Beyond Blame: How Hildegard and Medieval Healers Understood Fertility
Beyond Blame: How Hildegard and Medieval Healers Understood Fertility
In our modern fertility clinics, couples navigate IVF protocols, hormone panels, and genetic testing. But nine centuries ago, when a couple couldn't conceive, where did they turn? The answer might surprise you—not just to prayer and resignation, but to surprisingly sophisticated medical practitioners who understood that infertility wasn't always the woman's fault.
A Different Kind of Medieval Medicine
When we think of medieval medicine, we often imagine superstition and crude remedies. But the reality was far more nuanced. The 12th century produced two remarkable collections of women's health knowledge: Hildegard of Bingen's Causae et Curae (Causes and Cures) and the Trotula, a medical compendium associated with Trota of Salerno, a female practitioner from Italy's renowned medical school.
Both texts reveal medieval healers grappling with the same heartbreak couples face today—the longing for children, the confusion when conception doesn't happen, and the desperate search for answers.
Hildegard's Holistic Vision
Hildegard approached fertility through her characteristic lens of viriditas—"greenness" or life-force. For her, a woman's ability to conceive wasn't just about her womb, but about the vital energy flowing through her entire being. This energy connected the physical, spiritual, and emotional realms.
In Causae et Curae, Hildegard categorized women by temperament and described how each type approached fertility differently. Some women were "very fertile and conceive easily" due to their constitution—thick veins, healthy blood, and well-developed wombs. Others struggled, and Hildegard acknowledged this plainly without shame or blame.
Her remedies were surprisingly practical. In the Physica, she recommended that infertile women eat fish roe, noting that fish "pour forth" their reproductive essence with the same intensity other animals bring to mating. The symbolism was clear: consuming this concentrated life-force could awaken fertility.
But Hildegard also understood limits. When five abbots wrote asking her to pray for a noble couple who had lost their early children and remained childless, she offered compassion but was direct: "such matters are in the hands of God." Even the great mystic knew some mysteries remained beyond human reach.
The Trotula: Shared Responsibility
While Hildegard wrote from her monastery in Germany, Italian medical circles were producing the Trotula, a compendium that would become medieval Europe's most influential women's health text. With over 130 surviving Latin manuscripts, it traveled from Spain to Poland, Sicily to Ireland.
What made the Trotula revolutionary was its insistence that "conception can be impeded as much by the fault of the man as by the fault of the woman." In an era when the Church taught that infertility was God's punishment for female sin, this acknowledgment of male responsibility was radical.
The text offered a famous (if questionable) diagnostic test: both partners should urinate into separate pots filled with wheat bran. After nine or ten days, whoever's pot contained worms was the infertile partner. From there, treatments diverged—onions and parsnips to "augment and generate seed" in men, various herbs and fumigations for women whose wombs were too cold, too hot, too wet, or too dry.
What They Got Right
Medieval fertility medicine was based on humoral theory—the idea that health required balancing hot, cold, wet, and dry qualities in the body. While we've moved beyond these concepts, several medieval insights remain surprisingly valid:
Weight matters: The Trotula advised couples to achieve proper weight before attempting conception, noting that both malnutrition and obesity affect fertility. Modern reproductive medicine confirms this entirely.
It's not always the woman: Despite cultural bias, medical texts consistently acknowledged male infertility as a real possibility.
Holistic health: Hildegard's connection between overall vitality (viriditas) and fertility echoes modern understanding that stress, nutrition, and general health all impact reproductive function.
Emotional support: Both Hildegard's pastoral letters and the Trotula's practical tone suggest medieval healers understood the emotional toll of infertility.
What They Got Wrong
Let's be clear: neither fish roe nor urine-and-bran tests will diagnose or cure infertility. Medieval medicine lacked understanding of ovulation, sperm quality, fallopian tube function, and the countless other factors affecting conception. Their treatments, while based on careful observation and inherited wisdom, couldn't address structural problems, hormonal imbalances, or genetic issues.
The Church's teaching that infertility was divine punishment caused immense suffering, particularly for women who bore most of the social blame even when texts acknowledged shared responsibility.
A Medieval Gift for Modern Times
What can we learn from Hildegard and her contemporaries? Perhaps not specific remedies, but something more valuable: the understanding that fertility involves whole-person wellness. When Hildegard spoke of viriditas—that green life-force flowing through healthy bodies—she was pointing to something modern medicine is rediscovering: that our reproductive capacity is intimately connected to our overall vitality.
Medieval healers also remind us that infertility has always been part of the human experience. The pain hasn't changed, even if our treatments have. Those touching letters Hildegard received from desperate couples, the careful diagnostic questions in the Trotula, the compassionate (if scientifically limited) remedies—all testify to healers doing their best with the knowledge they had.
And perhaps most importantly, they remind us that healing communities have always existed. Whether in a 12th-century monastery or a modern fertility support group, people have always gathered to share knowledge, offer hope, and hold space for grief when hope isn't enough.
Medical Disclaimer: This article is for historical and educational purposes only. If you are experiencing fertility challenges, please consult with qualified medical professionals. The remedies described in medieval texts should not be attempted as fertility treatments. Modern reproductive medicine offers evidence-based approaches that medieval healers could never have imagined.
Interested in learning more about Hildegard's healing wisdom? Explore our collection of recipes and remedies adapted from her Physica, all with modern safety guidance and practical applications.