Menstruation and the Female Body in Early Modern England

1. Introduction: ‘Those Sweet and Benign Humours That Nature Sends Monthly’: Reading Menstruation and Vaginal Bleeding
Sara Read

2. ‘What a Small Excess Is Called Flooding’: The Language of Menstruation and Transitional Bleeding
Sara Read

3. ‘Having the Benefit of Nature’: Menarche and Female Adolescence
Sara Read

4. ‘Full Sixteen and Never Yet Had Those’: Representations of Early or Delayed Menarche
Sara Read

5. ‘Women’s Monthly Sickness’: Accounting for Menstruation
Sara Read

6. ‘Wearing of the Double Clout’: Dealing with Menstrual Flow in Practice and in Religious Doctrine
Sara Read

7. ‘The Flower of Virginity’: Hymenal Bleeding and Becoming a Woman
Sara Read

8. The ‘Cleansing of the Flowers after the Birth’: Managing Pregnancy and Post-Partum Bleeding
Sara Read

9. ‘Women Grieve to Thinke They Must Be Old’: Representations of Menopause
Sara Read

10. Conclusion
Sara Read

Keywords: History, History of Britain and Ireland, Social History, History of Science, European History, Cultural History, World History, Global and Transnational History