Panaceia's Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany 9780226925394

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Panaceia’s Daughters

A series in the history of chemistry, broadly construed, edited by Angela N. H. Creager, Ann Johnson, John E. Lesch, Lawrence M. Principe, Alan Rocke, E. C. Spary, and Audra J. Wolfe, in partnership with the Chemical Heritage Foundation Recent books in the series The Secrets of Alchemy Lawrence M. Principe Inventing Chemistry: Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical Arts John C. Powers Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech Sally Smith Hughes Image and Reality: Kekulé, Kopp, and the Scientific Imagination Alan J. Rocke

Panaceia’s Daughters Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany a l i sha r a n k i n

The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London

Alisha Rankin is assistant professor of history at Tufts University. She is the coeditor of Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science, 1500–1800. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2013 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2013. Printed in the United States of America 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

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isbn- 13: 978-0-226-92538-7 (cloth) isbn- 13: 978-0-226-92539-4 (e- book) isbn- 10: 0-226-92538-2 (cloth) isbn- 10: 0-226-92539-0 (e- book) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rankin, Alisha Michelle, author. Panaceia’s daughters : noblewomen as healers in early modern Germany / Alisha Rankin. pages cm. — (Synthesis : a series in the history of chemistry, broadly construed) Includes bibliographical references. isbn 978-0-226-92538-7 (cloth : alkaline paper) — isbn 0-226-92538-2 (cloth : alkaline paper) — isbn 978-0-226-92539-4 (e-book) — isbn 0-226-92539-0 (e-book) 1. Women healers—Germany—History—16th century. 2. Pharmacy— Germany—History—16th century. I. Title. II. Series: Synthesis (University of Chicago Press) R146.R36 2013 610—dc23 2012021911

o This paper meets the requirements of ansi/ niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

For John

Contents

Early Modern Pharmaceutical Weights and Measures ix Archive Abbreviations xi Note on Translations xiii Introduction: Pharmacy for Princesses 1

part 1 Contexts 1 Noble Empirics

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2 Art Written Down

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part 2 Case Studies 3 Dorothea of Mansfeld: A Mirror and Example for Rich and Poor

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4 Anna of Saxony and Her Medical “Handiwork”

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5 Elisabeth of Rochlitz and the Experience of Illness

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Conclusion 204 Acknowledgments 211 Notes 215 Bibliography 253 Index 281

Early Modern Pharmaceutical Weights and Measures

Many of the weights and measures used in noblewomen’s medicinal remedies are imprecise quantities such as a “handful” or a “small cup.” In some cases, recipes simply tell the reader to use equal parts of the ingredients. Other recipes, however, rely on more specific weights and measures, as listed below. Dry Weight The Nuremberg apothecary measures were used throughout most of the German- speaking territories, with some regional variation. Although all of the terms below appear in noblewomen’s medical recipes, by far the most common unit of measure was the lot. Measure 1 pound 1 ounce 1 lot 1 drachm/quentlein 1 scruple 1 grain

Approximate Modern Weight

Equivalence

357.8g 29.8g 14.9g 3.7g 1.2g 0.06g

12 ounces 2 lots 4 drachms 3 scruples 20 grains

Source: Jost Weyer, Graf Wolfgang II. von Hohenlohe und die Alchemie: Alchemistische Studien in Schloß Weikersheim, 1587– 1610 (Sigmarinen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1992), 410–12.

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e a rly m o d e rn pha r m ac e u t i c a l w e i g h t s a n d m e as u re s

Liquid Measure The most crucial liquid measure in German- speaking regions was the Maß, which was highly variable from region to region but generally ranged from 1.069 to 1.84 liters. A half Maß was often called a Seidel. There were a number of special terms for a quarter Maß, including Quart, Viermeßlin, Viertel, and Schoppen. A larger measure used frequently by Dorothea of Mansfeld was the stobgen, i.e., Stübchen, which also varied greatly by region but was generally somewhere between 3 and 5 liters. The Stübchen was specifically a measure for wine, beer, and spirits, but Dorothea used it for large quantities of any liquid. Source: Hans-Joachim von Alberti, Ma und Gewicht: Geschichtliche und tabellarische Darstellungen von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1957), 317–31.

Archive Abbreviations

SHStA Dresden SLUB Dresden HStA Darmstadt HStA Marburg UB Heidelberg HZA Neuenstein HStA Stuttgart WLB Stuttgart

Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden Sächsische Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg Hohenlohe Zentralarchiv Neuenstein Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart

Note on Translations

Courtly Germans of the sixteenth century wrote letters to each other using formal and stylized pronouns, which varied depending on the rank and position of the writer and the addressee. When using a scribe, a noble writing to a noble of roughly equal rank used ewere Lieb, “Your Dearest,” although parents could address their children, and siblings each other, as the less formal deine Lieb. In order to give some sort of differentiation between the formal and the informal pronouns in English, I will use the literal translation, “your dearest,” for both of these forms but will capitalize in the formal case, “Your Dearest.” A commoner or a noble of lesser rank writing to a noble of high rank would use alternatively ewer Gnade, “Your Grace,” or ewer fürstliche Gnade, “Your Princely Grace”; when writing to an elector or electress, he or she could also use ewer kurfürstliche Gnade, literally, “Your Electorly Grace.” A king or queen was addressed as “Your Royal Majesty,” Ewer königliche Majestät, and the Holy Roman Emperor or Empress was “Your Imperial Majesty,” Ewer kaiserliche Majestät. In the other direction, high- ranking nobles generally addressed patricians (such as physicians and wealthy merchants) and lower- ranked gentry as Euch, a formal form of “you,” while all other commoners were addressed using du, the most informal “you.” Referring to themselves, nobles used the royal “we” (wir) when writing to those of roughly equal or lower rank, including family members, but could use the informal “I” (ich) when addressing a king or emperor or as a demonstration of special affinity or friendship. Ich was also used when nobles of similar ranks wrote to each other using their own hand rather than a scribe. Commoners always used ich. Most of the noblewomen presented in this book married at least once, some multiple times, and were therefore known by more than one name. I have attempted to refer to the women as they most commonly appear in

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the historical sources. In most cases, I refer to noblewomen by their married names, hence Anna of Saxony (not Anna of Denmark), Dorothea of Mansfeld (not Dorothea of Solms), and Sybille of Württemberg (not Sybille of Anhalt). However, there are three main exceptions to this rule. Anna of Saxony’s daughter Elisabeth will be referred to as Elisabeth of Saxony (rather than Elisabeth of the Palatinate, her married name), and Eleonora of Württemberg, who married into the princely house of Anhalt and then into HesseDarmstadt, will be referred to by her maiden name as well. Finally, Duchess Elisabeth of Saxony, born a landgravine of Hesse, was known as Elisabeth of Rochlitz by her contemporaries, and I follow that convention here.

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Pharmacy for Princesses

On a fine July morning in 1572, a throng of peasants streamed toward Mansfeld Castle, a princely stronghold in the gently rolling countryside near the town of Eisleben. In small groups, they poured through the open gates into the gardens and amassed amid the fruit trees and the plots planted with flowers and medicinal herbs. A curious onlooker would have deduced quickly that the purpose of the trek was peaceful, if somewhat grim: a large number of the travelers were clearly feverish and suffering, brought to the castle by their frantic relatives. Closer inspection of the scene would have confirmed that this illness was the driving force of the journey, and that the swelling ranks of peasants—over one hundred per day—had come in search of a cure. To the right of the garden stood a small cottage, through the open door of which one could see distilling ovens and equipment for making medicines, and from which emanated pungent smells of distilled alcohol and boiled roots. At the center of the bustle moved a wizened old woman of nearly eighty years, dressed in the garb of a widow, who dipped a tankard into a steaming cauldron and administered a medicinal drink to each invalid with her own hands. While this description may sound fanciful, it fairly accurately represents the picture painted in contemporary chronicles and in letters by the wizened old woman herself. Throughout the greater part of the sixteenth century, Countess Dorothea of Mansfeld (1493– 1578), a noblewoman from an estimable line of German princes, was known far and wide for the remedies she made in the Mansfeld castle garden. A continual stream of poor people from the surrounding countryside sought the help of her healing drafts, and her medicines had no less appeal to the wealthy. She gave away such enormous quantities of her famous distilled aqua vitae to “rich and poor folk” in January 1557 that she worried about having enough left over to fulfill a promise

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to “nine cities on the Rhine.” Her fellow aristocrats called her a “meister” of medicine and avidly sought both her remedies and her knowledge of how to make them; medicinal recipes attributed to the “elderly countess of Mansfeld” can be found in manuscripts all across Germany. Well into her eighties, Dorothea spent most of her days in her garden distillery, making remedies for rich and poor. Dorothea’s medicines impressed not only the poor and her peers, but also learned physicians—not a group generally given to praising elderly women in early modern Europe. The famous doctor Johannes Magenbuch thought so highly of her medical skills that he regularly corresponded with her and passed her remedies on to colleagues. Physician Philip Michael Novenianus dedicated a book to the countess in 1558, in which he provided a particularly effusive view of her medical talents. For years, he lauded, Dorothea had exerted “the greatest effort in understanding the secrets, usefulness, and true principles of healing.” She spent the better part of every day making “marvelous” medicinal remedies in her garden distilling house, giving them to the sick poor out of “Christian love,” and “miraculously healing many sick people.” Her skills were known “not just in one kingdom, but all across the German lands.” Because of these deeds, Novenianus declared, she would surely gain “an eternal name” as a Christian counterpart to the Greek goddesses of health and healing, Hygieia and Panaceia, the daughters of the great medical god Asclepius. Novenianus had a particular impetus to laud Dorothea, given his position as a personal physician to three of her sons. Nevertheless, the recognition accorded her healing by the likes of Novenianus and Magenbuch break common stereotypes of women’s medical roles in early modern Europe. It was long assumed that female healers in past centuries were widely viewed with suspicion and disgust, in the vein of French physician Laurent Joubert’s complaint against “ignorant women” who fancied themselves doctors “just because they know how to do a pottage, a sling, restoratives, a barley soup . . . and a few simple remedies.” These diatribes fed into an outdated historical argument that women healers ran a high risk of being accused of witchcraft. More recent scholarship has shown that the actual situation for women healers of all walks of life was far more complex—an “uneasy compromise” between their utility as practitioners and their perceived threat to professional medicine. Nevertheless, an overall derogatory depiction of women healers remained prevalent in physicians’ texts in the sixteenth century. How, then, did Dorothea of Mansfeld’s healing come to be portrayed as laudable and virtuous? Why did Novenianus, a highly learned physician, so publicly depict

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her as a Christian version of Panaceia, the goddess who could cure any ailment? And what was a countess doing making medicines in the first place? In fact, Dorothea’s medical activities and the praise they elicited were far from unique. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many hundreds of noblewomen became known locally for their healing, and a few, like Dorothea, gained reputations that stretched far beyond the borders of their own lands. This positive view of noblewomen’s healing hinged particularly on their perceived talents in pharmacy; making medicinal remedies was seen as an entirely proper task for an aristocratic lady to undertake. Already in Gottfried von Strassburg’s medieval epic poem Tristan (c. 1210), the figure of Queen Isolde was depicted as possessing “medical proficiency” (arzâtlîche meisterschaft ), particularly regarding herbal remedies, that eclipsed the knowledge of physicians. By the early modern period, the emphasis had shifted from fictional queens to flesh and blood princesses. French physicians Charles Estienne and Jean Liebault noted the prevalence of “great ladies who distill waters and prepare ointments and other similar remedies.” Physician Jacob Theodor Tabernaemontanus gave explicit recognition to this trend in 1577, when he praised the Countess Elisabeth of Saxony as “not the least of the princesses in our time to take up the laudable art of medicine.” Healing, in short, became something that princesses did. It might be tempting to view these women as rare exceptions to a general antipathy against women healers, as individuals whose eccentricities were excused by their high social status. Yet this book contends that noblewomen became fêted as healers not in spite of their gender, but because of it. Longstanding medieval customs and new developments in the sixteenth century combined to create a potent space for these women to be widely recognized as legitimate—and admired—medical practitioners. As has been well established by previous scholarship, women represented the basic recourse for medical care within the household throughout premodern Europe—the “first port of call,” in the words of Margaret Pelling. In the medieval aristocratic tradition, ladies of the manor, whose “households” encompassed large estates, were responsible for the basic medical care of their charges, and vestiges of this tradition remained through the early modern period and even into the nineteenth century. French physician Olivier de Serres wrote in 1600 that an honorable gentlewoman should use her healing talents to cure “her husband, herself, her children, her servants, her subjects, animals, and the poor” in the absence of a doctor. Although princely courts tended to include resident physicians, the mistress of the house continued to have an extensive role to play.

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De Serres’s mention of the poor points to another duty ascribed to aristocratic women in many parts of Europe since the Middle Ages. It behooved a great lady to provide charitable care for the needy, and healing was a potent form of charity. Elisabeth of Hungary (c. 1207–31), a twelfth- century princess famed for her dedication to the care of sick poor, became a beloved medieval saint, particularly in the German- speaking lands. Although the Protestant Reformation brought drastic changes to theological concepts of sanctity and charity in many regions, socially elite women remained closely connected to charitable activities in both Catholic and Protestant parts of postReformation Europe. While monetary gifts and the foundation of charitable institutions represented the most prominent forms of charity, many noblewomen also kept stores of medicines specifically intended for the poor, and it became common in early modern Europe to designate noblewomen’s healing as essentially charitable in nature. It was Dorothea of Mansfeld’s devotion to the sick poor that especially inspired the physician Novenianus, a Lutheran, to designate her an heir to the goddess Panaceia. Just as these lasting medieval traditions underscored the value of at least some basic healing skills for socially elite women, new developments in the sixteenth century thrust noblewomen’s medicinal activities into greater prominence. Medical practices based on empirical observation and firsthand experience, traditionally a low form of knowledge, began to receive more vocal support by the early sixteenth century. “Experience” and “experiment” had once been words connected largely to uncertain (and thus lowly) forms of knowledge associated primarily with women and artisans. In contrast, the backbone of the university medical education was a sound foundation in texts: Aristotelian philosophy and Galenic medical theory. While there was no absolute divide between experiential and scholastic knowledge even at medieval universities, “experience” began to be cited far more frequently as a legitimate source of information from the late Middle Ages. The praise upper- class women like Dorothea of Mansfeld received for their talents in making remedies and administering them to patients can be seen as part of this new focus. In a related development, a growing interest in scientific and technical experiments at the princely courts of the Holy Roman Empire fostered a hands-on approach to knowledge among high- status individuals. As the upheavals of the Reformation began to settle following the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the German courts became key loci of what Bruce Moran has called “prince- practitioning.” Princes began to involve themselves directly in observation and experimentation in a variety of scientific and technical fields, particularly astronomy, surveying, mathematics, and alchemy, but

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also, to a certain extent, medicine. Unlike the scientific societies that would develop in the seventeenth century, which did not admit women, the courts provided an informal (if stylized) setting characterized by exchange among and between the sexes. Although pharmacy had been associated with noblewomen long before the tradition of princely practice developed, noblewomen’s compounding of medicinal remedies fit very easily into this new courtly fascination with empiricism. Further testament to a broad- based interest in hands-on practice, a new genre of printed vernacular medical literature became increasingly popular from around 1500, purportedly aimed at the “common man” and largely consisting of medicinal remedies. This trend not only prompted an explosion of medical works in German but also lent greater authority to medical practitioners who were not university- trained physicians. While German noblewomen did not publish medical works until the seventeenth century (and even then only rarely), the intensifying interest in laypeople’s remedies raised the visibility of their existing healing activities. In tandem with the rise in printed vernacular medical literature came an upswing in manuscript medical works. Informal advice and recipes for medicinal remedies were avidly exchanged and shared in the thousands of letters that traveled between and beyond the courts, while recipes, medical books, advice, and materia medica all became meaningful currency in the increasingly grand economy of courtly patronage and gift giving. Noblewomen, as admired purveyors of medical knowledge, found themselves active participants in this vibrant exchange. Patients in early modern Europe had an enormous array of healers to choose from. Surgeons, apothecaries, barbers, midwives, and various specialist healers all had an important role to play, as did domestic caregivers with homemade medicines. Away from urban centers and princely courts, they had a far greater impact than physicians. Although wealthy and highly ranked patients tended to rely more heavily on physicians, doctors represented only one of many options in this pluralistic medical marketplace. The remedies of noblewomen would have touched only a small segment of society, but in that microcosm, they added a welcome option. In spite of the association of noblewomen’s medicine with charitable healing, a significant portion of the medicines they produced went to aristocrats and patricians. While noblewomen certainly did not act as the sole medical advisors to most elite patients, their remedies were highly valued and were sometimes preferred over the recommendations of physicians. All of these factors fed into a tendency to see medically inclined noblewomen as exemplary of their sex and status.

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Situating Women’s Healing In many respects, the reputation noblewomen healers attained in sixteenthcentury Germany appears to run counter to a prevailing trend in women’s healing and women’s work in general. Most scholars have pointed to the late Middle Ages and early modern period as a time in which women’s work, including medical work, became more restricted. Officially, the medical profession was broken down into discrete areas of expertise: physicians, who needed a university education, and apothecaries, surgeons, barbers, and midwives, who were trained by apprenticeship. In this hierarchy, midwifery was the only profession readily open to women, who were banned from universities and most guilds. A bevy of unlicensed healers also flooded the marketplace—charlatans who peddled their wares from town to town, herb women, bone setters, tooth pullers, and healers acting as physicians without permission to do so. From about 1500 onward, lobbying by licensed male practitioners prompted civic authorities to prevent unlicensed healers from practicing medicine professionally, and women were particular targets of these new strictures. This shift, Merry Wiesner argues, was part of a broader trend pushing women’s work into the home. Never friendly to women, the formal institutions of medicine became even less welcoming. One might interpret the prominence of noblewomen healers as an anomaly in this trend toward further restriction, since their status did not subject them to the same scrutiny as lower- class women, and they did not take money for their cures. Pelling has noted that physicians in London were “especially tolerant of practice by gentlewomen.” A number of factors, however, point against any stark division between upper- and lower- class women. There is evidence of a variety of women who became locally known for making and selling remedies, including herb women, distillers, and confection makers. Numerous burgher and lower- class women are cited in sixteenth- century collections of medicinal remedies, alongside the names of noblewomen and assorted men. The visibility of these women suggests that lower- class women healers continued to thrive in spite of the strictures against their practice. Indeed, Wiesner has noted that official regulations did not prevent women from practicing medicine; nor did they prevent patients from seeking the care of women healers they found helpful. It is also worth questioning the extent to which new attempts at control were specifically aimed at women: Pelling, for example, has argued that women did not figure prominently among “irregular” healers accused of practicing without a license in early modern London. In a study of practitioners in and around Augsburg, Annemarie Kinzelbach found the lack of a support network, rather than gender, to be a key determin-

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ing factor in court cases against unlicensed healers. Susan Broomhall has shown that women continued to work in nearly every area of health care at least through the seventeenth century in early modern France, and she argues that “the masculinization of medical history” is a modern phenomenon. This book does not aim to downplay the very real obstacles that many women healers faced in premodern Europe. Nevertheless, it does add to the voices contesting the idea that all women’s healing was viewed as marginal. The studies by Pelling, Kinzelbach, Wiesner, and Broomhall give us good reason to question any unitary approach to “women healers.” The example of noblewomen, I argue, provides another angle from which to view this problem. Their prominence opens a window on a swath of female medical practitioners who were not simply tolerated but also respected and admired. Although there are some obvious problems with the study of aristocratic women—they were, after all, an exceedingly tiny and elite demographic— these limitations also provide some advantages. Highborn ladies had an unusually high rate of literacy; although the overall literacy rate was only around 5–10 percent by the end of the sixteenth century (and perhaps as much as 20 percent in some cities), most German noblewomen were expected to learn to read and write. Correspondingly, archival sources pertaining to noblewomen become fairly numerous from the sixteenth century, a source base that allows us the rare opportunity to examine women’s healing from the point of view of the women themselves—both as practitioners and as patients. While Panaceia’s Daughters pays careful attention to the way in which noblewomen healers were perceived by their contemporaries, in the first instance it probes the basic parameters of what these women did. To some extent, the noblewoman healer was a figure recognizable all over early modern Europe. Physician Jean Liebault noted in 1564 that “many great ladies” in France “distill waters and prepare ointments and other similar remedies” in order to take care of their estates and “the poor.” Women who married into the Medici family in Italy provided medical advice to their courts, and we have archival documentation from the medical practices of dozens of seventeenth- century English gentlewomen. In the German principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, however, noblewomen achieved particular prominence and respect. The fractured political system created a large number of autonomous princes and their consorts, and German inheritance practices lent a relatively high degree of importance and autonomy to aristocratic women. Rather than focus on the prince alone, as was the practice at the Italian courts, Germans were far more likely to place emphasis on the “ruling couple,” to use Heide Wunder’s term. The trend among German princes to involve themselves in scientific and technical practices, moreover,

