Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on medical-surgical and hygienic artifacts from Swedish Cistercian monasteries. In comparing materials from male and female institutions, interesting differences between the two are revealed. The author suggests it reflects gendered attitudes to the body and its well being.

Paper long abstract:

In studying leech craft and medicine an important aspect is to try to discern not only the wielders, but also those who received their treatments. Osteological studies is one way to do this, but also the medical artifacts (i.e. instruments and other equipment) can to a certain extent be used to attain this.

Archeological materials from medieval monasteries and nunneries may be such a material. The highly regulated lifescapes and gender differentiated habitats of these institutions provide an attractive backcloth on which we can project the material culture in our attempts to analyze it. When it comes to the material culture of hygiene and leech craft the gender separated milieus gives an interesting opportunity to investigate similarities or possible differences between the two genders (monks and nuns).

Detailed work with the materials from Swedish Cistercian institutions has revealed differences in the artifact materials when it comes to both quality or diversification and quantity. Different possible explanations for the observed results will be considered, but as a conclusion the author suggests that it reflects disparities in the appreciations of how piously religious men and women in medieval Sweden related to their bodies and to privation in terms of ill health and deficient hygiene.