so many connotations and usages in the past.
I wouldn’t have wanted anyone smelling my blood, that’s for sure.
What do you think about women of the past’s methods of dealing with their menstrual periods?
Did some of them surprise you?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Until next time!
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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