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helped create a setting in which noblewomen’s existing healing practices could garner widespread interest. Where relevant, this book draws on comparative cases in France, England, Italy, and Spain, but Germany forms the main geographical focus. Temporally, Panaceia’s Daughters covers roughly the years 1520– 1600, with a particular focus on the last four decades of the sixteenth century. During this period, the medical practice of noblewomen went from a quotidian but little discussed domestic and charitable venture to an activity that was routinely cited and praised in both manuscripts and printed works. Because women—noble or otherwise—did not publish medical books in Germany before 1600, the best sources for concrete evidence of women’s medical activities are archival documents: letters, estate inventories, account books, and handwritten books of medicinal remedies. Before 1550, this kind of documentation is rare. Manuscript materials pertaining to women from the early sixteenth century are chiefly legal and financial in nature, especially wedding contracts and dowry statements, and even these are few and far between. From the 1520s, we begin to find occasional references to women’s medical practices in the form of remedies and letters, as in the papers of Duchess Elisabeth of Rochlitz (1502– 57), which document Elisabeth’s experience as both practitioner and patient, or the twelve- volume Book of Medicine compiled by Elector Ludwig V of the Palatinate between 1520 and 1544, which contains numerous attributions to women. In general, however, sources remain very limited until the 1550s. The relative dearth of information on noblewomen’s healing practices in the early sixteenth century does not mean that few such practices existed: to the contrary, the rare glimpses of information we have suggest that elite women were assumed to possess healing skills. At Martin Luther’s deathbed in Eisleben in 1546, according to Protestant Reformers Philipp Melanchthon and Justus Jonas, significant medical assistance was provided by Countess Anna of Mansfeld, an in-law of Dorothea of Mansfeld. In the hours before Luther died, Melanchthon reported, Countess Anna brought “all sorts of roots and preservatives” to try to save him; together with the town doctor and surgeon, she later “rubbed his pulse with all sorts of strengthening waters, which his wife had sent him and which he liked to use.” Jonas, who unlike Melanchthon had been present at Luther’s deathbed, similarly mentioned that “the Countess kept trying her aqua vitae and the doctors their medicine” until it was clear that Luther was beyond hope. Both Reformers referred to the countess’s ministrations and the waters sent by Luther’s wife, Katharina von Bora, without surprise. The casual mention of these women’s remedies at the

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deathbed of one of Europe’s most famous individuals suggests that these actions were seen as normative and expected. Beginning around 1550, both the quantity and the relevance of sources multiply. The number of extant manuscript collections of medicinal remedies, many of which contain contributions attributed to noblewomen, rises drastically from the mid- sixteenth century and peaks in the 1580s and 1590s. Letters including medical content also become more frequent. One of the richest sources for this book is the epistolary collection of Electress Anna of Saxony (1532–85). Anna, daughter of King Christian III of Denmark and wife of Elector August of Saxony, was not only an enthusiastic medical practitioner but also a diligent correspondent, and over sixteen thousand of the letters she sent and received from 1554 to 1585 have been preserved in the Sächsische Hauptstaatsarchiv in Dresden. As Katrin Keller has noted, about 60 percent of Anna’s contacts were female, as were nearly all of the contacts she kept longterm. These letters provide an unrivaled testament not only to Anna’s own deep love of medicine but also to the medical interests of the many women with whom she corresponded. Anna’s most frequent and in-depth letters on medicine were exchanged with Dorothea of Mansfeld, whom she regarded as a mentor, and the pair became two of the best- known female healers in the Holy Roman Empire. Although letters must always be read with a grain of salt, they are, as Beatrix Bastl has noted, the best indications of interpersonal relationships we have from the early modern period. This book explores the extent to which such interpersonal relationships involved exchanges of medical advice and recipes. The temporal focus of Panaceia’s Daughters places it directly in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation. It must be acknowledged here that the women for whom we have the richest evidence were nearly all devout Lutherans: Electress Anna of Saxony, Duchess Anna Maria of Württemberg, Duchess Eleonora of Württemberg, Countess Anna of Hohenlohe, Countess Juliane of Nassau-Dillenberg, Duchess Sybille of Württemberg, Countess Elisabeth of Saxony, and Duchess Elisabeth of Rochlitz. The trend of courtly experimentation and prince- practitioning, moreover, was found most prominently at Protestant courts, and medical book dedications praising women’s medical efforts were directed primarily (though certainly not exclusively) at Protestant noblewomen. However, noblewomen practitioners were not exclusively a Protestant phenomenon. Dorothea of Mansfeld remained Catholic at least until the death of her husband, Ernst II of Mansfeld, in 1530, and her confessional affiliation after that time is ambiguous. Devoutly Catholic princesses were just as apt to express an interest in medicine as devoutly Protes-

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tant ones: the wife of Emperor Maximilian II, Empress Maria of Austria, sought remedies and advice from Anna of Saxony, and Duchess Anna of Bavaria expressed interest in setting up a distilling house; both were staunch Catholics. Philippine Welser, the daughter of an Augsburg merchant who married Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol, became a local heroine because of her medical skill and remains so in Innsbruck today. While we have better documentation of the Protestant princesses, confessionalism plays no major role in the central thesis of Panaceia’s Daughters. Women and Pharmacy Although medicine as an academic discipline was dominated by men, providing bedside medical care was seen as an undertaking for which women were particularly suited, given their perceived natural attributes of tenderness and compassion. Pelling has argued that medicine in early modern Europe carried with it inherent feminine connotations, owing to its association with caretaking and nursing. Physicians in London, she holds, did everything they could to emphasize the rational, learned aspects of their profession in order to disassociate themselves from any effeminate activities. Given this specific gendering of medical care, and given that highly born women were often depicted as the embodiment of all feminine virtues, we might expect to find noblewomen’s healing focused chiefly on nursing—as was indeed the case with female saints such as Elisabeth of Hungary. If we return to Novenianus’s praise of Dorothea of Mansfeld, however, we can see that the healing attributes the doctor chose to highlight went in a different direction altogether: rather than her nursing of the sick poor, he focused on her ability to concoct “marvelous” medicinal remedies. Melanchthon, likewise, emphasized Anna of Mansfeld’s use of her own medicines and Katharina von Bora’s aqua vitae at Luther’s deathbed. Although compassion always provided a backdrop for noblewomen’s medicine, it was not caretaking for which they gained particular renown, but rather pharmacy. This link between women and pharmacy was neither new nor confined solely to great ladies. References to women healers in the Middle Ages frequently concern women who became known for their remedies, such as the Frenchwoman Maria de Maillac and a burgher woman from the Thuringian town of Sangershausen whose remedies attracted the attention of people from many miles away. Knowledge of herbal medicines was frequently seen as an attribute expected of religious women, a connection that continued from the Middle Ages into the modern era. It remains unclear whether the famous mystic and medical author Hildegard of Bingen (1098– 1179) ever actually

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practiced medicine, but certainly many of her fellow nuns became known for their herbal remedies. Sharon Strocchia has recently called attention to the prevalence of commercial pharmacies run by nuns in Renaissance Florence, and Janine Christina Maegraith has found similar trends in Swabia, where nun apothecaries provided medicines both for their cloisters and for the surrounding villages until the early nineteenth century. Several pieces of evidence from early modern Germany suggest that women’s involvement with pharmacy was widespread. In his book on distilling simple medicines published in 1500, for example, the Strasbourg surgeon Hieronymus Brunschwig claimed to have learned distilling techniques from “many learned and lay men and women,” without singling women out as particularly noteworthy. So many women were peddling their cures in early sixteenth- century Nuremberg that the town passed an ordinance in 1529 to forbid “old women” from selling medicines “unless they let a physician examine the ingredients and recipe first.” Despite the disdain with which physicians generally viewed these women, the town did not ban the practice outright. Whether socially elite or not, women were, in fact, expected to know some basic pharmacy in their capacity as household managers. In the sixteenth century, this expectation began to be made explicit in a new spate of works addressing the proper division of labor within the domestic sphere. Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives was one of the first authors to do so in his popular instructional manual for women, De institutione foeminae christinae (The Instruction of a Christian Woman), which was published in Latin in 1524 and quickly translated into various European vernaculars. While Vives focused the majority of his work on the virtues of chastity, piety, and charity, he also expected the mistress of a house to see to the daily business of her household. Preparation of basic medicinal cures numbered among women’s quotidian tasks: “Because the busynes and charge with in the house lyeth upon the womans hande, I wold she shulde knowe medicines and salves for suche diseasis as be comen, and [occur] almost daily: and have those medicynes ever prepared redy in some closette, wherwith she may helpe her husbande, her lytle chyldren, and her house holde . . . that she nede nat ofte to sende for the phisition, or by all thyng of the [a]potycaries.” In Vives’s view, women should know some basic pharmacy and therapeutics, not only in order to help their household when needed, but also to save money on physicians’ and apothecaries’ fees. At the same time, he cautioned that women should not be overly concerned with the “art of medicine,” meaning the Galenic medical theory taught at the universities. A housewife should learn her medicine from other women, rather than “the counsayle of any physition,” and keep her remedies “diligently writen in some lytle boke, and nat in the great volumes of

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phisycke.” In short, it was crucial for women to know some pharmacy, but only for use within the household. A more expansive role for women’s pharmacy can be found in the influential French work L’agriculture et maison rustique (1564), which was translated into German in 1580 and English in 1600. A version of physician Charles Estienne’s Praedum rusticum (1554) that was posthumously translated, reorganized, and expanded by Estienne’s son- in-law, Jean Liebault, Maison rustique described the workings of a “farm, smallholding, or landed estate.” Befitting a work written by two physicians, it paid particular attention to the medical care of the estate, which Estienne and Liebault placed explicitly under the direction of the “farmer’s wife.” As the person responsible for all duties internal to the household, the farmer’s wife should “know natural remedies for her family and others when they get sick; the same for the cows, pigs, and poultry.” The authors focused on three specific medical areas under the charge of the mistress of the house: the herb garden, compounding basic remedies, and the making of medical distillates. The chapters of the book directed at the housewife included a substantial list of “remedies that the farmer’s wife must know for the ailments of her household [gens]” and a discussion of the properties of various medicinal herbs with which she should familiarize herself. She should also learn the “handiwork [façon] of distilling waters,” which would be required to “treat the illnesses of her household and her neighbors,” and they included instructions on planting an herb garden for medicinal purposes. Overall, they left no doubt that the farmer’s wife should have significant medical responsibilities. Although the women at the center of this book were highly elite noblewomen living at courts or in castles rather than on rural landholdings or in urban patrician households, their medical roles were not dissimilar. Noblewomen like Dorothea of Mansfeld often oversaw distilling houses and herb gardens, and they too were expected to learn pharmacy and gardening. A lesson plan for the daughter of Elector Louis VI of the Palatinate, the Countess Palatinate Christina (1573–1619), provides rare evidence of the exact place medicine had within a young princess’s training. Written in 1582 by the court physician Joachim Strupp (1530–1606), the lesson plan sets out the daily life of the nine- year- old Christina. Among the other activities prescribed for her day—reading, writing, spinning, sewing, music, Bible study, cooking—the girl was instructed to spend her late afternoons “in the court apothecary, learning all sorts of confections and how to make the necessary home and kitchen medicines.” On other days, she was to spend this time in the palace gardens “sowing, planting, and gaining knowledge of the magnificent medicinal kitchen herbs.” Strupp’s double use of the word “kitchen” acted as an

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indication that the sort of medicine Christina was to learn was very much tied to other typically female activities; it was not comparable to his own university medical training. Nevertheless, the fact that a nine- year- old princess was instructed to learn to make medicines in the court pharmacy and to learn the properties of medicinal herbs underscores the extent to which pharmacy was perceived as a normative task for aristocratic women. In many cases, noblewomen were also credited with founding court pharmacies, the main supplier of prescriptions and materia medica to the princely court. The earliest known example of this trend was Elisabeth of Hohenzollern (1403–49), who married the Silesian Duke Ludwig II of BriegLegnica and inherited the principality after Ludwig’s death. She was said to have founded a court apothecary in Legnica (Liegnitz) in 1439. Anna Maria of Württemberg founded a court pharmacy in Stuttgart in 1568, and her daughter Sabine did the same in Kassel in the 1570s. Around the same time, Anna of Saxony founded pharmacies in Annaburg and Troppau, while her daughter, Countess Elisabeth of Saxony, was credited with putting together “a wonderful, magnificent, princely court apothecary” in Amberg. Katharina of Brandenburg founded an apothecary in Halle in 1577, then brought it with her to the Berlin court when she moved there in 1578. When Georg I of Hesse-Darmstadt died in 1596, his wife, Eleonora of Württemberg, founded an apothecary at her widow’s estate of Lichtenberg. Sybille of Württemberg did the same in Leonberg in 1608 after the death of Friedrich I. All of these examples indicate that even at court the apothecary could be seen as coming under the purview of the mistress of the house. Not only did elite women found court pharmacies, in many cases they directed them, as is depicted fancifully in an engraving accompanying a late- seventeenth- century housefather book (see figure 1). Inventories of court pharmacies are often found among noblewomen’s estate inventories, alongside lists of bedding, silver, and other movable goods. The inventories of Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s estate at Schmalkalden (1553, 1557, and 1558), Anna of Saxony’s at Annaburg (1585), Eleonora of Württemberg’s at Lichtenberg in Hesse (1615), and Sybille of Württemberg’s at Leonberg (1616) all include an inventory of the pharmacy. Sabine Bernschneider-Reif notes that the countesses of Schwarzburg had charge of the court apothecaries of Rudolstadt and Castle Neideck. The influence of noblewomen over pharmaceutical activity at court can also be seen in the unusually high number of women chosen to staff court apothecaries. Anna of Saxony’s distilling house was run by Appolonia Neefe, widow of the physician Johann Neefe, and in at least one instance Anna specifically sought a woman to work in the distillery. Sybille of Württemberg appointed Helena Ruckher, daughter of physician Johannes Magen-

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f i g u r e 1 . Gentlewoman dispensing drugs at the counter of an apothecary shop, as depicted in Wolfgang Helmhard von Hohberg, Georgica curiosa aucta, 1717. Originally published 1672. Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London.

buch, to run the court pharmacy in Stuttgart, and Maria Andreä, mother of Reformer Johann Valentin Andreä, ran the pharmacy at her widow’s estate in Leonberg. Magdalena of Hohenlohe employed at least two different female helpers in the apothecary of Castle Weikersheim between 1595 and 1606. Even more strikingly, at least nine different women served as court pharmacists at the court of Hesse-Darmstadt between 1569 and 1617. The first of these, a woman named Judith, was responsible mainly for ordering drugs from afar, but the remaining women worked under the oversight of Landgrave Georg of Hesse-Darmstadt’s wives, Magdalena (d. 1587) and Eleonora (d. 1618). Given that numerous ordinances were passed in the same time period barring women from working in apothecaries, the fact that a number of women were given the responsibility for running a court apothecary suggests the active involvement of the respective noblewoman. Patronage and Print The increased involvement of princesses in court pharmacy occurred within the context of an upswing in the visibility of lay medical practice in general.

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A popular new genre of medical guides written in German and aimed at the “common man” began to feature nonphysicians both as medical authors and as readers—and hence as potential home practitioners. By the 1540s the common man had become the subject of vernacular medical books of all sorts: home apothecary manuals, pharmacopoeias, books of secrets, distillation manuals, herbals, chemical and alchemical works, gynecological and obstetrical guides, plague treatises, manuals on baths, and many others. These works constructed the nonphysician as a potential pharmacist, and most consisted chiefly or substantially of medicinal remedies. Despite their purported audience of the poor and simple folk, medical guides for the common man proved immensely popular at court, and many authors—especially physicians—began to see the potential in dedicating their books to noble patrons. In a dedication to Elector Friedrich III of the Palatinate, for example, Heidelberg physician Christoph Wirsung (c. 1505–71) introduced his Artzney Buch (1568) as a comprehensive overview of therapeutics, including remedies from “important people and doctors, here and in foreign lands,” which had “never before been put into print.” Wirsung’s own contribution to this tradition, he claimed, was to “put it in order, in German, and to print it, to make it accessible to the common man, especially those who live in the countryside and have no doctor or apothecary nearby.” Although some published works that invoked the common man truly were inexpensive books intended for a broad audience, it is unlikely that Wirsung’s volume, an enormous folio- sized tome of 690 leaves, fell into that category. Many medical books dedicated to aristocrats were more modest productions, but Wirsung’s example demonstrates that the trope of the “common man” had become powerful enough by the late sixteenth century that it could be used to impress an elite patron. Among these aristocratic dedicatees were a fair number of noblewomen. In some cases, such as Eucharius Rösslin’s Der Swangeren frawen und hebammen roßgarten (Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and Midwives), dedicated to Duchess Katharina of Braunschweig-Lüneburg in 1513, these works dealt with typically “female” concerns such as pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, and infant care. However, works dedicated to noblewomen ranged in subject from Heinrich Stromer von Auerbach’s plague treatise (dedicated to Duchess Elisabeth of Brandenburg in 1516) to Leonhard Fuchs’s herbal (dedicated to Queen Anna of Hungary in 1543) to Walter Hermann Ryff ’s home apothecary manual (dedicated to Duchess Anna of Braunschweig in 1544). By the mid- sixteenth century, book dedications to noblewomen began to include elaborate expositions of the dedicatee’s particular love of healing and talent in making medicines. Novenianus, as we have seen, emphasized Dorothea of

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Mansfeld’s daily work “adeptly making and putting together aqua vitae and other waters, also exquisite confections” in his book on stomach and intestinal ailments. In a dedication to Elisabeth of Saxony in 1577, Tabernaemontanus noted that “every year” Elisabeth would “at no small cost buy up all the best simple medicines, and amuse herself with preparing compound medicines, skillfully, following [the recipes].” Physician Johann Jacob Wecker, who dedicated four German medical books to four different elite women between 1569 and 1575, mentioned each woman’s interest in medicine. In dedicating his Artzneybuch (Book of Medicine, 1575) to Countess Kunigunde of Simmern for example, he claimed that Kunigunde’s medical skills were so well known that “it is not necessary to attest to how much love and interest Your Grace feels for medicine, and how much she is practiced and experienced in it.” Both Wecker and Tabernaemontanus also specifically lauded their dedicatees’ devotion to the common man. The presence of these noblewomen as patrons of printed works for the common man demonstrates that they were well aware of the tradition; many also owned books from the genre. Aristocratic women did not, however, publish medical works themselves. No woman published a medical book in German until the turn of the seventeenth century, and even after that point medical works by women were exceedingly rare. As Pamela O. Long has argued, the advent of printing “provided a choice to authors,” but it did not provide an imperative to print. Print could give authors far wider dissemination and recognition than manuscript circulation could ever afford. However, it could also reveal privileged material that had greater value in limited circulation. For prominent individuals who did not aspire to earn an income from publishing, there was little inclination to print their works: with a few exceptions, elite men did not print scientific or medical books either. Broad dissemination was directly antithetical to noblewomen’s approach to their own medical knowledge. In 1562, Anna of Saxony decided to have her loose collection of medical recipes organized and copied into a book. In a letter to Danish court physician Cornelius van den Hansfort, she expressed her intention to “have our many certain and proven items of medicine . . . brought into a book, orderly, with distinct chapters.” These remedies, she noted, had come “partially from highborn persons and partially from . . . physicians and other masters of medicine,” and she asked van den Hansfort to send her whatever additional recipes he thought would be appropriate. Up to this point, Anna’s methodology sounds very similar to that of Christoph Wirsung, who, as already mentioned, published his Book of Medicine only a few years later. Each took recipes from a diverse array of learned physicians and well- born laypeople; each intended to make the remedies as comprehensive

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and as easily usable as possible; and each drew on the prestige of the authors who contributed recipes. However, the stated purposes of the volumes were diametrically opposed. The novelty of Wirsung’s book was in its status as a printed work in German intended to be “accessible to the common man.” Anna, on the other hand, promised van den Hansfort that she would make sure whatever recipes he sent would be made “common to no one else” and that she would keep the manuscript “for ourselves as a treasure [Schatz].” Despite its similarity to medical works for the common man, the value of Anna’s volume—or so she perceived—lay in its exclusivity. For this reason, the “uncommon” women depicted in this book chose to confine their authorship to manuscripts rather than printed books. Panaceia’s Daughters Although aristocrats tend to be seen as worlds apart from the rest of early modern society (a view that nobles themselves worked to perpetuate), this book demonstrates that noblewomen healers existed neither entirely outside of nor entirely integrated into contemporary trends in medical culture. As women, they were associated with household pharmaceutical enterprises; as literate lay practitioners, they were connected to the developing traditions in vernacular medical literature. Yet because they were noblewomen, the scale, visibility, and perception of their activities became larger than life. Whereas burgher housewives might have been expected to know a few simple medicinal remedies, the women depicted in this book oversaw distilling houses and court apothecaries. As the title Panaceia’s Daughters indicates, their medical activities were depicted by their (albeit biased) promoters as a confirmation of their illustriousness. Nevertheless, the exaggerated portrayals of medical practice as a token of noblewomen’s greatness were very much bound up in contemporary notions of femininity, piety, household roles, and lay healing. Panaceia’s Daughters represents the first in-depth attempt to situate elite women’s healing within the wider context of early modern medical culture. As such, it fits into the work of a handful of historians who have recently produced work demonstrating the key (if sometimes hidden) role women played in premodern medicine, especially Katharine Park, Susan Broomhall, and Monica Green. Although this body of scholarship portrays opportunities for and barriers to women’s practice, it does not dwell in any great detail on the significant and positive recognition that women could, in the right circumstances, gain for their medical/pharmaceutical practices. Jennifer Stine’s Ph.D. dissertation on elite women and household medicine portrays a similar

