Exotic materials and treasured knowledge: the valuable legacy of noblewomen's remedies in early modern Germany

• Published in: Renaissance studies Vol. 28; no. 4; pp. 533 - 555
• Main Author: Rankin, Alisha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-09-2014; John Wiley & Sons Ltd
• Subjects: Alchemy; Canisters; Distillation; gender; Healing; History of medicine; household medicine; inheritance; Legacies; Materia medica; material culture; Medical equipment; Pharmacies; Pharmacy; Renaissance period; Sugars; Women; Womens health; Germany-pre-1945
• ISSN: 0269-1213; 1477-4658
• DOI: 10.1111/rest.12078

Estate inventories taken after the death of sixteenth- and seventeenth- century German noblewomen occasionally contain itemizations of court apothecaries. These accounts not only portray the pharmacy as squarely under the guidance of the women in question, they also give us a sense of what specific materia medica noblewomen used in their practice. At the same time, this essay argues, inventories are inherently flawed historical documents, because they portray first and foremost what state bureaucrats found most valuable. Inventories of noblewomen's apothecaries thus tend to skew towards foreign and exotic drugs, beautiful containers, and unusual objects – a stark contrast to the more quotidian ingredients that take centre stage in most medicinal recipes. These material remnants of court apothecaries, moreover, tell only part of the story of noblewomen's medicine. In interactions during their lifetimes, noblewomen's children and heirs seemed far more interested in their medical knowledge than in their medical possessions. Some explicitly referred to family books of medicinal recipes as a treasure, or Schatz. Through an examination of these two different kinds of valuable legacies – material and immaterial – we can start to develop a broader picture of the perceived worth of noblewomen's healing.