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scenario in early modern England to the one presented here, but it focuses on the seventeenth century and (sadly) has not been published. Similarly, women’s involvement in Baroque and Enlightenment science has received a good deal of attention from scholars, including Londa Schiebinger, Paula Findlen, and Massimo Mazzotti, but there are virtually no corresponding works for the sixteenth century. By probing women’s activities in courtly pharmacy and medicine in sixteenth- century Germany, Panaceia’s Daughters aims to modify existing ideas about gender and forms of scientific and medical practice. This book also fits very closely into scholarship focusing on early modern recipes, both culinary and medical (two overlapping categories). Green has argued that recipes represented the only significant tradition of women’s medical writing in the premodern period, and this fact has not gone unnoticed by scholars, particularly those studying early modern England. Stine, Linda Pollock, and Lynette Hunter provided early studies of women and medical recipes; more recently, Sara Pennell, Elaine Leong, and Catherine Field have begun to examine the specific interactions of gender and early modern medical and culinary recipes in a more systematic fashion. Meanwhile, Germanists have long noted an important connection between women and recipes in their study of medieval Fachliteratur (technical literature), which became an important genre of German literary and philological scholarship in the 1950s. Medical recipes quickly formed a significant subgenre of Fachliteratur studies after it was discovered that they amounted to the largest volume of nonfiction works in vernacular German. In the process of examining these sources, several scholars called attention to the high proportion of recipes authored by women; some, like Peter Assion and Sabine Bernschneider-Reif, also highlighted the prominence of noblewomen in particular. Panaceia’s Daughters uses recipes as one significant source base, but it also draws on the rich information from letters and inventories to contextualize the meaning of noblewomen’s medical activities. In its use of a variety of archival materials to tell a new story about scientific and medical practice in early modern Europe, it follows in the footsteps of recent books by Deborah Harkness, Lauren Kassell, and Tara Nummedal. All three authors examine actors previously ignored in scholarship on the history of science: the behindthe- scenes scientific experimenters of Elizabethan London in Harkness’s case, the astrologer- doctor Simon Forman in Kassell’s, and the men and (very occasional) women who made a living from alchemy in Nummedal’s study. While one can hardly designate aristocrats as an underrepresented group

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in historical scholarship, the extent to which noblewomen were involved in medical and experimental activities has not been explored in detail. Like Germany’s court alchemists and London’s amateur botanists and healers, they worked on practical, hands-on problems. Panaceia’s Daughters explores what exactly they were doing and what their healing meant in the broader social, cultural, and religious landscape. The book is broken into two parts. Part 1 focuses on three major contextual themes for noblewomen’s healing: information exchange, empirical knowledge, and medicinal recipes. Chapter 1, “Noble Empirics,” situates noblewomen and their pharmacy within the context of courtly networks and the rise of medical empiricism. Noblewomen’s cures had been widely regarded within local networks since the Middle Ages. With the expansion of empirical interests at court and cultural exchange between courts, however, their remedies garnered far broader recognition than had previously been the case. I argue that these local and epistolary communities fostered an inclination toward empirical and experiential knowledge as a way of evaluating medical efficacy. Although “experience” had long been portrayed in a derogatory fashion by learned physicians, who connected it to harmful “old wives’ arts,” individuals at the German courts were eager to find remedies that had been proven to be successful in practice. The increasing focus on empiricism in all areas of science and medicine, moreover, meant that its status was rising among physicians as well, making it harder to distinguish between remedies offered by doctors and those offered by lay practitioners such as noblewomen. In fact, the focus on experientialism opened up areas of collaboration between noblewomen and physicians, who interacted and exchanged information at court. Chapter 2, “Art Written Down,” examines medicinal recipes as the building blocks of gentlewomen’s medical practice. This highly practical form of knowledge—a set of procedures for making a remedy—constituted the center of women’s pharmaceutical knowledge. From the late fifteenth century, collecting medical recipes became an increasingly popular activity among courtiers (and commoners). The hundreds of medicinal recipe manuscripts that survive today are a testament to their popularity, and the consistent mention of women—particularly noblewomen—among the authors of recipes demonstrates that this was the main form of medical writing in which they participated. Recipes were also crucial to perpetuating practice at court, as they were exchanged within and between princely courts and other noble estates. Committing prized recipes to writing, however, was at once a valuable and a dangerous enterprise: it allowed for the sharing of useful knowledge across

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long distances and for the preservation of memorized items, but it also held the danger of disclosing secret knowledge. Part 2 presents in-depth case studies of three women, two healers and one patient. The practitioners most central to this book, Dorothea of Mansfeld and Anna of Saxony, provide two very different models for the ideal noblewoman healer. Chapter 3, “Dorothea of Mansfeld: A Mirror and Example for Rich and Poor,” demonstrates the connections between medical practice, charitable giving, and court patronage. Dorothea of Mansfeld became one of the best- known practitioners in German court culture, sending advice, medicines, and recipes to fellow nobles and court physicians. She also ran an extensive charitable enterprise from her distilling house and castle garden. Although her pharmaceutical skill was used to treat both rich and poor, she sought to emphasize its charitable nature, drawing on conventional connections between noblewomen and charitable giving. The altruistic nature of her work and the acknowledged efficacy of her treatments drew the attention of Anna of Saxony, who acted as Dorothea’s patron and gave her substantial support, providing her with both gifts of money and ingredients for her medical practice. As a widow whose sons were rapidly bankrupting the small principality of Mansfeld, Dorothea literally relied on her charitable healing to survive. The following chapter, “Anna of Saxony and Her Medical ‘Handiwork,’ ” examines the intersection of domestic and experimental traditions at the German courts by focusing on the medical practice of Anna of Saxony. In contrast to Dorothea’s widowhood, Anna’s life was defined by her thirty- year marriage to the powerful Elector August of Saxony. Her medical practice thus drew on two contemporary models: the good, Lutheran mistress of the house and the noble empiric. A number of noblemen at the time, including August, became known for carrying out scientific experiments with their own hands, and Anna’s medical practice can be seen as a part of this widespread interest in hands-on manipulations of nature. This chapter examines the learning process Anna went through in gaining her widely renowned medical expertise, particularly her emphasis on learning the “handiwork” of making medicines. At the same time, she took great care to incorporate this interest into her roles as princely consort, Lutheran housewife, and mother; she is still known as “Mother Anna” in Saxony to this day. Her case presents a telling comparison and contrast to that of the merchant’s daughter Philippine Welser, who married the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol and was (and is) similarly highly regarded in and around Innsbruck, but who did not gain much recognition beyond her local setting owing to her humble birth. The final chapter, “Elisabeth of Rochlitz and the Experience of Illness,”

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turns from these noblewomen practitioners to look at the scene of early modern medicine from the point of view of the patient. Using the example of Duchess Elisabeth of Rochlitz, it provides an in-depth case study of the experience of illness in Reformation Germany. Elisabeth had a modest medical practice of her own: she and her servants regularly distilled medicinal liquors and made other simple remedies. As a woman beset with a series of increasingly debilitating illnesses, however, her main connection to medicine was as a patient. Elisabeth looked to many different sources of medical care: physicians, apothecaries, surgeons, local healers, her ladies- in-waiting, the recipes of other noblewomen, and her own homemade medicines. A devout Lutheran, she also gave alms, prayed, and looked to the advice of priests. Although she maintained that the “almighty physician,” rather than earthy healers, provided the true path to better health, this belief did not conflict with the use of terrestrial medicines. Instead, religious and natural healing were incorporated seamlessly into the panoply of aid she sought. Her case demonstrates the wide- ranging options open to the patient in early modern Germany, and it helps explain the role of noblewomen within this variegated array of healers. Panaceia’s Daughters closes with a brief study of the first woman to publish her collection of medical recipes, Duchess Eleonora of Württemberg, who married into the houses of Anhalt and Hesse-Darmstadt. The volume attributed to Eleonora looks nearly identical to the manuscript collections of medicinal remedies discussed throughout this book, save for a laudatory poem inserted at the beginning singing the praises of Eleonora in general and her pharmacy in particular. The poem reinforces the main arguments of this book: many noblewomen who practiced pharmacy came to be highly regarded and beloved of their countryfolk particularly because of their talents in making medicinal remedies. Eleonora’s case also demonstrates the lasting interest in noblewomen’s remedies: although she almost certainly did not intend to spread her work beyond the upper echelons of court culture, it later went through multiple editions nonetheless. The problem of how to view noblewomen practitioners has vexed historians for many years. In his 1947 study of women and medicine in premodern Europe, historian Walther Schönfeld recognized the rising prominence of noblewomen practitioners in the sixteenth century but categorized them as “dilettantes” who dabbled a bit in healing. In the last twenty years, a spate of scholarship in the history of science has broadened our notion of early modern scientific practices to include the work of those not traditionally considered part of the development of the sciences. The work of artisans, alchemists, and, most germane to this book, princes has been seen to share

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several features with the full- flung experimental programs that developed in the later seventeenth century. Princesses, however, have been left out of this discourse, despite the many parallels between their medical activities and princes’ dabbling in alchemy and astronomy. Rather than assuming that women’s medical practices were separate from the rest of the scientific practices at the courts of Europe, this book proposes that they should be seen as part of the colorful and multifaceted world of early modern science.

1

Noble Empirics

In 1573, the Infanta Juana of Hapsburg, queen of Portugal, had a sensitive medical problem. As reported by her sister, the Holy Roman Empress Maria, Juana had been suffering from unbearable hemorrhoids, known euphemistically as “the golden vein.” Her condition was far more serious than the term might imply: not only was the ailment causing her great pain, but because of the loss of blood and other fluids, she was also experiencing exhaustion and a diminishing of her vital forces. For help with this predicament, the Empress Maria confided her sister’s problem to Anna of Saxony and asked Anna to send whatever remedies she might know to be useful for the golden vein. In her response to the empress, the only surviving document of this exchange, Anna reviewed Juana’s symptoms and claimed she was loath to give advice. Her initial reluctance, she wrote, was due to the recognition that “Her Royal Majesty of Portugal is, without a doubt, surrounded by many excellent, highly trained physicians, and I should be greatly hesitant to meddle with my women’s arts [Weiberkunst].” On the other hand, Anna reasoned, “many people are healed by proven medical remedies even if they do not come from highly learned physicians.” In light of that fact, she claimed to feel “less shame in loyally revealing to Her Royal Majesty my knowledge and experience [Wissenschaft und Erfahrung].” The rest of her lengthy letter gave extensive, detailed, and highly practical therapeutic advice for the queen’s condition. This episode underscores the high visibility of noblewomen’s perceived medical talents within broader early modern communication networks. As epistolary exchange increased in tandem with courtly traditions of gift giving, medical remedies gained an international following. Letters of medical advice, medical recipes, recipe collections, practitioners, equipment, ingredients, and medications crisscrossed Europe at an ever- increasing rate, and

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remedies made in Dresden could travel as far as Spain, Portugal, and England. This expansion of cultural exchange is part of the reason why noblewomen’s medicine suddenly became so visible in the sixteenth century: while evidence suggests that their cures were well regarded within their immediate environs throughout the Middle Ages, their practices remained localized—and thus very difficult for the historian to uncover. With the advent of more expansive networks of knowledge, their remedies had both a much wider currency and a greater likelihood of being preserved in writing. By the mid- sixteenth century, then, noblewomen sat at the juncture of two important avenues of knowledge in early modern Germany: local communities and broader epistolary networks. While local communities—the people who provided ingredients, helped in the distilling house, and exchanged prized remedies in person—continued to play a central role in the process of making medicinal remedies, long- distance networks transformed those remedies into items of widespread interest. What made noblewomen’s remedies so valuable in these exchanges? This question brings us to two further important points embedded in Anna’s letter to the empress: the emphasis on her “knowledge and experience” and the self- deprecating remarks about her own gender. Anna’s belittling of her pharmaceutical skills as “women’s arts,” which she contrasted with the knowledge of learned physicians, was a gesture of humility that referenced a longstanding cliché regarding women and medical practice. As physicians began to establish a university- based, scholarly form of medical learning in the Middle Ages, they disparaged “empirical” practitioners who based their knowledge on evidence gained from practice alone, and women became key symbols of this unlearned, experiential knowledge. As Katharine Park has noted, in the eyes of medieval medical scholars, “women stood rhetorically for the bad old ways.” The residue of this categorization survived well into the early modern period, as “old women” remained a standard fixture in physicians’ diatribes against empirical practitioners. Although noblewomen were not direct targets of these invectives, they certainly were aware of the negative light in which doctors often portrayed women healers: in 1568, Duchess Anna Maria of Württemberg noted explicitly that “the doctors do not think much of women’s arts [weiber kunsten].” Hence Anna of Saxony’s professed reluctance to “meddle” with her “women’s arts” deliberately played on the commonplace that women practiced a brand of healing that dangerously contravened scholarly medicine. It acted as an apology for her empirically based cures. Yet Anna did not allow these self- deprecating remarks to remain the last word on her remedies. Quite to the contrary, she validated her own approach

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by reminding the empress that “many people are healed by proven medical remedies even if they do not come from highly learned physicians” and by highlighting her own “knowledge and experience.” One can only assume that she expected this explanation to fall on sympathetic ears. Indeed, her vindication of her own experience reflected a widespread empirical medical culture at the German courts, in which medicinal remedies were traded, discussed, and evaluated on the grounds of their efficacy in practice. Moreover, the contrast Anna drew between the remedies of learned doctors and her own “women’s arts” belied a much closer relationship between noblewomen and physicians: they interacted frequently with doctors, did so as physicians’ superiors, and, in some cases, collaborated with physicians on cures. The longstanding connection between noblewomen and pharmacy, especially in light of their high social status, made them a trustworthy source for remedies in court circles, even among many physicians. Embedded within Anna of Saxony’s rhetorical denigration of her “women’s arts” was the assumption that her “knowledge and experience”—shorthand for her longstanding familiarity with medicinal remedies—were exactly the sort of advice the Empress Maria sought. This chapter explores two crucial aspects of noblewomen’s connection to pharmacy in early modern Europe: the context in which their remedies were created and disseminated and the wider intellectual traditions within which they were embedded. A number of recent studies in the history of science and medicine have suggested that the standing of hands-on knowledge in preBaconian Europe was not as low as had once been assumed. Pamela Smith has pointed to the growing voice of artisans in northern Europe, who, she argues, became convinced that “their experiential knowledge was as certain as deductive knowledge.” Meanwhile, Nancy Siraisi and Gianna Pomata have noted the increasing use of empirical and observational evidence among learned physicians across Europe, a phenomenon that they term “learned empiricism.” Alongside the ranks of artisans and “learned empirics,” a host of highstatus individuals evinced a similar interest in experiential knowledge. As scholars have established, the courts presented one of the main alternatives to the university in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a site of natural inquiry, and German aristocrats became involved directly in hands-on practice in a wide variety of fields. These “noble empirics” added to the overall sense that experience, observation, and empiricism were key ways to learn more about the natural world. A number of these noble empirics were women. Using methodologies very similar to those of the prince- practitioners, noblewomen who became known for their pharmacy eagerly sought new ways to engage with natural objects (particularly materia medica) and evaluate cures. The context of courtly prac-

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tice goes only partway to explain noblewomen’s involvement with pharmacy: not only did noblewomen pharmacists predate the rise in court empiricism, only a few of them resided at a court known as a center of princely practice. Nevertheless, the overall increase in the exchange of natural knowledge and information at the German courts overlapped with a greater prominence of noblewomen’s remedies across early modern Europe in a manner that was not coincidental. The widespread demand for cures that had been shown to work empirically, combined with noblewomen’s unassailable social rank, helped to solidify the appeal of their remedies within the networks of knowledge in which they moved. Local Networks Women of all walks of life made medicinal remedies in early modern Europe, from farmers’ wives to patricians to artisans’ spouses. Noblewomen present a special case only in the degree to which their medicine was regarded as special and in the resources they commanded. These differences should not, by any means, be downplayed: noblewomen had a number of distinct advantages that affected both how much they were able to do and how widely their remedies were circulated. One of the most basic benefits of their status was a household staff devoted solely to their needs. At most German courts, even minor ones, a noblewoman oversaw a Frauenzimmer (literally: ladies’ chamber), which referred both to a literal set of rooms and to the people who staffed it. The ladies’ chamber was generally run by a Hofmeister (master of the court), who was subservient to but separate from the prince’s Hofmeister and responsible for all staff in the Frauenzimmer, both male and female. Under the Hofmeister stood a Hofmeisterin (mistress of the court), who oversaw the ladies- in-waiting, maids, and other female staff such as cooks and laundresses. At the court of Duke (later Elector) Moritz of Saxony and his wife Agnes in 1541, for example, Hofmeisterin Sophia of Miltitz oversaw at minimum nine ladies- in-waiting, a cook, and at least two maids; it is unlikely that this list is comprehensive. Even Elisabeth of Rochlitz, who oversaw a tiny court at Rochlitz and spent her last years in a small manor house in Schmalkalden, kept several ladies- in-waiting as well as a Hofmeister and a steward until the day she died, and Dorothea of Mansfeld had a number of servants and aristocratic helpers as well. Most noblewomen, then, were surrounded by at least a small group of people that was autonomous and beholden specifically to her. The Frauenzimmer provided a noblewoman’s most immediate source of

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communication about medical matters, and the Hofmeisterin and ladiesin-waiting, all members of the gentry, frequently had medical skills of their own. Sophia of Miltitz (d. 1565), for example, compiled an extensive collection of medicinal recipes during her years as Hofmeisterin to Agnes of Saxony (d. 1555), which was well regarded enough that it was copied at the court of the Palatinate in the 1570s. A great deal of medical assistance was provided by Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s servants in Schmalkalden, as shown in a few tantalizing requests for payment after Elisabeth’s death. In some cases, ladies- in-waiting may also have provided some help in making medicines: in Schmalkalden, distilling equipment was set up in the vicinity of their quarters. Larger court distilleries frequently fell under the noblewoman’s purview as well, with a staff that reported directly to her. One of Anna of Saxony’s most trusted female servants, Appolonia Neefe, ran her distillery at Annaburg, which Anna staffed with local men and women from neighboring towns. Dorothea of Mansfeld generally hired one or two lower- ranked male distillers to help her with the work of the distilling. Next to nothing is known about these “invisible technicians,” to use Steven Shapin’s term, but their role in carrying out the noblewoman’s day- to-day medical tasks was significant. The fact that distilling houses were often included in the inventory of a noblewoman’s estate after her death indicated the extent to which they were seen as part of her household. In addition to the support of the Frauenzimmer, noblewomen residing at princely courts also drew on court physicians and apothecaries, with whom they often developed close working relationships. Anna of Saxony was in constant contact with the physician Johann Neefe, who helped provide the medical care for her children, and with the apothecary Johann unter der Linden, who ran her court pharmacy at Annaburg. She also, as will be discussed later, communicated with many other physicians connected to her husband’s court. Dorothea of Mansfeld highly impressed the physician Philip Michael Novenianus during his stay at Mansfeld (as exhibited by the laudatory dedication of his book), and Eleonora of Württemberg had close contact with the court physician Johann Conrad Ratz. Court physicians and apothecaries were valuable not only for the informal informational exchanges they might provide locally but also for their spouses. Anna of Saxony’s most trusted female servants, whom she frequently charged with carrying out medical tasks, tended to be the wives or widows of court medical practitioners, as in the case of Appolonia and Johann Neefe—a topic that will be explored in detail in chapter 4. Physicians’ daughters could also fulfill important medical functions: as we saw in the introduction, Sybille of Württemberg chose Helena

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Ruckher, the daughter of physician Johannes Magenbuch, to run the court pharmacy in Stuttgart. In a recent study, Deborah Harkness has demonstrated the complicated webs of interaction that existed between individuals interested in scientific and medical pursuits in Elizabethan London. Through a careful mapping of these intellectual communities, she has noted the prevalence of “distinct neighborhoods of science” that housed clusters of medical practitioners, instrument makers, distillers, and gardeners. For noblewomen interested in medicine, urban networks of this sort were out of reach. Instead, as suggested above, they tended to rely on medical professionals such as court physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries; the wives and widows of these individuals; and other servants for varying levels of assistance and information. However, they certainly had some contact with individuals outside of their estates, particularly those who provided materia medica. Offhand references in Elisabeth’s and Dorothea’s documents suggest that they received at least some of their ingredients from local herb sellers and herb gatherers, while Anna’s letters include more tangible evidence of such interactions. In October of 1566, for example, she paid the Dresden forester Nickel Müller 2 gulden for bins of “roots and leaves” he had sent her and requested that he “collect and dig up . . . a carrying basket each” of angelica root, polypody root, swallow- wort, and masterwort. She also sent requests to town councils and tax collectors around Saxony every May, in which she asked them to have somebody pluck all the blue and white violets they could find and send the “flowers, without the roots and leaves” for her distilled violet water. For the most basic tasks of making medicines, then, local contacts provided essential assistance—and noblewomen, given their status, had the ability to command their help. Epistolary Communities These local networks overlapped with and fed into more far- flung sources of informational exchange, which grew alongside the increasing importance of court epistolary customs. A well- bred lady was expected to keep in frequent contact with relatives and friendly princely houses to assure continued goodwill within the atmosphere of aggression and constantly changing alliances that characterized Reformation Germany. Letters and gifts were typically sent out in celebration of the New Year and to congratulate upon the birth or marriage of a child, while condolences accompanied a death. Many letters were entirely formulaic, with flowery, formal language but no discernible purpose beyond affirming established friendship and support, as in the following letter from Anna of Saxony to her cousin, Elisabeth of Brandenburg:

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Friendly, dear aunt, sister, and relative. We are truly happy to hear from Your Dearest’s letter that she and her beloved lord husband and daughters are still in good bodily health. And we hereby notify Your Dearest that we and ours are also still in tolerable [health], God be praised. May the merciful Lord continue to keep us both in his grace. And we are sisterly well inclined and willing to do Your Dearest’s friendly bidding at all times. Datum Dresden, May 3, Anno 72.

The report on the health of Anna’s family was the only piece of information given in this letter; all other elements were pure formality. Most letters sent from one noblewoman to another contained these same formalities, but many also conveyed crucial information on politics, religion, daily life, and, of course, medicine and pharmacy. Epistolary exchange was fostered by the politically inspired marriages that typically occurred between friendly principalities. When Anna of Saxony moved from Denmark to Dresden at age sixteen to marry the young Duke August of Saxony, she wrote and received letters from her mother, father, and brother, all of whom evinced an interest in medical matters. Dorothea Susanna, sister of Elector Ludwig VI of the Palatinate, continued to send medicinal recipes to her brothers after her marriage to Duke Johann Wilhelm of Saxony-Weimar. Three daughters of Duke Christoph of Württemberg married sons of Landgrave Philip of Hesse, setting up a close relationship between the territories; they shared medical recipes with their mother in Württemberg as well as their sister Eleonora, who married into the princely house of Anhalt. Saxony attempted to tie itself politically to the Palatinate in 1570 by marrying Anna’s daughter Elisabeth to a brother of Ludwig VI; not coincidentally, at least fifteen of the Palatinate’s recipe collections exhibit strong ties to Saxony. As Katrin Keller has argued, these politically inspired marriages among the powerful princely families in the Holy Roman Empire afforded women their own networks of communication, within which they generally operated as independent individuals. Although they kept in touch with brothers, fathers, sons, and male cousins, women tended to have the most frequent and most enduring correspondences with other women of the aristocracy. As Keller has shown, around two- thirds of Anna of Saxony’s contacts were women, as were nearly all of the contacts she kept long- term. Similarly, letters between noblewomen tended to contain more information beyond pure formalities than those between noblewomen and noblemen. For example, Anna corresponded both with Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel and with his wife, Sabine, but her letters to Sabine were far more numerous and, for the most part, more substantial. In contrast to a common genre of women’s letter writing in early

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modern Italy, letters between German noblewomen were not intended for publication or broad dissemination. Instead, they were private documents meant for a single reader, albeit frequently mediated through a scribe. These conventions of polite letter writing created long- distance networks of female correspondents that provided a natural medium for the exchange of information at a distance. Many of these epistolary connections arose or endured due to a shared interest in pharmacy. After becoming acquainted with Duchess Anna of Bavaria at the election of Emperor Maximilian II in Frankfurt in 1562, Anna of Saxony sent her an unusually long New Year’s letter in early January 1563, which contained numerous references to the women’s discussions about preparing medicines. Her correspondence with the Bavarian duchess lasted over twenty years and continued to include an exchange of pharmaceutical information. Similarly, her epistolary relationships with Sabine of Hesse-Kassel, Anna Maria of Württemberg, Anna of Hohenlohe, Brigitta Trautson, and especially Dorothea of Mansfeld were all inspired largely by a shared interest in pharmacy rather than by family ties. The letters exchanged between these women included a wide range of topics—embroidery patterns, the latest news, matchmaking, gardening tips—but pharmacy was a driving force for much of their correspondence. In using correspondence networks to exchange medical knowledge, noblewomen were engaging in an activity that had many parallels in early modern science. Adam Mosley has recently highlighted the importance of the Danish nobleman and astronomer Tycho Brahe’s epistolary exchange to his scientific practice. Tycho’s letters, Mosley argues, formed and maintained a community of scholars working on the same astronomical questions. This correspondence not only helped shape theories and observing strategies but also allowed communication with scholars Tycho did not know directly but only through his contacts. Mosley attempts to dispel the long- standing notion that letters of major scientific figures like Tycho had meaning only in conjunction with their scholarly publications; instead, he argues, they should be seen as an important form of scholarly production in and of themselves. Similarly, Bruce Moran has demonstrated that the technical information included in letters between German princes helped them flesh out ideas in an informal medium, and Harkness has shown the crucial role letters played among naturalists in Elizabethan London. Noblewomen’s epistolary networks had similar characteristics of shared investigation, albeit not aimed at publication. Their use of letters to establish shared interests and communicate effective cures was part and parcel of a much broader exchange of scientific information in early modern Europe.

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Patronage and Medical Gifts Information sharing was not the only purpose of noblewomen’s networks, whether local contacts or broader epistolary communities. Their social position and their interest in acquiring pharmaceutical equipment, recipes, and ingredients put them at the center of courtly patronage and gift- giving networks. Scientific artifacts, instruments, and texts were well- received gifts in courtly patronage relationships, and the ever- increasing frequency of longdistance travel allowed for an unprecedented sharing of information and objects. This “economy of scientific exchange,” to use Paula Findlen’s term, was integral to the production and dissemination of natural knowledge in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Harkness has described a confluence between “the urge to collaborate and the urge to collect” among scientific communities in Elizabethan London, and the same can be said of pharmaceutically inclined noblewomen. Alongside the letters they wrote, a neverending stream of people and objects circulated between the early modern courts—not only medical recipes, recipe collections, and medications, but also equipment, ingredients, and skilled practitioners. Medical gifts thus encompassed a wide range of items, from information to material objects to the people who could demonstrate how to use them. Exchanges of medical gifts between noblewomen often involved negotiations that do not easily fit into our usual conceptions of court patronage. In 1568, for example, Anna of Saxony contacted Sabine of Hesse-Kassel, “although we do not yet know Your Dearest particularly well,” to request some glass distillation equipment from the renowned Hessian glassworks. She cited her friendship with Sabine’s mother and father, Duke Christoph and Duchess Anna Maria of Württemberg, as a partial impetus for initiating the request, and she promised to compensate Sabine for all costs and to send her some of the aqua vitae made in the new apparatus. In exchange for Sabine’s cooperation, then, Anna promised financial recompense, a future gift, and a strengthening of friendly familial ties. Sabine readily agreed to have the distillation flasks made but declined the payment offered by Anna, instead presenting them as a token of friendship, for which Anna thanked her graciously. In a later request for vessels, however, Anna sent twenty thaler to cover the costs. This back- and- forth nicely represents the complexity of gift exchanges when two highly noble ladies were involved. Anna’s initial request put the transaction both within the common practice of gift giving and outside it, offering pecuniary compensation and a sample of the aqua vitae resulting from the new apparatus. Sabine’s rejection of the financial reward turned the process entirely into a gift relationship: the distillation equipment was a special

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kind of gift, as it was slated to produce more gifts, the aqua vitae that Anna sent to all corners of Germany. Anna’s inclusion of twenty thaler to pay for her second order of glasses may have been intended to reduce her indebtedness to Sabine; it may also have been a simple gesture of goodwill or friendship, as Anna and Sabine had become frequent correspondents by that point. As in this case, most noblewomen did not seek patronage in the traditional sense when they sent medical materials to one another: small gifts like remedies and (especially) recipes generally changed hands without any particular flourish. At the same time, however, these gifts were not without meaning, particularly special favors like the Hessian distillation equipment. By helping Anna in this way, Sabine won a lasting friendship with a powerful ally. When interacting with lower- status individuals, on the other hand, noblewomen drew on more conventional commercial and patronage relationships. Cornelius von Ruxleben, court huntsman and mayor of Dresden, sent Anna dog fat for making salves in 1563 and was rewarded with white mushrooms (to strengthen the heart), aqua vitae, cinnamon water, and a Schlagwasser to protect from stroke—a quid pro quo of gift for gift. In 1573, Anna notified Baroness Brigitta Trautson, her most trusted contact at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna, that she had been told of a Spaniard at the court who had “broken out teeth without particular pain and afterward given a powder that took away all soreness.” She requested that Trautson track the Spaniard down and ask him if he would be willing to give her the recipe in exchange “for a token of thanks,” and she sent along a servant, Tam von Sebottendorf, who had been instructed “to pay him thankfully.” In this case, the Spanish tooth puller had no particular reason to hand over his prized knowledge to a German noblewoman: he was already attached to the Hapsburg court in Vienna, and, as Anna reported, had treated the empress herself. To increase the likelihood of receiving the desired recipe, she offered a monetary recompense. The case of the Spanish tooth puller also demonstrates the extent to which local and epistolary networks overlapped. As exhibited by Anna’s reliance on Trautson to help procure a desired recipe from a local practitioner, noblewomen often drew on their peers as intermediaries in obtaining recipes or materia medica from the latter’s own local or epistolary communities. In 1562, Lady Margareta Watzdorf sent Anna a quantity of moss she had sought and asked how much she should pay the man who gave it to her. Similarly, in 1585 Anna requested that Trautson’s daughter- in-law find and buy the leaves and seeds of “the herb that one calls Tabaco” for her. In both of these cases, Anna sought access to networks that were out of her direct reach: Watzdorf, the abbess of the former nunnery of Weissenfels in Saxony, had contact with

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individuals too common to be within Anna’s usual purview yet still useful in procuring ingredients, while Trautson, with her ties to the court of Vienna, was well placed to seek out the Spaniard’s recipe and the tobacco plant. Befriended nobles also purchased materia medica for each other in trade missions. In 1578, Anna reported to her chamberlain that Sabine of Hesse’s husband, Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel, was sending a servant to Portugal who would buy “all sorts of spices” as well as canary sugar for her, which she asked to have sent to her court apothecary. Anna’s own servants went on similar quests for materia medica that ranged from the quotidian to the exotic. In 1571, master builder Hieronymus Lotter sent her some marjoram, rosemary, and basil seeds she had requested, but reported that his son Albrecht had been unable to find any smoked beaver’s tail, while in 1573, Hieronymus Rauscher procured Indian and Hispanic tamarinds for her (which Anna rejected, requesting smaller ones). Although the role of servants in these exchange networks appears only fleetingly in archival documents, the few references we have point to their integral role in both local communities and Europe- wide excursions. From this brief survey, we can see that noblewomen gained access to pharmaceutical ingredients, recipes, and equipment through a variety of sources: some local, others spread around Germany, and some even farther afield. In large part, their ability to obtain such a wide range of materials was tied to their social status. Who else besides the electress of Saxony, for example, could have commissioned new distillation vessels from a landgravine of Hesse? Yet their recourse to humble ingredients such as moss and violets and the specificity of their requests provide ample evidence of a determined purpose behind the “urge to collect.” Buoyed by their high status, they stepped into the free- for- all of cultural exchange for ingredients and materials that would be practically useful in making medicines. Noblewomen certainly also sought items prized chiefly for their exoticism or their value, but there is no doubt that the networks described here promoted and supported their pharmacy. Curing the Golden Vein Noblewomen may have had unprecedented access to the materials and information necessary for making medicines, but what did they, conversely, have to offer the wider world of medical exchange? Why would the Empress Maria specifically seek out Anna of Saxony’s advice on her sister’s illness rather than rely on her famous physicians? What, exactly, was meant by the “knowledge and experience” that Anna claimed to provide? The German word Wissenschaft denoted knowledge in general in the sixteenth century, rather than a

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branch of learning as it would later come to signify. It was an uncommon word at the time, used only rarely before the seventeenth century, and Anna’s choice to invoke it and to distinguish it from “experience” (Erfahrung) begs for a fuller explication of the “knowledge” to which she referred. It certainly was not an avowal of medical learning; although Anna owned a number of books on therapeutics, her papers give no indication that she concerned herself greatly with scholarly medical theory. Instead, it was a testimony to her mastery of medical cures. Her Wissenschaft implied knowledge of how things worked based on practical experience: it was not “knowledge of,” but rather “knowledge how to.” Curing the golden vein involved a number of different steps, each described by her in great detail. To dry up any flux, Anna recommended a water distilled from fresh stag horns, which she sent along in jars to both the queen and the empress and for which she provided a recipe: Approximately around Pentecost, when the harts have begun to grow new horns that have become somewhat twisted but still remain thick and soft at the ends, one should saw off as many of these horns as one needs from the harts, and put these same horns in a clean vessel, taking care that the slime that runs from them does not get lost, but rather gets collected and saved. After this one should use a hunter’s knife or wedge to hack these new horns, including the skull, into pieces, as small as one can, and then one should put the pieces, including the slime, in a tin distillation container, and pour nothing else on it, but distill it thus in a bain- marie, and let it go only once, and afterward put it in a glass to keep.

By including this recipe along with the stag horn water, Anna accomplished three things. Most practically, she provided the empress and her sister with a means to make more of the water should they need to. The recipe also indicated what exactly had gone into the water, so that the empress would be alerted to its considerable value—it was, after all, a gift in addition to a medicinal remedy, and the stag horn water stood out as both unusual and difficult to make. Perhaps most important, however, Anna’s inclusion of the recipe exhibited her mastery over the cure: the details of how the water was made intentionally implied her own active involvement in the process. The stag horn water was just the beginning of the cure for the golden vein. Along with it, Anna sent a little silver box containing hart’s heart bones, triangular or cross- shaped bits of hardened cartilage sometimes found in the hearts of very old harts—valuable artifacts considered to have potent medicinal properties. To ingest the stag horn water, the suffering Portuguese princess should first grate or file one hart’s heart bone and divide the ensuing

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powder into three equal parts. On the first three days, she should take one portion of the grated bone powder mixed with three or four spoonfuls of the stag horn water, but thereafter the water alone—unless the flux continued, in which case the hart’s heart bone could continue to be used. For the pain of the golden vein, Anna suggested softening quince pits in rose water until they emitted a slimy juice, then rubbing the oozing pits with a light linen cloth and applying it to the affected area. This would quickly “pull the heat out and cool the wound.” If, however, the heat and pain were too unbearable to wait for the quince pits to release their slime on their own, one could bring them briefly to a simmer in the rose water, which would cause the secretion to be produced quickly, although one still had to wait for the water to cool. Finally, Juana should dip another clean linen cloth into an herbal salve, which Anna sent along as well, and lay it on the painful area “like a plaster.” If the queen used all these medicines as described, Anna maintained, she would soon be free of the golden vein (if God willed it). Anna’s suggestions were not completely heedless of medical learning: she assumed that the golden vein was a hot disease, consistent with the Galenic complexions of hot, cold, wet, and dry, and most of the remedies were intended to pull out the heat associated with hemorrhoids and cool the inflamed area. However, she chose not to emphasize these theoretical concerns and instead stressed her extensive knowledge of how to make and administer cures. This emphasis was by no means coincidental: as we will see, her use of the word pairing Wissenschaft und Erfahrung—“knowledge and experience”—echoed the phrase “experience and reason,” which learned physicians used nearly universally when citing experiential knowledge. While physicians employed this pairing to assure the reader that “experience” was viewed through the lens of medical learning, Anna, in contrast, highlighted that her knowledge was gained in practice rather than from books. The use of “experience” in this manner points to a common thread in noblewomen’s medical writings: they drew on experiential knowledge as the mainstay of their expertise, and they expected this kind of knowledge to have resonance among the people with whom they communicated. Medical remedies had value in courtly networks of knowledge not chiefly as material objects but rather because they promised the potential of a cure, or at least of a means to improve one’s health. In this context, it was important to be assured that the person from whom a remedy was received knew what he or she was doing. One of the most frequent ways of giving this assurance was the tactic Anna chose: emphasizing one’s experience with the remedy. To understand the appeal of noblewomen’s medical knowledge, then, it is crucial to look further into what exactly “experience” entailed.

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Experience and Experimenta Parsing the use of experiential knowledge in the sixteenth century is a fraught endeavor, in part because the word “experience” (experientia in Latin, Erfahrung in German) had a variety of overlapping meanings, many of which had nothing to do with empiricism or practice. In its most common usage in German, Erfahrung meant discovery or the process of having learned something. “It has come into my experience,” a common phrase in German letters, indicated that the author had gained knowledge of a fact. Similarly, experience could denote knowledge, broadly defined. In both manuscripts and printed books, one often finds reference to experienced doctors (erfahrene Ärzte) as an indicator that the physicians are knowledgeable, which does not necessarily refer to knowledge gained in practice. Hence when surgeon Hieronymus Brunschwig wrote that his Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus (1500) contained items he had “experienced from many experienced masters of medicine,” it simply meant information he had learned from knowledgeable practitioners. The extent to which that knowledge was empirically based cannot be gleaned from his statement. In the Aristotelian sense of the word, on the other hand, experience could imply a direct connection with practical knowledge and particularly with what we would now call repeated observation, as Brian Ogilvie has pointed out. In neither Latin nor German was there a single word that approximated our current understanding of “observation,” and experience frequently denoted information gained through seeing. At the same time, Ogilvie rightly notes that authors frequently did not distinguish between firsthand and reported observations. Thus physician Eucharius Rösslin the Younger informed the reader that his herbal (Kreutterbuch, 1533) contained “what I or others, old and new doctors and writers, have learned through experience” without indicating a qualitative difference between these categories. In a related use of the word, Erfahrung could indicate knowledge gained through travel. The Swiss doctor Paracelsus, who will be discussed in greater detail presently, emphasized the Erfahrung he acquired in his travels as a way to distinguish himself from Galenic medicine. But Paracelsus was not unique in using the word in this sense: Dorothea of Mansfeld accompanied a recipe collection she gave to Anna of Saxony with a note explaining that “I have taken [it] from one land into the next for over nine years and have compiled what I experienced.” Finally, as Charles Schmitt and others have shown, through the early seventeenth century “experience” could also mean the same thing as “experiment”—another word with a very different definition in the sixteenth cen-

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tury. Unlike the modern concept of experiment as the formal testing of a hypothesis, an experimentum signified a piece of knowledge derived purely from practice, rather than from logical principles. Experimenta could not be rationally foreseen and implied no broad conclusions about the rules that governed the natural world; they were “fortuitous practical discoveries” that, while useful, had no broader bearing on medical theory. In medieval scholastic medicine, this gave the experimentum a low standing—because the practitioner had no way of knowing why it worked, it was inferior to knowledge gained from universals. Although physicians relied extensively on experimenta in practice, they were not seen as certain knowledge. In its most common understanding, “experiment” simply meant “recipe”: physician Tarquinius Schnellenberg’s popular Experimenta von Zwenzig Pestilenz Wurtzeln (Experiments of Twenty Pestilence Herbs, 1546) merely provided recipes for twenty simples useful for the pestilence. Yet the words “experiment” and “experience” both held connotations of empiricism as well: Schnellenberg’s recipes, he wrote, were “compiled after long years of practice, called Experimenta or Empirica.” In describing the various uses of her famous aqua vitae, Anna of Saxony similarly noted that “not only have we heard praise of this [medicine] and its efficacy and potency from many doctors, but we have seen and experienced it ourselves,” a suggestion that its effectiveness in practice was as important as the opinions of learned physicians. Without concerning ourselves too much with the complicated semantics of “experience,” we can see that firsthand knowledge could be a powerful form of evidence in vouching for medical remedies. In the context of the German courts, it was employed in a variety of ways in order to evaluate (and, usually, validate) a given cure or set of cures. For people concerned with finding the best remedies to cure their various ailments, efficacy was of prime importance. The letters and medicinal recipes of noblewomen and the people with whom they corresponded are littered with assurances that a given cure is particularly useful or effective. These avowals of firsthand knowledge can be divided roughly into three categories: trying, repeating, and witnessing. Trying, Repeating, and Witnessing Cures Claims that a particular remedy had been tried were among the most common means of vouching for a cure. “Efficacy phrases” suggesting trial in practice can be found in countless medicinal recipes, particularly the omnipresent probatum est (it has been tried), which appeared in both Latin and vernacular recipes. In German sources, the words “tried” (probiert) or “proven” (bewert) were often used to describe a cure, as were “it helps” and “it helps with

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the help of God.” So ubiquitous are efficacy phrases in medieval and early modern European recipes, in fact, that some scholars have suggested they are virtually meaningless. In the context of the German courts, however, such phrases seem to have had powerful resonance. A manuscript belonging to Elector Ludwig VI of the Palatinate, copied in 1573 from his sister, Duchess Dorothea Susanna of Saxony-Weimar, contained a special note at the bottom of the elaborate title page claiming that “all of the items in it have been tried,” while Ludwig’s own collection of remedies, compiled around the same time, advertised its contents as “excellent, noble, proven, and useful.” Phrases such as “tried” and “proven” did not necessarily signify that the compiler had personally tried all the recipes or witnessed their application. Instead, they implied that someone had attempted a recipe—or witnessed it by direct observation—and found it helpful. Such claims provided reassurance to faraway readers that a remedy had been effective in practice, and they were made more potent by the inclusion of specific information as to how and when a practitioner had attempted a particular cure. A late- sixteenth- century recipe collection from the county of Hohenlohe contained a variety of recipes with detailed accounts of their successful use. It included an “exquisite powder” that Emperor Constantine had allegedly made for a favored courtier “who was suffering from internal pain, and no doctor could help, but this powder brought him back to health.” The recipe then “amazingly came into the hands of Elector Friedrich [of the Palatinate], who tried it on long- standing illnesses, and it helped.” This case related a double success: the recipe was tried by powerful individuals in both classical and contemporary times. A water for strengthening the heart listed in the same manuscript had been praised by “His Royal Majesty Emperor Maximilian’s wife, and she used it to help many people,” while a poison antidote had been “tried on Duke Johann of Spannheim, Count Palatinate . . . and found to be proven.” All of these cases cited specific instances in which the remedy had been tried on an individual or individuals and found to work; not coincidentally, most of the names mentioned in the manuscript were noblemen and noblewomen. Collections of medicinal remedies frequently emphasized the author’s own direct involvement in vetting cures. An herbal and recipe book given to Duke Sigmund of Tyrol by his surgeon, Klaus von Matrei, in 1488 contained the assurance: “what is written here is all true, proven, and proper, and I, Klaus von Metry, have proven all of the following items myself, with my own hands.” The widow Katharina Wernerin prefaced her medical recipe collection with the claim, “I have spent twenty- four years of my life, until my fifty- eighth year, caring for many sick people, and have learned and experi-

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enced [cures] from many old, experienced doctors [erfarnen doctorossen].” A recipe collection belonging to Ludwig VI was titled “a lovely book of arts and surgery, which the deceased Margrave Casimir of Brandenburg’s personal physician and surgeon Leonhardt Götz tried himself and brought into experience,” and Ludwig noted elsewhere that the recipes he had received from other noblemen and noblewomen had been “tried by Their Princely Graces numerous times on many people and found to be good.” Important in all of these cases was the connection between the name of the author and the specific instance of trying. A particularly potent form of trying was the assurance that one had used the recipe on one’s own body. When Landgrave Georg I of Hesse-Darmstadt requested a remedy from his sister, Electress Elisabeth of the Palatinate, for the eye infection suffered by his infant son, she replied that she knew “no better remedy than one that has been tried on ourselves and others.” Similarly, in answer to Sabine of Brandenburg’s request for a remedy for pain in the eyes, Anna of Saxony replied that she knew of “no particular cure, except for one that we have tried on ourselves, and that, we think, helped.” To help Dorothea of Schönberg’s daughter recover from childbirth, Anna sent “many different pills, which we ourselves customarily use in our childbed or six weeks [the lying-in period].” In another case, Agnes of Solms promised to pass on “what I used for losing weight.” These claims rested on a cure’s experienced success on the body of the author, although bodies of a loved one could also act as a stand- in. Baron Hans Ungenad of Sonnegg, who sent Anna a salve for which he claimed near- miraculous properties (discussed in chapter 2), reinforced the remedy’s marvelous properties by his detailed description of personally trying the cure on “my housewife, on my children, and many dear friends.” The knight Joachim von Röbell used a similar means to reinforce the success of his wife’s remedy for swine flu: “I have found that my neighbors here in these parts have had many pigs die, and I (God be praised), because I used this medicine on the swine, lost none.” The experienced success of a cure on oneself, on a member of the household, or even on one’s livestock gave very personal assurance that it helped. This interest in practice also extended to the selection of court medical practitioners. When Anna and August of Saxony were looking for a new court barber- surgeon in 1575, Anna noted that August “would much rather have a very experienced, practiced surgeon or barber with a steady hand than one who has read much in books but is not experienced [and] could [not] prove himself in practice.” She meant what she said, as Countess Anna of Hohenlohe discovered when she sent a potential candidate to the Saxon court. Anna reiterated that August was in search of “a practiced and well- tested

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barber or surgeon who is a Chyrurgus who has seen many accurate openings of the human body and thus knows every appendage’s circumstances . . . and knows how to help them.” Unfortunately, Anna continued, “this young journeyman is a barber who, as Your Dearest wrote herself, currently has little experience [geringe erfahrung],” and she thus had little use for him. In this case, the privileging of experience over book learning was certainly due to the practicality of the surgeon’s occupation. He would be responsible for procedures that involved touching and cutting into the body; consequently it is not surprising that August sought a surgeon proven to have a steady hand. This episode, however, reverberates with the primacy of hands-on practice in other areas of court medicine. Along with trial in practice, repetition was another way to emphasize efficacy. Numerous exchanges of medical advice contained the assurance that a remedy had been effective on many occasions, over a long period of time, or on a large number of people. As we have seen, Ludwig VI emphasized that the remedies he had received from fellow aristocrats had been “tried by Their Princely Graces numerous times on many people,” while Hans Ungenad sent instructions for how to use his salve “as I have done many times myself.” Anna of Saxony sent some medicaments for difficult pregnancy to a male servant with the note that they “worked for many women who used them,” and she asked that he “let us know whether these medicines worked for your wife,” a sign that she was interested in hearing further instances of success. Dorothea of Mansfeld was particularly fond of citing the multitudes who had been cured by her remedies, often with specific numbers. A recipe for fevers claimed, “The Countess of Mansfeld says [spricht] she helped more than two hundred people with it,” while a remedy for dysentery that she gave to her son Hans Georg concluded with the note: “I have never experienced anything better than this art, and more than one hundred people per year come to me and I give them nothing but this electuary, God help them all; not one person has died on me.” Claims of this nature emphasized that the cure or cures had been proven to work on multiple occasions—they went beyond singular instances of healing to suggest a body of experiential knowledge gathered over a number of trials in practice. Finally, a very common form of vouching for a cure was the assurance of simply having witnessed a remedy’s success. As mentioned previously, Anna of Saxony emphasized that not only had she had the efficacy of her aqua vitae praised by many learned physicians, “but we have seen and experienced it ourselves.” A number of medicinal recipes found in the collection of Sophia of Miltitz concluded with the assurance “I have seen this” or “I have seen this all myself.” Some went even further and informed the reader of the setting

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in which it was supposedly tried, and of the specific person who could vouch for it. One recipe for plague concluded, “The colonel in France said in all truth that several hundred men in his regiment, as well as he himself, were protected by this recipe with God’s help,” while a remedy for gout noted that “Meister Peter of Birne, master of all surgeons and artisans, witnessed this.” Witnessing was useful not only for remedies but also for materia medica. In the same letter in which he described his wife’s cure for the swine flu, Röbell sent Anna of Saxony two baskets of willow hawthorn she had requested, with the assurance that “it is definitely the hawthorn that grows on willows, for I was there, and I saw that the people cut it from the willows.” Seeing, in these cases, made a medicament more believable. It is no coincidence that nearly all of the figures cited in these cases of trying, repeating, and witnessing were either surgeons or noblemen and (especially) noblewomen. As artisans, surgeons were known for working with their hands far more than physicians, and many gained a high place at court. Similarly, the connection between noblewomen and pharmacy made them ideal sources for claims of trying, repeating, and witnessing, although the cases of Röbell and Ungenad show that plenty of elite men drew on these categories as well. In the later seventeenth century, these same elements—trying, repeating, and witnessing—became key components of the “experimental philosophy” that became a focus at the newly founded scientific societies, led largely by gentlemen. Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer have described the importance of “virtual witnessing” by members of the Royal Society of London as a way to address the difficulty of making a set of actions replicable and legitimate to a displaced audience. The examples from the sixteenthcentury German courts cited above show that the problems that spurred the Royal Society’s “virtual witnessing” were not new. Although the Baconian program of systematic experimentation was still some way off, the complexities of communicating experiential knowledge were already being worked out in a variety of settings, by a variety of individuals. “A Believable Person” Whether authors claimed to have tried, repeated, or witnessed the efficacy of remedies, the reliability of the information hinged on the relationship of trust between the person providing the information and the person receiving it. Medicinal recipes changed hands at astounding rates at court, and knowing that a trusted individual could vouch for a particular cure gave the recipient a better means of evaluating it. Anna of Saxony frequently sought recipes from Brigitta Trautson, because she said she trusted Trautson not to “teach or sug-

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gest something to us unless you know that it has helped other people.” The trustworthiness of an individual relating advice could also be used to weigh the possibility of a cure’s potential usefulness, even if one had no direct experience with it. In giving Countess Dorothea of Schönberg advice on painful breasts in pregnancy, Anna of Saxony wrote that she had received “a believable report” of another woman who had experienced the same problem but “was completely and totally cured from this breast illness and pain, and she is now hale and healthy.” Anna explained, “This person neither took nor used anything else except every morning a newly laid egg that had just come from the hen and, when possible, was still warm. She opened [the egg] at the top, sprinkled a little salt in it, and drank it on an empty stomach. Now although such a cure is somewhat revolting and repulsive, we do not believe that it will cause you any harm to take it.” Because Anna had not seen the success of this remedy herself, she relied on both her unnamed “believable” source and her own judgment to assure Dorothea that the cure at least would not hurt her. It was well understood that recipes did not work the same way for all people—just because a remedy had helped one person did not mean that it would necessarily be effective on another. Trust and believability were crucial in helping the recipient decide whether to attempt a specific cure. For this reason, assurances that a recipe had not been tested or had not worked were also extremely important. Electress Elisabeth of the Palatinate appended a second recipe to her initial advice for her young nephew’s eye infection but warned her brother, Landgrave Georg, that “I have not tried it.” Likewise, Anna of Saxony accompanied a recipe she sent to the Duchess of Lüneburg with the warning, “We do not know ourselves if this art is certain and proven,” although she promised to try the recipe soon and let the duchess know the results. Margareta of Ponikau warned that several recipes she sent to Anna of Saxony in 1566 were both untried and difficult to make, with the caution, “I have neither tried nor tested them [on people], and [the recipes] did not work for me last year . . . may the dear Lord help them work for Your Grace.” Alerting recipients that a cure had not been personally vetted by the person sending advice, an expression of non probatum est, was just as crucial in building trust as letting them know it was tried and proven. Trust and status were, of course, bound closely together, and this in part explains the prominent involvement of elite women in vernacular medical culture. As an extraordinarily high- status individual, a noblewoman generally counted as a “believable person” unless she proved herself to the contrary (as happened, in a nonmedical context, in the notorious case of Anna of Orange). Trust and status were not entirely co-dependent—Anna of Saxony put great trust in Trautson, a gentlewoman of fairly low rank, and sought

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remedies from Röbell, who was a lowly knight. Still, status certainly provided one crucial marker of trust—hence Elector Ludwig VI’s emphasis on the title page of his remedy book that many recipes had been tried by princes and princesses. In the later seventeenth century, Shapin has argued, the gentleman became seen as the quintessential experimenter, and gentlemanly codes of civility helped create the truth of scientific experiments and establish authoritative claims. In this period of flux, in contrast, the gender of the aristocratic individual was less of a concern. Noblewomen were just as well placed as noblemen—if not more so—to act as “believable” figures. Like surgeons, they had a close connection to practice, but their status far outstripped that of artisanal practitioners. In an environment that valued the trying, repeating, and witnessing of cures, they were model “noble empirics.” Learned Empirics Learned medicine in the sixteenth century officially held a fairly dim view of the use of experiential knowledge in this manner, and it generally did not portray women as believable or trustworthy individuals. The scholastic medical texts taught at the medieval universities dealt in universals—the Galenic theory of the four humors and complexions that explained the inner workings of the body. As Jole Agrimi and Chiara Crisciani have shown, medieval medical scholars designated knowledge in keeping with Aristotelian first principles as true learning or scientia; ignorance of this art was vulgar, outdated empiricism. In the estimation of the famous thirteenth- century Spanish physician Arnald of Villanova, empirics were limited to the simple assimilation of sensual experiences without knowing the causes thereof. The old woman—or vetula—became the symbol for this type of knowledge; in many cases, vetulae and empirici were synonymous. There were also darker connotations to vetula, which, as Monica Green has argued, “came to stand equally for everything that was ignorant, illiterate, rustic, superstitious.” Anna of Saxony’s use of the word Weiberkunst, women’s arts, played on this negative assessment of women and practice, and Anna’s own example demonstrates that it was not entirely a rhetorical ploy. In 1576, her husband’s master of the hunt, Cornelius of Ruxleben, was imprisoned because he accused Anna of “great evil and poison,” and two years later her daughter Elisabeth reported being taunted by one of her ladies- in-waiting at the court of the Palatinate that Anna was “a sorceress . . . and my dear father wants to put Your Dearest with the old wives in a sack and drown you.” Given the extent and stature of Anna’s pharmaceutical practice, the apparent rarity of such rumors is perhaps more surprising than their occasional appearance. Nevertheless,

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the fact that whispers of sorcery surfaced at all demonstrates the continued connection between women’s arts and superstition, even for a woman as untouchable as Anna of Saxony. That did not mean, however, that learned medicine completely disregarded experiential knowledge. Because the medical tradition held the awkward position of being both an art (ars) and a philosophy (scientia), there was always an empirical side to medicine: it dealt both in universal theory and in practica. University medical training emphasized the importance of universals as a guiding light with which to illuminate and inform the particulars of practical experience. Studies by Michael McVaugh, Chiara Crisciani, Katharine Park, and Nancy Siraisi have suggested that practical therapeutics played a more important role in medieval medicine than is often assumed—particularly outside of the university setting, at towns and courts. For example, McVaugh has shown that Arnald of Villanova compiled a manuscript of experimenta sometime between 1305 and 1311, at a time when he was attempting to gain favor at the court of Pope Clement V. A stark contrast to his theoretical writings, many of Arnald’s recipes contained efficacy phrases giving specific details of trial in practice, and he used the phrase expertus sum (roughly “I know from experience”) on more than one occasion. Nevertheless, medieval scholastic thought placed its greatest emphasis on the sanctity of the text rather than on particular context—in no small part because it was attempting to define itself against the empirical methods of other practitioners, symbolized by old women. Despite the continued loyalty to Greek and Arabic medical writings in scholarly spheres through the Renaissance, at least by the late fifteenth century the empirical study of nature and natural processes began to gain greater importance as a crucial complement to book learning. This scholarly interest in particulars, which Pomata and Siraisi term “learned empiricism,” has become the subject of a growing body of historical literature in the past decade. For example, Ogilvie has demonstrated that fifteenth- century humanist critiques of Pliny invoked an epistemology based largely on firsthand observation, while Katharine Park has shown that practicing physicians in fourteenth- and fifteenth- century Italy developed a sustained program of empirical study of particulars. Moreover, Pomata has noted that works based on experiential knowledge such as historia (case studies) became increasingly common in sixteenth- century scholarly medicine. A related genre, the curationes, contained experimenta that concluded with lists of the people each given recipe had cured, and by the late sixteenth century a new category of medical case narratives called observationes had become extremely popular. The aggre-

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gate weight of these works underscores a new willingness to incorporate particulars in learned spheres. Physicians’ openness to empirical method was not expressed in scholarly treatises alone. Johann Jacob Wecker (1528–86), a professor of dialectic at Basel and from 1566 the town physician of Colmar, provides a prime example of a physician who spanned both learned and lay traditions. Wecker published a number of didactic Latin treatises on therapeutics, including an oftreprinted Practica and an Antidotarum generale and Antidotarum speciale. The last specifically noted the importance of combining universals derived from texts with particulars gained through observation, a prime example of learned empiricism. He also translated one of the most popular books of secrets in all of early modern Europe, the pseudonymous Alessio Piemontese’s I secreti, into Latin in 1559, with the justification that “all kinds of men” would find the recipes useful. In the early 1570s, Wecker began publishing books in the vernacular, including a German translation of the entire Secreti, separate editions of Piemontese’s books of medical and cosmetic recipes, and a book on distillates—all of which he dedicated to noblewomen, as mentioned in the introduction. Wecker’s focus on particulars was subtle, and in his German translation of the Secreti he noted that the remedies should be used only with the advice of a learned physician. Nevertheless, his popular books brought experimenta to a German- speaking audience at the same time that his Latin works became common textbooks in therapeutics. Another outspoken early proponent of experiential evidence was Tarquinius Schnellenberg, a physician in the town of Dortmund, whose popular 1546 book on twenty plants useful for the plague was intended to convince his audience that German herbs were as useful in illness as compound and foreign medicines. He supported this proposition with copious recipes, “called Experimenta or Empirica,” and he emphasized his “long years of practice” and “what I myself have seen and experienced.” The book was a short volume in octavo, easily tucked inside a jacket pocket, and the herbs were organized alphabetically within it. Under the plant arum, Schnellenberg noted that “the farmers in Saxony, and particularly the beer drinkers, eat a lot of this herb, then drink a lot, become as drunk as a skunk, and rarely need another medicine.” Similarly, he reported, when plague hit Saxony with a vengeance in 1519 and 1520, he himself had cured many people with “just the green woods” to help him, and he related the recipes that he had used. His opening poem proclaimed, “Experience [Erfahrung] is a mistress over all,” and he mocked “sophists” who drew only on book learning. Schnellenberg did not, however, present experiential knowledge as a vi-

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able alternative to learned medicine. Just as Wecker noted the necessity of a physician’s oversight, Schnellenberg consistently emphasized the importance of medical learning in tandem with evidence gained in practice. According to Avicenna, he wrote, medicine consisted of both experiment and reason (experimento et ratione), and the two should not be divided. Alongside the multiple instances of healing drawn from his own experience, Schnellenberg’s text was punctuated by Latin sentences and references to Hippocrates and Galen, and he advised the reader to seek out a nearby physician for advice on the proper astrological time to pick each herb. In essence, then, his use of experience was grounded in the same assumptions as Arnald of Villanova’s: it was proper only for a learned physician who could approach particulars rationally. Nevertheless, Schnellenberg’s best- selling book is indicative of deliberate attempts to incorporate observational knowledge into the Galenic medical tradition, and it echoed the emphasis on trying, witnessing, and repeating found in lay medical spheres. Moreover, its direction at a popular audience invited readers to use experiential knowledge as an evaluative tool. The Reordering of Experience Physicians had little choice but to incorporate experiential knowledge into their vernacular treatises, as sixteenth- century German medical publishing was awash with a variety of books produced by artisanal practitioners, particularly surgeons and apothecaries, who, by virtue of their trades, could readily use experience gained in practice as a basis of their authority. Certain commonalities between noblewomen and surgeons have already been mentioned throughout this chapter. Like women, surgeons were characterized by their reliance on empirical, experiential categories of practice, and they were more likely to be literate than lower- class artisans such as barbers. As Pamela Smith has noted, artisans in general and surgeons in particular began to promote their experiential knowledge and engagement with the body in the sixteenth century. It should therefore be unsurprising that two of the most influential sixteenth- century German medical texts on making medicines came not from a physician but from a surgeon: Hieronymus Brunschwig (c. 1450–1512), who published books on distilling simple and compound medicines in 1500 and 1512, respectively. Brunschwig, who practiced in and around Strasbourg, had already produced the first printed guide to surgery in German, the Buch der Cirurgia, in 1497. Although that work drew heavily on learned authors and maintained that the surgeon should read widely in medicine and natural philosophy, he also continually emphasized the importance of practical skill and craftsmanship. The ideal surgeon, he wrote, should have long fingers, steady

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hands, a strong body, and sharp eyes: in short, “all of the natural characteristics of a craftsman.” Brunschwig carried this emphasis on craftsmanship into his two famous books of distillation, the Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus (1500) and Liber de arte distillandi de compositis (1512). Although the focus and audience of these works differed, both included novel depictions of how to build and work a still, accompanied by dozens of woodcuts. (See figures 2 and 3.) While previous works had explained the medicinal uses of distillates, Brunschwig’s works focused for the first time on the labor of making medicines as an important path to medical knowledge. As if to emphasize this, he habitually referred to the reader as a werckman (workman or artisan) or werckmeister (master craftsman), and he continually used artisanal metaphors to describe medical care. “You would never,” he wrote, “ask a master craftsman on your property to make you a garment from fine fabric if he had never learned the trade, or shoes from good leather, let alone a goose pen from good wood.” Why then, he reasoned, would you seek medical care from an unlearned, inexperienced empiric and “risk your life and health, which cannot be bought for all the money or gold in the world?” Brunschwig was not a radical figure: he challenged neither the traditional hierarchy of surgery and physic nor the convention that surgeons were responsible for the external body and physicians for the internal. Despite writing two entire books on distilled medicines to be taken by mouth, he maintained that internal medicines belonged to the “physico, not the chirurgico.” He insisted that surgeons should be well read, and he claimed that a surgeon was deficient “if he has not learned something of physica”—in a way portraying the surgeon as a learned empiric. Nevertheless, Brunschwig laid out a method of practice that closely paralleled the emphasis on trying, witnessing, and repeating by noblewomen in the later sixteenth century, a coincidence that points to certain common threads in medical knowledge outside the narrow sphere of university learning. Very few people in the sixteenth century had the Latin- based training in learned medicine that was the privileged realm of physicians, and ultimately early modern patients wanted treatments that would make them feel better and were happy to take them from whatever sources they could. Indeed, Brunschwig’s works went through multiple editions in their entirety and led to many knockoffs, and his illustrated descriptions of distillation techniques were reused throughout the sixteenth century. The popular herbals by physicians Eucharius Rösslin the Younger (d. 1547) and Adam Lonicer (1528–86), for example, each began with a section on distillation borrowed heavily from Brunschwig (including the woodcuts). Rösslin acknowledged this debt in his preface, writing that he had chosen to

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f i g u r e 2 . Distilling furnace with four stills, as depicted in Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi de compositis, 1512. Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London.

“include in part the distillation book of Hieronymus Brunschwig, which is worth more than a little praise.” Much like the noblewomen described in this chapter, Brunschwig drew on his own experience as a way to bolster his authority without attacking the learned medical tradition coming out of the universities. In contrast, the infamous medical reformer Philip Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541), known better as Paracelsus, promoted experience as a direct contrast to Galenic medicine. True medicine, in his estimation, was “nothing but a large assured expertness [erfahrenheit], that is, everything . . . lies in experience

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f i g u r e 3 . Distilling apparatus, as depicted in Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi de compositis, 1512. Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London.

[experienz].” He denigrated “those who are locked in their books and studies” and instead told his readers that “your eyes, which take pleasure in experience, these are your professores.” Famously, he derided traditional Galenic medical theory as “an error” and burnt Avicenna’s Canon on the streets of Basel. In his use of Erfahrung, a derivative of the verb fahren, “to go, drive, or move,” Paracelsus invoked the necessity of travel and discovery, of looking for new diseases and learning the customs and landscape of different lands in order to heal their peoples. In this way, the true doctor would gain a familiarity with “the library of the whole world,” as opposed to the “paper with

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the made-up theories” of learned Galenic medicine. On the other hand, Paracelsus explicitly derided the tradition of experimenta; as Pamela Smith has noted, his understanding of experience was complex and not particularly empirical. Nevertheless, his explicit contrast of “experience” with Galenic medical learning, his frequent use of artisanal metaphors, and his choice to write many of his works in German suggest that he saw an opportunity in the appeal of experiential knowledge. Although written in the 1530s, Paracelsus’s works did not become widely available until the 1560s, and they proved enormously influential at the German courts once they did appear in print. Long before that point, however, physicians struggled to come to terms with the widespread appeal of experiential knowledge. Johannes Dryander (or Eichmann), an eye doctor and professor from Marburg, published an enormously popular book of medicinal remedies called the New Arznei und Practicierbuechlin (New Little Book of Medicine and Practice) in 1537. Printed in octavo and addressed conversationally to “you, dear reader,” the Practicierbuechlin spoke to a lay readership familiar with medical works that did not place great emphasis on book learning. In his preface, Dryander explicitly aimed to counter the common misperception that “the school doctors or book doctors do not do the art of medicine quite as well as those who use their arts in daily experience,” a surprisingly frank acknowledgment that his readers possibly preferred experiential knowledge over book learning. In fact, he conceded, “experience [Erfahrung] is an important thing in this art. . . . For indeed, all medicine (whether it is learned in the schools or otherwise from praxis or practice) is nothing other than experience.” In this manner, he acknowledged the importance of firsthand knowledge gained from regular medical practice. Yet book learning was also crucial, Dryander emphasized, because most remedies that the empiric might attempt had already been tried by one of the great Greek, Roman, or Arabic masters of medicine. If one would only read Galen, for example, one could learn the properties “of this or that herb or root” and how to purge properly, and “after you have read and learned it, put it into practice with your sick people.” This, he continued, would be “your experiment or experience, just as it was tried, proven, and accepted a thousand years ago.” Recipes derived from Galen, therefore, were more valuable than recipes from other sources because they had been vetted over an exceedingly long period of time. To ignore past medical practice would “cost many thousands of lives.” Using the very same emphasis on repetition as the noblewomen discussed here, he depicted book learning as the safest form of empiricism. After all, he reasoned, why repeat the processes that had already

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proven numerous substances harmful or deadly? By pairing experience with reason, “Experimento and Ratione,” one could have the best of both worlds. This attempt to distinguish between good experientialism and bad experientialism, and the emphasis on experience and reason, became a common theme in medical books by physicians. In his 1577 reworking of Hieronymus Bock’s famous herbal, Melchior Sebisch the Elder complained of “immoral people” who patched together recipes “like a beggar’s cloak” to the great harm of the user. On the other hand, he reasoned, if one lived far away from a physician or an apothecary, Bock’s book could prevent people from having to go to these “calf doctors.” The praiseworthy Bock had put together his herbal “with the highest diligence, from his very own experience,” and it should be seen as a “source for good and wonderful experimenta experienced by himself.” Sebisch also noted that he had appended to Bock’s work “the experimenta and herbs that I have seen and experienced from my dear teachers in France, Italy, and Germany, for the common good.” He reassured the reader that the recipes (experimenta) included in the herbal had been either tried or witnessed; he had included “nothing that I have not seen with my teachers or in part experienced myself or has not been found true by the most experienced doctors.” As in Dryander’s and Schnellenberg’s works, experience validated by trying, repeating, and witnessing was acceptable when backed up by the proper learning. In their attempts to promote their own brand of experience tempered by reason, physicians had two targets in mind: lay authors of popular medical books, whom they saw as providing false information to the reader, and practitioners who competed with physicians for patrons. In both cases, the competition for professional authority—and for clientele—was as much the source of friction as theoretical disagreements. In a careful study of medical practitioners in and around the southern German cities of Augsburg, Nördlingen, Überlingen, and Ulm, Annemarie Kinzelbach has shown that the perception of competition was in fact the chief factor in accusations against both male and female healers. Medical professionals—physicians, apothecaries, and barbers, but also midwives—all had extensive professional networks and were quick to act against any perceived encroachment. When practitioners had a support network, it was more difficult to assail them, even when they were overstepping their bounds. Indeed, a few women accused of practicing general medicine—the purview of the physician—were allowed to continue with the protection and support of town authorities; one woman had been practicing for over thirty years before she was charged. Perhaps for this reason, noblewomen tended to express deference to phy-

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sicians before giving medical advice, as we saw in Anna of Saxony’s recognition that Juana of Portugal had “many excellent, highly trained physicians” at her disposal. As noted earlier, the networks in which elite women moved included a good number of learned physicians. Although noblewomen certainly did not represent the main focus of physicians’ ire—they did not write medical works for publication or compete with physicians as professional practitioners, and they frequently acted as physicians’ patrons—the patients they advised overlapped with physicians’ clientele to a great extent. The chronically ill Duke Heinrich the Younger of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, for example, declared to Anna of Saxony in 1559, “We cannot tell Your Dearest enough how much Your Dearest’s aqua vitae helps us. Surely we have received nothing so good from all of our doctors’ medications. . . . Your Dearest can be quite an excellent doctor with this [medicine]!” On other occasions, he referred to Anna as “our doctor” (vnsern Artzt) and called the aqua vitae “our best medicine” (vnnser besten Erznej). In patients’ minds, then, the gap between being treated by a noblewoman and being treated by a learned physician was not as wide as physicians might have preferred, particularly when a noblewoman’s recommended remedy was perceived as efficacious. Concerns about professional boundaries likely prompted noblewomen to be as outwardly deferential as possible to medical learning, in order to avoid offending the very physicians who acted as chief medical advisors in their own illnesses (see chapter 5). At the same time, Anna of Saxony’s assurance to Juana that “often many people are healed by proven medical remedies even if they do not come from highly learned physicians” suggests that there was a limit to this deference. Physicians and Noblewomen In practice, however, physicians were frequently part of noblewomen’s medical networks, both local and wide- ranging. Their interactions seem to have given rise to collaboration more than conflict. A case in point is the relationship between Anna of Saxony and several of her physicians. For example, Caspar Peucer, a doctor from Wittenberg and the son- in-law of Reformer Philipp Melanchthon, contributed two elaborate, folio- sized manuscripts on fevers to Saxony’s library, one in Latin and an identical version in German. Both are highly learned volumes, presenting tables of the variety and duration of fevers and giving “their proper cure or healing” based on “their actual art and nature.” At the same time, Peucer occasionally asked Anna’s advice on his own illnesses and those of his family. When his pregnant daughter became gravely sick, for instance, Peucer wrote a frantic letter to Anna pleading, “I

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ask Your Noble Grace to let me know what is good and useful to strengthen her and her unborn child.” Likewise, when Peucer himself fell ill in 1573, he related to Anna, “I have the greatest pain in my spleen and stomach, and I ask Your Noble Grace in all subservience if she knows something for fortification and strengthening [labung und sterckung].” As mentioned earlier, the Dresden court physician Johann Neefe also worked very closely with Anna throughout the last years of his life. In one striking case, he contacted Anna regarding the wife of the stable master Balthasar Wurm, who had just given birth and about whom Anna had inquired. Frau Wurm, he related, was “still very ill” after the birth and had “not yet had her feminine cleansing,” a piece of information he had learned from the patrician women who were attending her, called “honored women” (Ehrbarn frawen). The honored women, he reported, had laid soothing sacks of herbs on her stomach and salved her with oils in order to try to induce the cleansing, but “nothing helped, and now she is afflicted with constipation of the whole body . . . from which she is very swollen.” He explained that he and the women attending Frau Wurm “would all have liked to have seen her take internally her dear departed mother’s medicine [made of] tree oil and warm beer, as Your Noble Grace knows herself, but she said she could take nothing at all internally.” Still, Neefe continued, she had taken a bit of “Your Noble Grace’s powder and water,” which had helped her somewhat. “We all hope that if she gets her feminine cleansing again, it will become better, [for] we all have a heartfelt pity for her and her husband and four small children.” Thus, he concluded, “we ask Your Noble Grace for loyal advice, what Your Noble Grace thinks might help to encourage the feminine cleansing. She was given the red cherry broth, but she twice refused it, and we have thus given her nothing since.” Neefe’s letter exhibits a striking cooperation between himself and a variety of female practitioners. He relied on the word of the honored women to diagnose Frau Wurm’s ailment, and his frequent use of the phrase “we all” when relating the efforts between himself and the honored women portrayed their attempts to heal Frau Wurm as a collaborative endeavor. Moreover, according to Neefe, the medicine he and the honored women most wanted Frau Wurm to take was her mother’s recipe involving tree oil and beer, a validation of a lay remedy that stands in direct contrast to polemics against empirics. Indeed, Neefe’s letter exhibits no anxiety about women’s experience and medical practice: at wits’ end, he turned to Anna of Saxony for advice. In this instance, the illness in question derived from the mysteries of the female body, about which women had long been seen as more knowledgeable; hence the collaboration between Neefe, the honored women, and Anna is not

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particularly surprising. Yet even beyond the topic of feminine complaints, it was not unusual for physicians to discuss medical practice with noblewomen. As mentioned in the introduction, the Nuremberg- based doctor Johannes Magenbuch corresponded with Dorothea of Mansfeld, and he thought so highly of her that he forwarded her recipes on to colleagues. Dorothea also worked closely with court physicians on numerous instances; in one case, she requested that Anna of Saxony hold a Dr. Bartholemew in Dresden until she arrived, “for we have much to discuss with him.” Anna replied that she would do her best to detain the physician, “for we too would like you to speak with him and to practice your art with him.” At the court of the Palatinate in the 1570s, physician Wilhelm Rascalon translated a number of recipes from Latin to German for Elisabeth of Saxony, writing the German version on the same pages as the Latin originals. (See figure 4.) While legal documents tend to show clashes, as do printed diatribes by physicians against old women and other empirics, these courtly manuscripts demonstrate a far less confrontational relationship between physicians and female practitioners. Physicians also employed copious empirical evidence in their own dealings with aristocrats. A regimen against stomach and intestinal ailments, written for August of Saxony by a Dr. Goebels in 1584, is a prime example of the genre of curationes Pomata has described, but it is written in German and addressed to August himself. Goebels assured August in the introduction to the regimen that “as long as I have practiced in my vocation, I have cured many people . . . in the aforementioned illness and weakness of the stomach.” He went on to list the names, occupations, and domiciles of thirty- two people he had cured from 1557 to 1584. The list contains a diverse array of occupations and social classes, including a butcher’s wife from Zwickau; a journeyman in Görlitz; a young nobleman from Waldheim; and “a Bohemian youth from Prague.” Most patients were listed simply as “burgher,” a town citizen of middling social rank. In addition to this extensive attention to Goebels’s prior experience with the cure, his regimen contained two short sections on the causes and signs of the illness, which showcased his learning, and it closed with five pages of remedies. Significantly, the regimen did not contain dietary prescriptions, usually the main feature in physicians’ regimens. Although he included markers of his medical learning, then, Goebels focused most overtly on his long experience and the specific proof of having carried out his cure in practice. Another Saxon court physician, Dr. Simon Simonius, mocked the overly disputatious aspects of learned medicine in the case of a sick woman in a letter to Anna of Saxony: “We were four Medici [doctors] who came together, two the emperor’s physicians and two who serve Your Noble Grace, and they all had much to say, but if God had willed it that each

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f i g u r e 4 . Wilhem Rascalon’s translation of a recipe for Elisabeth of Saxony, c. 1570, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 283, fol. 115v. Courtesy of the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.

one had proposed more rather than simply contradicted one another, it would have been more useful in curing the honored matron.” Chiara Crisciani and Katharine Park have both shown that as far back as the fourteenth century, court physicians relied heavily on empirical data rather than learned medical theory. Similarly, Michael McVaugh suggested that thirteenth- century physician Arnald of Villanova practiced “two medicines,” one theoretical and the other practical. The recourse of sixteenthcentury court physicians to experiential knowledge thus had a long precedent, and given the desires of their patrons, should perhaps be unsurprising.

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On the other hand, these instances of confluence between the approaches of learned physicians and laymen and women should not be overstated. Many recipes from court physicians in recipe collections emphasized their learning, distinguishing them from other, more empirical recipes. The recipes that Wilhelm Rascalon translated for Elisabeth of Saxony, for example, were originally written in a mixture of Latin and German that seems aimed to emphasize the physician’s authority. “Et est ad dysenteriam mirabile” the first recipe begins (this is marvelous for dysentery), and in addition to listing all the ingredients in Latin, it contains the warning that “the Medicus should use this vnguentum magna cum discretione” (the doctor should use this unguent with great discretion). The peppering of Latin phrases allowed the physician to underscore his learning—although, in the case of the recipes written for the Countess Elisabeth, the bits of Latin proved tantalizing enough that the Countess had Rascalon translate the portions she did not understand. Especially when they disagreed, both sides tended to emphasize the disparity between learned and lay approaches to healing. For example, when Anna of Saxony scolded Simon Simonius for not attending to the ailing Margareta von Ponikau as her husband had requested, Simonius explained that he had “never denied the captain [Herr Ponikau] my help,” but “because of my Profession, I dared not ride away from Leipzig.” Indeed, he continued, in an order handed to him by Anna herself, her esteemed husband, Elector August, had commanded him to take up a professorship in Leipzig, “and with good conscience I could not and did not wish to leave the Academia and ride away to cure others, without Your Noble Grace’s command, unless I knew that some use should come of it.” The responsibilities of his professorship—following the orders of Anna’s husband, Simonius emphasized—had taken precedence. Conversely, in the rare instances in which Anna disagreed with learned physicians, she used the category of experience to justify her opinion. In one such case, she suggested that a patient drink warm milk for insomnia, “even if the doctors might not think much of it, for we know that it works from experience.” When making an overt distinction between experience and learning, then, both learned and lay authors usually had a reason for doing so. Conclusion It is in this context that we should view Anna’s advice to Juana of Portugal. In juxtaposing her own “knowledge and experience” with the medicine of learned physicians, she set up a contrast that likely would have seemed favorable to the queen, despite Anna’s modest denigration of it as Weiberkunst. By emphasizing the distinction, she provided the expected rhetorical diminish-

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ing of her own skills while simultaneously suggesting that they would, in fact, be effective. Even her mention of “knowledge” (Wissenschaft ) referred to an accumulated set of practical remedies rather than the theoretical knowledge gained by book learning. Her coupling of knowledge and experience provided a subtle—and perhaps deliberate—contrast to the physicians’ pervasive pairing of experience and reason. Reinforcing the fears Dryander expressed in his Practicierbuechlin, she put the learning of physicians in opposition to her Weiberkunst and used experience to legitimize the latter. This chapter has suggested, however, that the recourse to experience without concern about broad philosophical implications was widespread. Crisciani’s research has demonstrated the extent to which learned physicians methodically compiled empirical, experiential data at the courts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries without any attempt to put the data into a broader system of knowledge or to incorporate Galenic medical theory. As we have seen, experiential and sensory data were also crucial to artisanal knowledge, the subject of much recent historical research. Given the long tradition of women and medical practice at court, I would caution against assuming that their epistemology derived from artisanal influences “from below.” However, the propensity toward experientialism lends support to Smith’s claim that until the eighteenth century, “most people shared a common world view” that combined vague humoral ideas with herbal remedies and therapeutic manipulations. While noblewomen certainly would not have equated themselves with artisans, there was a common focus on artisanship across gender and class barriers. Three broader conclusions can be drawn from these implications. First, experiential knowledge proved to be a key source of medical authority for a large swath of the population; it was the province of artisans, but also of the most elite individuals and even of learned physicians, providing a common language for therapeutic exchange at court. Rather than viewing a hands-on approach to nature as a sign of “empiricism,” we must recognize that sixteenth- century culture was awash with a number of diverse, overlapping “empiricisms.” Empirical approaches in the Paracelsian or artisanal sense differed from the empiricism of elite women, or that employed by learned physicians, or that used by natural philosophers of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century. Yet all of these groups were united by the use, in some way or other, of personal hands-on knowledge and expertise as legitimizing categories. Second, the extent to which claims of experience were deemed trustworthy depended more directly on their relationship to broader networks of knowledge than on gender. Despite the derogatory depictions of women as

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ignorant empirics in medical writings, both men and women, learned physicians included, made use of cures they found efficacious, no matter the gender of the person from whom they learned a specific remedy. Important first and foremost was the assurance that a claim of efficacy came from a trustworthy source. This focus on trust explains the preponderance of recipes from noblewomen, but also from servants, midwives, and other commoners, in court collections. In more formal settings, such as the university or the later scientific societies, the concept of trustworthiness was later used to exclude these groups, but in the informal, efficacy- centered exchange of recipes, reliability trumped gender or (to a lesser extent) class concerns. Finally, despite its focus on singular events rather than on universal claims about nature, experientialism led to a large accumulated body of natural knowledge. Remedies were exchanged, compiled, and organized in a systematic fashion. Anna of Saxony’s separation of “experience” and “knowledge” indicates that, in her mind, a collection of multiple singular experiences formed a broad basis of knowledge, without need of a universalizing theory for that knowledge. Michael Ben-Chaim has questioned the automatic association between empiricism, experiment, and natural philosophy that is often made in examinations of the Scientific Revolution. As this chapter has shown, empiricism and experiment could combine into an epistemology—indeed, Pamela Smith has argued that the cumulative knowledge from recipes in fact presented a “vernacular philosophy of nature.” Lay practitioners such as the noblewomen described here (and the artisans Smith investigates) occupied a space between the medieval concept of experimentum (as a singular event) and the search for universal truths that characterized experimentation in seventeenth- century natural philosophy. The following chapter will examine more closely the key to noblewomen’s accumulated knowledge: the medical recipe.

2

Art Written Down

In 1567, a merchant’s wife from Augsburg, Regina Zangmeister (d. 1597), presented the Bavarian countess Claudia of Oettingen (d. 1582) with a handwritten book of medicinal remedies, organized roughly alphabetically by the diseases they would treat. The manuscript began with treatments for the eye (Augen), moved through recipes for jaundice (Gelbsucht), diseases of the stomach (Magen), gout (Podagra), dysentery (Ruhr), stroke (Schlag), and warts (Wartzen), among many others, and ended with remedies for diseases of the teeth (Zähne). Zangmeister’s dedicatory letter at the beginning of the book noted that it had been written at the specific behest of Countess Claudia, who had recently learned that Zangmeister owned “several little handwritten books of medicine, or books of art.” Because Claudia also took “a special interest and delight in these same and similar arts,” she let the merchant’s wife know that she desired a copy. In response, Zangmeister organized and copied her recipes “as best as I could and as best as they came out of . . . my dear hand.” She emphasized that her recipes had not been “taken or copied from printed books, of which everyone can obtain an exemplar for money.” Instead, she had received them as a treasured gift from a well- born friend, who had originally obtained them from “eminent, honest people of good name . . . written in their own hands” and had used them to heal “many poor sick people.” Three months later, Zangmeister sent a second recipe collection to Countess Claudia, noting that the countess had responded kindly to the first one. A third volume soon followed. A decade later, in 1576, the remedies also came to the attention of someone attached to the court of the Palatinate, who had all of the recipe collections Zangmeister gave the countess copied and bound.

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The recipes thus traveled from their origins with “eminent, honest people of good name,” to the “unnamed prominent person,” to Zangmeister, to Countess Claudia, and ultimately to the library of the Palatinate electors, where they have been preserved for us today—in multiple copies, in the case of the first volume. It is not unreasonable to suspect that they may have been copied further. The prolonged interest in Zangmeister’s remedies may strike the reader as odd. What would a merchant’s wife have to offer a countess? Why all the fuss about recipes? In fact, the recipe was far and away the most popular kind of medical text among laypeople in the sixteenth century. Much like recipes for cookery today, the medicinal recipe consisted of a set of instructions on how to make a remedy. As people of all walks of life increasingly traded information and advice on healing across the Holy Roman Empire, and indeed all of Europe, recipes became the chief currency of exchange. Small units of knowledge that could be slipped into letters, compiled into collections, reorganized, copied, and recopied, they were the most transferable, flexible, and universal pieces of early modern medicine. If experience in pharmacy was the foundation of noblewomen’s prominence in healing, medical recipes were the building blocks. In the past decade, there has been a surge of interest in recipes among scholars. This stems in part from the recognition that recipes are ubiquitous: they appear in all kinds of medical, alchemical, and technical texts, both printed and manuscript. They also provide a link to practitioners not traditionally considered to be part of the scientific discourse, used by artisans, charlatans, and princes as well as by natural philosophers and physicians. For those of us hoping to uncover the practices of women in the early modern world, medical recipe manuscripts provide a central set of written documents, and scholars interested in women’s medicine have made extensive contributions to the recent deluge of literature on recipes. Hundreds of medicinal recipes and recipe collections across early modern Europe name women as their authors or compilers—aristocrats in particular, but also midwives and merchants’ wives. Women figure so prominently in recipe exchange that Monica Green has called the collecting of recipes “a distinctly feminine undertaking in the early modern period.” Yet there was in fact nothing distinctly feminine about the trade in recipes: men were responsible for a far larger number of premodern medical recipe collections than women, and recipes circulated freely without concern for the gender of the author, compiler, or recipient. Far from being a women’s tradition, then, the exchange of medicinal recipes was a widespread activity in which both women and men participated avidly. At the same time,

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many recipes were indeed texts written by women and, as such, were unique among medieval and early modern medical writings. With the notable (and still mysterious) exceptions of Hildegard of Bingen (1098– 1179) and Oliva Sabuco (1562– 1620), women did not write theoretical medical texts. On the other hand, their close connection to therapeutics—and particularly to pharmacy—made them natural authors of medical recipes. In the sixteenth century, this form of medical writing experienced a dramatic upsurge in all sorts of printed medical works and manuscripts. While German women were notably absent as authors of printed remedy books until 1600, they appeared frequently as contributors or compilers in recipe manuscripts. It became highly fashionable among literate members of both sexes to collect, compile, and organize books of remedies received from family members, friends, and other acquaintances. This chapter examines the rise of the recipe in sixteenth- century Germany and the involvement of noblewomen in this exceedingly widespread and popular tradition of medical writing. The written recipe was at once a tangible item in its own right, a record of medical knowledge, and a stand-in for an action. As material objects, single recipes and recipe collections could be both tokens of patronage and symbols of friendship—part of the general Renaissance urge to collect mentioned in chapter 1. Yet for a recipe to have material value, the recipient generally needed the assurance that it had been made in practice and proven to be efficacious. Regina Zangmeister emphasized both that her recipes originated with high- status individuals rather than printed texts (a marker of their exclusivity) and that they had been used to heal poor people (a marker of their practical and pious applicability) to highlight the value of her gift. The inherent link to experiential knowledge, I argue, can be seen in the German word Kunst (plural: Künste), meaning art or skill, frequently used to denote medical recipes. As the written form of a skillful practice, an art or Kunst, the recipe gained its authority through successful repetition. Noblewomen, as individuals particularly connected to experience in pharmacy, found themselves at the center of this interplay between art, practice, and writing. Through an examination of the meaning of the written recipe, we can see a further explanation for the renown noblewomen gained as practitioners. The Medical Recipe What exactly constituted a medical recipe? Before we proceed any further, it is important to examine the genre more closely. Let us begin with a simple remedy listed in Zangmeister’s collection:

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Whoever has watery eyes should take steer’s bile, one part vervain juice, and fennel root, mix them together and warm it over a fire, and then wet a cloth in it. Put it in the eyes, and it will dry out the watery eyes and [they] will get better.

This recipe is fairly simple and quick to make, requiring little specialized knowledge. Others contained hundreds of exotic ingredients and required multiple steps and more complicated techniques, particularly distillation. Nevertheless, there are common elements to all recipes. Medieval historian Jerry Stannard identified six components necessary in recipes, the number and order of which could vary: (1) purpose; (2) ingredients/equipment; (3) procedure; (4) application and administration; (5) rationale; and (6) incidental data. In the above recipe, all of the components are included. The purpose is identified as a cure for “watery eyes”; bile, vervain juice, and fennel root are the ingredients; the procedure of mixing and heating them is described clearly. One administered it by wetting a cloth and applying it to the eyes. The rationale for the cure is described as drying, reflecting the Galenic principle of humoral balance (a hot and dry cure for the cold and wet ailment). Finally, incidental information (“[they] will get better”) is supplied. Stannard argued that the first four elements are necessary, at least implicitly, for a text to be categorized as a true recipe. However, in their written form, recipes frequently assumed tacit knowledge on the part of the reader for many of the above elements. The following recipe, found in the collection of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, is a good example: A powder Cinnamon bark, one lot (1.84 g) Prepared coriander, one half lot Pearls, a half quart Hart’s heart bone, a half quart One sheet of gold White sugar, the best, four lots Lemon balm leaves, a quart

This recipe would have yielded a far more expensive remedy than the one above: it contains exotic spices (cinnamon and coriander), a rare native ingredient (hart’s heart bone) and other precious materials (pearls, fine sugar, and gold). Aside from the ingredients, however, the reader knows only that the recipe yields a powder. There is no indication how one should make and apply it or, more important, what it is good for. Reliance on some tacit knowledge is quite common, which suggests that the writer assumed the intended

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reader’s skills were on a high enough level that some steps could go unmentioned. Medieval recipes are sometimes broken up into three main types: antidota, or long recipes involving a large number of ingredients and detailed instructions; receptae, which were shorter and contained abbreviated information; and experimenta, which stemmed from recipes proven in practice (rather than taken from ancient texts, as was generally the case with the former two). Antidota and receptae were frequently incorporated into collections bearing the same names (antidotaria and receptaria), and collections of experimenta can be found from the Middle Ages as well. It is important to note, however, that most sixteenth- century recipe collections take no note of this distinction: recipes of various length are juxtaposed with no commentary, and recipes in the vernacular are interspersed with those in Latin. Similarly, little or no distinction is made between recipes that can be loosely categorized as Galenic (based on the manipulation of the four humors) and chemical recipes stemming from Paracelsus (which tend to use more mineral and metallic ingredients and are based on the three substances sulphur, salt, and mercury). Zangmeister’s recipe for watery eyes, which operates on Galenic principles, stands alongside other recipes for eye illnesses that might be categorized as Paracelsian. The very first recipe in her collection, for example, involves making a water for sore eyes out of “dross of silver” (the foam that rises in silver processing), salt, white vinegar, and fresh well water. Overall, vernacular medical recipe collections are fairly consistent in their practical orientation, with very few indications of the medical theory behind the remedy. Recipes as a Source for Medical Knowledge Medical recipes are ubiquitous in every kind of ancient, medieval, and early modern medical text, including the Hippocratic corpus and subsequent learned Greek and Arabic medical writings, popular medical works from ancient Rome, and learned writings on materia medica, primarily based on Pliny and Dioscorides. In medieval Europe, recipes circulated in both Latin and the vernacular. One of the most famous recipe texts was the comprehensive Latin pharmacopoeia Antidotarium Nicolai, which circulated widely as a manuscript long before it was published in Venice in 1471. However, recipes can be found in a huge variety of manuscripts in medieval Europe: medical writings are full of them, but they were also scribbled on the margins of notarial documents, account books, literary writings, and even music. As Montserrat Cabré has noted, they were “here, there, and everywhere.”

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In the German- speaking lands, recipes comprised a significant portion of overall textual production. The most commonly reproduced text in Middle High German—medical or otherwise—was surgeon Ortolf von Baierland’s late- thirteenth- century Arzneibuch, largely a collection of recipes. So central were recipes to early German medical writings that historian Peter Assion has called the recipe “the origin of medical literature in Germany.” With the rise of a vibrant vernacular medical culture in the sixteenth century, recipes only gained in significance. They held a prominent place both in manuscripts and in diverse types of printed works: herbals, plague pamphlets, distillation manuals, midwifery manuals, and books of secrets. Aristocratic courts had long been important sites for the production of medical recipes, as princes constantly searched for means to prolong their lives. Recipes created by a number of monarchs are mentioned in early Greek and Roman sources. King Mithridates VI of Pontos (120– 63 BCE), for example, famously experimented on himself with various doses of toxic substances and antidotes in order to prevent himself from being poisoned, a legend that caused his name to be attached to the poison antidote mithradatium. There is also evidence of the exchange of medical remedies at the courts of medieval Europe. An early- fourteenth- century recipe collection by the famous physician Arnald of Villanova (c. 1235–1312) seems to have been drawn from the court of Pope Clement V, and Cabré has found evidence of recipe exchange at the courts of medieval Iberia. In the Holy Roman Empire, most recipes surviving from the Middle Ages can be traced to physicians, surgeons, and members of religious communities rather than to courtiers; however, a number of early modern recipes are named after medieval aristocrats, suggesting that they were common at the German courts as well. As literacy rates rose and paper prices fell in the sixteenth century, the preponderance of recipe collections at court increased astronomically. The sheer number of medical recipe manuscripts surviving from the sixteenth century is immense compared with those from the previous centuries. This upsurge can be seen particularly clearly in the medical and alchemical manuscripts of the Codices Palatini germanici, the German- language manuscripts belonging to the library of the Palatine electors, which were taken to the Vatican after the plundering of Heidelberg by Austrian forces in 1623. Medical and alchemical writings comprise around a third of the 848 total manuscripts, which were returned to the University of Heidelberg in 1816. The absolute number of medical manuscripts rises from 1 in the fourteenth century to 36 in the fifteenth century to 243 in the sixteenth century. Recipes can be found throughout the medieval manuscripts—in fact, the only fourteenthcentury medical text, the Speyrer Arzneibuch (Cod. Pal. germ. 214) from 1321,

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f i g u r e 5 . Composition of medical manuscripts in the Codices Palatini germanici, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.

is a medicinal recipe collection. Two- thirds of the fifteenth- century medical manuscripts consist largely or substantially of medicinal remedies. In the sixteenth century, that number rises to enormous proportions, when recipe manuscripts comprise a full 90 percent of all medical manuscripts. If one looks more closely at the specific makeup of recipe collections, moreover, a concurrent shift is visible (see figure 5). Over half of the fifteenthcentury recipe manuscripts are compilations containing astrological information, excerpts from medical texts, information on bloodletting, prayers, and guides to the humors and complexions, in addition to recipes. Many contain excerpts from well- circulated medieval manuscripts, such as the works of Ortolf von Baierland. Three are collections of remedies for horses or other animals. Around 30 percent of the fifteenth- century manuscripts do not focus on recipes but instead contain translations of scholarly texts, physicians’ consilia, practical guides to diet, bloodletting, and healing baths, and alchemical treatises. By the end of the sixteenth century, this weighting had shifted drastically. A mere 10 percent of the sixteenth- century medical manuscripts do not contain a significant portion of recipes, and the number of manuscripts containing a mixture of recipes and other texts also drops to around 10 percent. Overall, then, we can observe a shift from medical manuscripts fairly equally balanced between recipe books, mixed manuscripts, and other medical texts to a collection dominated by medicinal recipes. Sections copied from medieval texts such as Ortolf von Baierland drop to an almost insignificant number, while recipes attributed to individual compilers rise. This shift is consistent with Gundolf Keil’s claim that laypeople rarely composed medical works

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before 1500 but did so increasingly in the sixteenth century, and the pattern is repeated in princely libraries across the Holy Roman Empire. This upsurge of recipe texts in courtly libraries was due in part to the personal participation of princes in their propagation. The medical manuscripts in the Codices Palatini germanici were influenced by a series of Palatinate electors with a particularly keen interest in medicine—Ludwig V (r. 1508–44), Friedrich II (r. 1544–56), Ottheinrich (r. 1556–59), Friedrich III (r. 1559–76), and, in particular, Ludwig VI (r. 1576–83). Their involvement was not necessarily new: Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III (1415–93) famously compiled a recipe collection sometime in the late fifteenth century, excerpts of which he shared with his cousin, Duke Sigmund of Tyrol (1427– 96), and Duke Sigmund also received a book of recipes from one of his surgeons, Klaus von Matrei, in 1488. In the sixteenth century, compiling medicinal recipe collections became a common practice among rulers and aristocrats of the Holy Roman Empire—from powerful princes like Elector August of Saxony (1526– 86) to lesser- known figures like the royal Danish proconsul in Schleswig and Holstein, Heinrich von Rantzau (d. 1598). Ludwig V of the Palatinate presents one of the most prolific examples of this rising aristocratic interest in medicinal recipes: an insomniac, he penned a twelve- volume Arzneibuch (Book of Medicine) between 1520 and his death in 1544, singlehandedly copying over a hundred thousand recipes from various sources into wood- bound, foliosized tomes. Each of the six thousand vellum folios is covered with Ludwig’s small, even handwriting. His later successor, Ludwig VI, had dozens of recipe collections copied from other princes and princesses. As a marker of how valuable these collections could be, a manuscript compiled by von Rantzau was plundered from the library of Castle Breitenburg during the Thirty Years’ War, when the imperial forces invaded Holstein in 1627. It later came into the hands of Austrian baron Wolfgang Helmhard von Hohberg (1612–87), who copied it and used it extensively as an authoritative source in the recipe collection included in his Georgica curiosa (1682). By the end of the sixteenth century, recipes had become a prominent courtly fad. It would be a mistake, however, to portray the courts as the only—or even the main—locus of recipe exchange. Without a doubt, the German courts represented a vibrant center of knowledge transactions of all sorts, but we have a number of indications that the exchange of medicinal remedies was common outside of court culture. As we have seen, the Countess Claudia of Oettingen sought out medicinal remedies from Regina Zangmeister, and the resulting manuscripts were among the many gifts of recipe collections from commoners to aristocrats. Moreover, a number of individual recipes in princely collections are attributed to lower- class individuals. While the attri-

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bution of a recipe or a recipe collection did not necessarily signify authorship, it did suggest the milieu in which the text originated. A case in point is the recipes compiled by Duke Richard of Pfalz-Simmern around 1570, now Cod. Pal. germ. 195. Many of the contributions named elite and wealthy individuals such as Elector Friedrich III of the Palatinate, Duchess Dorothea Susanna of Saxony-Weimer, the bishop of Worms, and the Augsburg merchant Anton Fugger, but others cite far more humble origins: “Bastian Wagner, baker . . . Caspar, silk tailor . . . Christoph Teck, foot soldier . . . Christina, wife of Christoph Teck . . . Joachim Schick, court cook . . . Martha, wife of Merten the court smith . . . Katharina, wife of the tailor Meister Morchin . . . Jacob Wetzel, bureaucrat in Strasbourg . . . Hans Khun, mayor.” In other courtly recipe manuscripts, attributions tend to be heavily weighted toward aristocrats, but these collections all contain a large number of anonymous recipes of uncertain origin. In any case, we should keep in mind that there was a longstanding tradition of collecting medicinal remedies outside the courts and that the aristocratic courts were porous enough that significant amounts of knowledge flowed in and out. Women and Medical Recipe Collections One important result of this rapidly increasing interest in exchanging and compiling recipes at court was the outlet it gave to women’s pharmaceutical knowledge. Not only do female contributors appear in nearly every recipe manuscript from the Bibliotheca Palatina that contains attributions, women also appear more frequently as compilers than men. Some of these compilers came from outside the courts—Regina Zangmeister is one notable example, and Elector Palatine Ludwig V copied extensive recipe collections from two other burgher women, Regina Hurleweg and Anna Gremsin, into his Arzneibuch. Far more voluminous, however, is the number of collections compiled by noblewomen: at least seventeen noblewomen appear definitively as compilers in the Codices Palatini germanici, as opposed to nine noblemen. Moreover, noblewomen read and used manuscript recipe collections owned by their relatives: Elisabeth of Saxony personalized several manuscripts belonging to the Bibliotheca Palatina by writing the word “Elisabeth” next to recipes of interest (see figure 6). Medicinal recipes had long been an important form of women’s writing— indeed, the oldest recipe manuscript in Heidelberg, the 1321 Speyrer Arzneibuch, was compiled by a woman who called herself Guteline von Esselingen. Monica Green has shown that most women in the Middle Ages did not obtain their medical knowledge from books, owned few medical books, and had

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f i g u r e 6 . Elisabeth of Saxony’s autograph in the margins of a recipe collection, c. 1566, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. Germ. 187, fol. 16r. Courtesy of the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.

no deep familiarity with the theoretical underpinnings of Galenic humoral theory (although many elements of Galenic medicine trickled down into lay medical culture). On the other hand, most women were given practical training in the basic medicine needed to run their households or estates. Medical recipes thus represented the focus of their practice, and if women owned any medical books at all, they tended to be recipe collections. Gentlewomen and religious women had the highest likelihood of literacy in medieval Europe and, unsurprisingly, appear as the main authors and compilers of medieval recipes connected to women. Guteline von Esselingen designated herself Joncfraw, virgin, and was likely both a gentlewoman and a nun; Elaine Whitaker has found medical exchange in the letters of the women of the gentry Paston family in England; and the medieval women’s medical recipes Cabré has examined were connected mostly to Spanish noblewomen. In the early modern period, it became more common for noblewomen to own medical books. Dorothea of Mansfeld kept a library that included numerous medical volumes, which she apparently bequeathed to Anna of Saxony. Anna had amassed at least twenty- two printed medical books by the time of her death. Yet the assumption that women’s medical knowledge should be practically oriented rings true for the later sixteenth century as

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well. The printed medical books Anna of Saxony owned were mostly herbals and medical handbooks containing recipes. A few of her books on complexions and Paracelsian medicine would have included medical theory, but by and large her printed books on healing were practical how-to guides to pharmacy. Her recipe collections, moreover, far outnumbered her printed medical books. An inventory of her medical manuscripts lists over fifty handwritten volumes “held in special bookshelves in the Electoral library.” All but four of these were recipe collections. When Regina Zangmeister remarked that Countess Claudia took “a special interest and delight” in the medical arts, she was making a connection that would have been obvious to most early modern men and women in close proximity to court culture. Noblewomen were expected to have some knowledge of medical practice, the type of practice they learned was largely oriented toward pharmacy, and hence their interest in the medical arts tended to focus chiefly on recipes. Throughout the early modern period, the recipe would remain the central form of women’s medical writing. This set of circumstances has led Green and Cabré to see recipes as women’s texts. There is a certain danger in this reading since, as Cabré recognizes, recipes were written and compiled by members of both sexes, and men often wrote down recipes for women. Despite the fact that noblewomen outnumber noblemen as compilers of recipes in the Codices Palatini germanici, the overall number of male contributors vastly outweighs the number of women. Elaine Leong has found a similar weighting toward men in seventeenth- and eighteenth- century English recipe collections. Categorizing recipes as women’s texts risks anachronistically separating women’s remedies from the wider circulation of recipes in early modern culture. On the other hand, recipes were indeed texts commonly written and compiled by women, a convention that allowed them to participate in the burgeoning exchange of medical knowledge. The fascination with recipes across early modern literate culture provided a natural venue for women’s prominence as healers—especially noblewomen, who, as we have seen, were particularly connected to the production of remedies. If we regard recipes not as “women’s texts” but as “texts written by women,” it allows us to more fully include women as authors in an important medical genre. Pharmacy and the Kitchen The singular focus of German medicinal recipe collections further discourages siphoning women’s recipes into a separate category. In contrast to seventeenth- century English recipe books, which tended to intermingle pharmaceutical recipes with culinary recipes and those for making practical

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household items such as soap or ink, sixteenth- century German collections, whether manuscript or print, contain nearly exclusively remedies. Philippine Welser, the patrician wife of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol, kept both a cookbook and a collection of medical recipes (both likely given to her by her mother), but the volumes were completely separate. Her cookbook did contain some pharmacy, as well as a section on foods for invalids (a feature in German cookbooks to this day), but her medicinal recipe collection contained no culinary recipes. Likewise, Brigitta Trautson, a Bohemian baroness, frequently provided Anna of Saxony with medical (artzeney) recipes throughout the early 1570s. In 1575, however, she promised Anna a copy of her cookbook (khochpiechl). Her differentiation between remedies and cooking again indicates a perception of the two as different entities. The inventory of Anna’s library, moreover, lists both cookbooks and medical recipe collections, making a linguistic distinction between the two—kochbuch (cookbook) vs. artzneybuch (medical book). This separation of pharmacy and cooking is particularly noteworthy given the obvious links between making medicines and the early modern kitchen: the term “kitchin- physick” was sometimes used to describe the medicopharmaceutical activities of women in seventeenth- century England. As Leong’s study of English gentlewoman Elizabeth Freke has shown, the same pots and pans used for making food could easily be used for medicine. The estate inventory of Elisabeth of Rochlitz lists a private kitchen in her quarters that contained materials that could have been used for medicine or cookery: a pestle and mortar for grinding seeds and herbs; a brass scale and weights for measuring; a stove and copper pots and pans for boiling; and old linen cloths for sieving and wrapping herbs. Bruce Moran, similarly, explains a seventeenth- century Bavarian noblewoman’s interest in chemical medicine with the assertion that “court pharmacies were often derivatives of court kitchens, and in fact the line between kitchen and apothecary was not always clearly defined.” The relationship between food and medicine in Renaissance Europe was close and complex. Food played an important role in the care of the sick, since all foods were endowed with the Galenic properties hot, cold, wet, and dry and could be used to temper humoral imbalances. In treating patients, university- trained physicians first and foremost prescribed a regimen involving a careful diet based on a patient’s own humoral complexion. At home, food had a similarly important role in caring for the sick. Ria Jansen-Sieben points to a common origin of German- language cookbooks and medical recipe books and sees cookbooks as having a mostly medical purpose throughout the sixteenth century. Anna Weckerin (née Keller), the first German woman

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to publish a cookbook (Kochbuch von allerhand Speisen, 1597), presented her culinary recipes as primarily useful for the care of the sick. The recipes had been developed from Weckerin’s experience in helping her husband, Colmar town physician Johann Jacob Wecker, in his practice; she claimed that Wecker “always preferred curing from the kitchen rather than the apothecary.” Yet just as Weckerin’s statement underscores the important role of food in therapeutics, so too does her distinction between kitchen and apothecary point to the same differentiation between food and pharmacy as is visible in medicinal recipe collections. All food could be medicinal, but that did not mean that all medicines were seen as food. Some medicines, of course, were pleasing to ingest as well as (purportedly) curative. For example, electuaries (Latwerge), a popular type of remedy, were sweet confects made with honey or sugar. Alcohol was also a common ingredient in medicines, and a number of recipes called for the baking of an egg, a cake, or the use of chicken broth. Patients sometimes expressed enjoyment at eating or imbibing these sorts of remedies—however, all of these substances were specified as cures rather than everyday foods and classed separately from other culinary recipes. Candied foods and confections represented the area of greatest overlap between culinary and medical recipes. Walter Hermann Ryff ’s Confectbüchlin und Haußapothek (Little Confection Book and Home Apothecary, 1544) became a best- seller in the mid- sixteenth century; it contained a mixture of herbal and mineral remedies and sweet, candied items. Recipes for candying fruits, flowers, roots, and even nuts were quite common, and once preserved (eingemacht), they could be incorporated into other medical recipes or taken alone as “refreshment” (Labsal). An ambiguous word, Labsal signified an intersection between medication and cuisine. On the one hand, preserved fruits were eaten regularly with meals in upper- class households, rather than being taken specifically for medicinal purposes. However, they could also be used to build up the strength of a sick person during fevers or other wearying illness. Anna of Saxony, for example, frequently accompanied remedies with candied items. In one case, she sent preserved lemon peel, lemons, quinces, cherries, and roses to a servant stricken with “hot fever,” which he was instructed to “use in the heat as refreshment.” In the Galenic system of complexions, many fruits had cooling properties, which soothed fevers that resulted from too much heat. Because the qualities “hot” and “cold” were the Galenic concepts most widely used among laypeople, foods tagged with heating or cooling properties could be seen as especially beneficial. Candied fruits could also be eaten as a general means to preserve good health, making it nearly impossible to separate medical from culinary matters. Without downplaying the culinary connections of such items as candied produce,

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however, for the most part the exchange of recipes designated “medicine” (Arznei) and recipe collections called “Books of Medicine” (Arzneibücher) had an explicitly therapeutic purpose. Aristocrats also traded recipes for cooking, brewing beer, and making ink, but they generally kept them in “Books of Arts” (Kunstbücher), an umbrella term that could include recipes of almost any sort. A recipe collection owned by a (likely male) member of the family Schenck zu Schweinsburg in Hesse, for example, included recipes for brewing beer, keeping wine from going bad, protecting travelers, and taking the stench out of garlic, as well as a few remedies. “Books of Medicine,” on the other hand, generally contained mainly remedies, with occasional copies of dietary regimens from physicians. This separation of pharmaceutical from culinary recipes was not unique to Germany: Lynette Hunter has shown that printed recipe collections attributed to three seventeenth- century England noblewomen contained culinary, household, and medicinal recipes—but the different themes were organized into separate sections, and all three women directly connected themselves only to the portion on medicines. Likewise, the recipe collection of Italian noblewoman Caterina Sforza (1462–1509) contained medical, alchemical, and cosmetic recipes, but none related to cookery. Later housefather books, such as Hohberg’s Georgica curiosa (1682), preserved this separation of culinary from medicinal recipes. The differentiation—at least semantically and organizationally—between cookery and pharmacy cautions us against the assumption that medicinal recipes from aristocratic women represent an extension of women’s household work in the kitchen. As we have seen, estate inventories indicate that medical kitchens were frequently separate from kitchens in which food was made. In some cases noblewomen’s medico- pharmaceutical practice was related explicitly to the kitchen; for example, physician Joachim Strupp directed that the nine- year- old Countess Palatine Christina learn “how to make the necessary home and kitchen medicines.”  In the texts, however, it is difficult to find a qualitative difference between the recipes of women and men. Despite the importance of gender divisions in practice, as will be discussed further in chapter 4, the kitchen plays a surprisingly understated role in German court recipe collections. Recipes as Kunst Far more important than the gender of a recipe’s author was the assurance that the remedy would work. As we saw in chapter 1, recipes often included efficacy phrases such as “tried,” “proven,” “probatum est,” or more elaborate

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descriptions of a successful cure. In proclaiming a remedy’s usefulness, efficacy phrases provided an overt link between the written document and the set of practices behind it. The importance of this connection can be seen in the very words used to describe medical recipes in German. Authors sometimes used Rezept, “recipe,” or, less frequently, Stuck, “item,” both of which pointed to the written text itself. Often, a medical recipe was called simply Arznei, “medicine,” denoting the finished remedy. Experiment or the Latin word experimentum could also mean “recipe” and, as we have seen, connoted an active gathering of information through experience. Finally, it was particularly common for a recipe to be termed a Kunst (plural: Künste), generally translated into English as either “art” or “skill.” A loose recipe by a woman named Elisabeth Settlerin, found in the collection of Duchess Elisabeth of Rochlitz, was titled “a proven Kunst for the womb,” while the term surfaced in the titles of numerous recipes in Sophia of Miltitz’s collection, including “A wonderful little piece of art [Kunststuck], for rheumatism and gout, very proven.” Although “Book of Medicine” (Arzneibuch) was the most frequent title for a medical recipe collection, as we have seen, it could also be called the more general “Book of Art” (Kunstbuch). Ludwig VI of the Palatinate used Kunstbuch as the title of his own recipe collection and that of his sister Dorothea Susanna, although both books contained exclusively medical recipes. In its sixteenth- century usage, Kunst had a far broader range of meanings than merely “art” or “skill.” As a derivative of the verb können, “to know” or “to be able to,” Kunst also denoted “knowledge,” or “ability,” roughly the equivalent of the noun Können in modern German. In this sense, Kunst implied the know- how necessary to carry out a set of procedures. It surfaced frequently in conjunction with artisanal and craft traditions, including painting, hunting, sewing, juggling, glassmaking, dyeing, artillery, brewing, and animal husbandry, among many others. Anna of Saxony generally used the word Kunst when she wrote of making medical remedies, but she also used it to describe skill in needlepoint patterns and, in one instance, wrote of a little Spanish dog named Settinlein who “can do all kinds of serving and jumping arts [Künste].” As the German parallel to the Latin ars (art, meaning knowledge), moreover, Kunst was also used in learned traditions. The seven liberal arts taught at the universities (artes liberales, i.e., grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music) were known in German as the sieben freie Künste. Physicians, likewise, frequently referred to medical practice as an art in vernacular writings: Johannes Dryander, professor at the University of Marburg, called it the “noble art of therapeutic medicine.” This reflected a long tradition of considering medicine both an art (ars) and a philosophy

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(scientia). Traditionally, “art” did not signify the practical side of knowledge: Pamela Smith notes that artist Albrecht Dürer lobbied for a unification of Kunst, which he considered art informed by intellectual understanding, and Brauch, or practical skill. However, it is important to keep in mind that Kunst in the sixteenth century could denote both knowledge and technical skill. In the writings of noblewomen, “art” generally connoted know- how. Sara Pennell notes a similar collapsing of art and skill in women’s medical recipes in early modern England, which she sees as a part of female domestic activities. However, the same phenomenon occurred across diverse areas of practice. For example, the Kunstbüchlein (Little Books of Art), a group of four popular craft manuals that were printed and reprinted in sixteenth- century Germany, were tokens of a newfound interest in the technical arts, popular well beyond their intended audience of craftsmen. The key to this popularity, William Eamon suggests, was the focus on “how-to,” which served to demystify the mechanical arts. The methodology of how-to in the Kunstbüchlein reverberated in medical works for the common man and represented a key attraction of medical recipes. Kunstbuch was employed frequently as a title for both medical recipe manuscripts and how-to works with other purposes. While an anonymous manuscript called “Wund vnd anderer ertznei Kunstbuch” (Book of Skills for Surgery and Other Medicine) in the library of Anna and August of Saxony had a purely medical focus, a “Kunstbuch” by Count Hans Albrecht of Mansfeld and Count Valerian Krakow mostly dealt with metallurgy and alchemy. However vastly they differed in their specifics, the printed Kunstbüchlein and the courtly drive to collect medical recipes were linked by the joint interest in the concept of “how-to,” inherent in Kunst. The interest in Kunst overlapped with elements of artisanal knowledge, as Smith has argued, but specialized experience had broad resonance in many settings. “Art” thus connoted not simply the material form of a medical recipe but also the set of practices involved in turning recipe into remedy. In using the word Kunst, authors implied this practical facet, a marker of the experiential knowledge described in chapter 1. Anna of Saxony, for example, consistently used Kunst when referring to the know- how involved in practice, as will be discussed further in chapter 4. When Hans Jenitz complained of insomnia, she reminded him to “use the Kunst that you yourself taught us” to cure it. After giving Katharina of Brandenburg a long description of how to make a medicinal red currant wine, she cautioned, “This is a poor Kunst, and we are aware that Your Dearest can make [the wine] already and perhaps better than we can.” In these cases, “Kunst” referred not to a specific document but to a set of actions that could be written down. Anna specifically differentiated between “art” and “recipe” in a letter to the Danish courtier Brigitta Goje,

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requesting that “if you know another Kunst that makes the hair pretty and proper, also that makes it grow and thicken, you would . . . give it to us in writing.” This distinction gave Kunst an explicitly active meaning. As the written form of a Kunst, the recipe committed an essentially mechanical process to a text. Anna’s request to have the art “in writing” nicely highlights this difference between Kunst and recipe. As Pennell notes, the English word “recipe” (like the German Rezept) was rooted in the Latin recipere, to receive, emphasizing movement and transmission. Courtiers generally used the word Rezept to indicate a text. Kunst, on the other hand, had several different meanings. Its most common usage implied the know- how or skill required to execute a recipe in practice, but the word Kunst could also be used as a near synonym for Rezept, as when Anna of Saxony referred to the copying of “many Künste” from her apothecary’s recipe collection. In many cases, authors used the terms Rezept, Stuck, Arznei, and Kunst fairly interchangeably to denote written recipes. In addition, a third use of Kunst surfaced in a letter from Margaret von Neffenstein to Magdalena von Bünau, lady- inwaiting to Elisabeth of Rochlitz. Having heard that Elisabeth was sick, Margaret sent “a cinnamon water, which is held in very high and dear estimation by the doctors and physicians,” and asked Magdalena to pass on “this Kunst” to Elisabeth. Here, Kunst simply signified the cinnamon water, although, more in the literal sense of the word, it also indicated the application of the cinnamon water for Elisabeth’s illness. Thus the practical nature of the word Kunst was inherent, even when it referred to a material object (recipe or remedy). Art, Orality, and Writing Monica Green has called women’s recipes from the sixteenth century “outcroppings of ‘submerged’ oral traditions” from the Middle Ages that became visible as written documents only in the early modern period. As such, recipes provide a bridge to women’s medical practices that only rarely slipped through into writing in the Middle Ages. By the sixteenth century, however, the German court had, by and large, become a literate and textual culture, and the transmission of Künste frequently took place in writing. At least two reasons for the textual transfer of recipes stand out. Owing to the long distances involved in the exchange of knowledge between the courts of the various German principalities, orality frequently was not an option. Moreover, even when recipes were exchanged in close proximity, enough contained long lists of ingredients that written exchange was far more practical. While the techniques in learning to make remedies tended to be demonstrated in person- to-person encounters, as we shall see in chapter 4, the recipe itself was

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almost always a written document. Finally, Pamela Smith has proposed that writing down recipes represented a way to record craft knowledge—it was a way of both putting experiential, tacit knowledge down on ink and paper and of developing theoretical frameworks and approaches to techniques. Written recipes, Smith argues, were “trying to convey the essence of Kunst.” The variegated appearances of recipe collections hint at this interplay between orality and writing. The collection belonging to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, for example, consists of a series of seventy- nine loose recipes, as well as four recipe booklets, the largest of these a fifty- leaf pamphlet in quarto, bound with string. The loose recipes represent individual Künste transmitted from a variety of different sources, while the booklets are at least one step further removed from the initial stage of writing down. Such loose recipe collections from the sixteenth century are rare, as piles of recipes tended to survive only if they were copied into separate volumes. Anna of Saxony had the recipes that she received “piece by piece” copied “into a book, orderly, with different chapters [ordentlich unter gewiße Capittel]” in 1562. A recipe collection from Anna’s sister, Margravine Dorothea of Brandenburg, was obviously copied from loose recipes as well—in addition to the various remedies, the scribe also copied a letter detailing a regimen for the plague that was addressed to her husband, Margrave Albrecht. Although Dorothea of Mansfeld’s recipe collection was written almost exclusively in her own hand, it too likely started out as a loose collection. The beginning of the book focuses on remedies for the head and throat, a signal that Dorothea intended to follow the common convention of organizing her volume by ailment from head to toe. This organization quickly breaks down, as Dorothea added new recipes to the book alongside her old ones and had acquaintances copy their remedies into the volume. In contrast, Sophia of Miltitz’s recipe collection was written as a fair copy in one scribal hand and maintained a head- to-toe organization throughout. Several collections in the Bibliotheca Palatina were even more distant from the initial moment of writing down, since they consisted of reorganized recipes selected from existing recipe collections. The process of transferring Künste into written recipes was a gradual one. Most studies of the development of writing put the concepts “literacy” and “orality” in opposition. However, this ignores the important role memory played in day- to-day practice, even in fully literate and textual cultures. In an exchange with Anna of Saxony, Dorothea of Mansfeld asked Anna to return a well- worn recipe collection she had borrowed previously, which Dorothea referred to as her “ugly little old book.” She stated: “I want to copy something from it that I have not written down anywhere else. I used to be able to remember things well even when I did not have the book at hand, but

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now I cannot retain anything that I do not write down.” Dorothea, it seems, did not rely exclusively upon written recipes in her day- to-day medical practice but utilized them when memory failed her, much like a commonplace book. As a memory aid, the “ugly little old book” preserved the arts that Dorothea had once known by heart. Written recipes not only sustained memorized knowledge but allowed for its propagation. When Dorothea became ill at the age of seventy- nine, Anna hurriedly requested her to have someone commit to paper “all of your Künste that you have in your memory and have not written down.” In this case, it was external prompting that led to the act of writing; Anna’s desire to acquire Dorothea’s accumulated knowledge induced her to demand explicitly the switch from memory to written recipe. Arts that otherwise were confined to localized use could be spread to a wider audience in this manner. The act of writing down was important enough for Anna that she reiterated her request to Dorothea several times. In one case she reminded the countess that “you have assured us you would copy the arts you hold to be certain and [good] for daily use but have not written down into a little book.” She asked Dorothea “not to forget” her promise and, without a hint of irony, requested especially that Dorothea include a recipe “for retaining and strengthening the memory.” M. T. Clanchy’s classic From Memory to Written Record details the importance of memory to the preservation and transmission of information in the Middle Ages. In the absence of a literate society, people were used to memorizing large amounts of information; even once writing became more common in the Middle Ages, people frequently did not trust it. Dorothea represents a prime example of a person on the boundaries of both traditions. Although she was highly literate, she retained command over a good deal of nontextual knowledge. More than simply abstract recipes, a number of Dorothea’s arts were relics of practice that were written down only with external prompting. Hence recipes could provide a very direct link to the pharmaceutical end product; they were in essence a stand-in for the procedures that were impractical to leave to memory or orality. At the same time, orality continued to interact with writing in a variety of complicated ways. Duchess Anna Maria of Württemberg wrote to Dr. Johann Kielmann in 1568 that she had “heard your letter read today,” which underscores the continued importance of aurality as well as orality. Anna Maria wrote most letters in her own hand (to the despair of the historian whose task it is to read it!), but many noblewomen preferred to dictate through a scribe. Despite the central position of writing in disseminating recipes, memory and the spoken word continued to play an important role.

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On the other hand, when literate noblewomen engaged in purely oral transfers of “arts,” they frequently did so in an attempt to limit dissemination. Secret recipes were those most often kept deliberately from writing. In 1576, for example, Elisabeth of Lymarin, Lady of Warnsdorf, reported to Anna of Saxony that she had learned “many secret things . . . that I would not reveal even for a lot of money” from a “very clever old woman” who was known regionally for her ability to treat “pregnant women and young children” and whom Lady Elisabeth had visited at her deathbed. The old woman had informed her that she knew the reason why so many of Anna’s children—especially the boys—had died at a young age, and she asked Elisabeth to convey the cause and the treatment to Anna. Lady Elisabeth’s description of the encounter made it clear that the exchange of information had taken place orally, asserting that the old woman had “revealed” (offenbahret) her secrets and “told” (berichtet) her what Anna should do. The old woman described by Lady Elisabeth, assuming that the portrayal was accurate and the encounter really did take place, may well have been illiterate. However, Elisabeth’s emphasis on orality served mainly to reinforce the secrecy of the information she had learned. She reported that the old woman had made her “swear to high heaven that I would tell it to no person on the earth except Your Electorly Grace,” and she pleaded that Anna “let no one read this, my letter, because I have had to swear it so solemnly and because everyone is not to be trusted.” She added in a postscript, “I would have had much more to write to Your Grace,” but reported, “people have begun to talk,” and stated that she would “let it be until I come to Your Electorly Grace in person.” Writing, in Elisabeth’s perspective, was undesirable, owing to the high sensitivity of information. Keeping recipes out of the wrong hands was a primary concern of noblewomen, as will be discussed further at the end of this chapter, and refraining from writing was one way of doing so. In general, however, writing was the norm in exchanges between noblewomen, and deviations from that norm implied a special situation. Art Written Down Although there was a perceived value in keeping some special, secret remedies out of textual culture, in general written recipe collections had greater worth: they provided the materiality so vital to court practices of patronage and gift giving. In fact, the very act of writing could give a document value. A striking recipe manuscript belonging to the counts of HohenloheNeuenstein demonstrates the importance of the moment of writing down. Copied into the blank pages at the back of another recipe collection, it begins

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with the heading, “The old countess of Mansfeld gave these medicines to her son, Count Hans Georg, written in her own hand.” The scribe soon ran out of pages at the back of the volume and had to continue the text in the blank pages between each chapter of the original collection. Every jump the text makes reiterates Dorothea of Mansfeld’s act of writing down. The inside back binding explains, “NOTA: In the front of this book, after the twenty- forth folio, continue more medical arts [Artzney Kunnst] that the old countess of Mansfeld also wrote down for her son, Count Hans Georg, by herself.” If one flips to the designated folio, the recipes indeed continue under the heading “These are more medical arts that the old countess of Mansfeld gave to her son, Count Hans Georg, written by herself.” The reader is led in the same manner through three more breaks in the text, some of them mid- recipe, until it concludes in the (previously blank) pages after folio 65 with the words: “End of the medical arts that the old countess of Mansfeld gave to her son, Count Hans Georg, written by herself.” The copyist’s continual insistence that the countess had written the recipes in her own hand (mit Aigner handt) or that she had written them herself (selbsten geschrieben) underscores the important connection between text and practitioner: the fact that Dorothea had transferred her arts directly into paper and ink tied the document to her considerable reputation. The recipe volume was thus literally a collection of arts that had been written down. This explicit connection between the practitioner and the written text allowed the reader to better judge the document’s credibility and provided a cue to the reader that the recipes could be trusted, as discussed in chapter 1. Similarly, Regina Zangmeister’s assertion that the people from whom she had gathered her recipes had written them “in their own hands” can be read as a means of assuring their trustworthiness. A recipe collection carefully written in the hand of a well- known practitioner was a valuable object indeed. The emphasis on Dorothea’s direct involvement may also highlight the difficulties involved in the laborious process of copying out recipes. When Dorothea agreed to copy her Künste for Anna of Saxony, she indicated that making the switch from memory to writing was no simple matter. She first needed “empty books in which to write” and thus “humbly” asked to have “three books bound in parchment, one made of large paper, the others of small paper.” Moreover, she warned Anna, “Your Noble Grace must have patience, for such things take time.” For her part, Anna of Saxony frequently expressed embarrassment about her own writing, which she considered to be clumsy and unsightly. When Margravine Sabine of Brandenburg apologized for dictating a letter to a scribe during an eye illness, for instance, Anna assured her she need not worry, “for even though we do not have any afflic-

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tion in the eyes at present, God be praised, our writing still comes out very slowly and poorly . . . such that we rarely take it upon ourselves to write in our own hand.” Similarly, she appreciated a skilled hand, writing to Dorothea on one occasion, “Your little old [medicine] book is very dear to us, especially since it is written so diligently in your own hand.” Indeed, all of the references to Dorothea’s direct action of putting pen to paper may also reflect her particular talents for writing. Highly unusual for any aristocrat in sixteenthcentury Germany, let alone a woman, she wrote in an even, clear humanist hand (see figure 7). Her texts were thus valuable both for their outward appearance and for the promise of medical efficacy in their content. Courtly Patronage and the Culture of Collecting It was this combination of materiality and efficacy that made recipes such potent items of patronage. A recipe collection represented both an object and a promise of good health. Katharina Wernerin, a widow from Zwickau, sent Anna the gift of a “little booklet, in which is written many lovely and proven skills” in 1563. Along with highlighting her talents in medical practice, Wernerin insisted that she could “read and write.” For a poor widow, Wernerin’s booklet was a fairly extravagant undertaking; it was bound in green leather with straps, and despite Wernerin’s assurances that she could read and write, it is written in a clean scribal hand. The care taken in presenting the collection as both an attractive object and a useful book of remedies was undoubtedly deliberate. Wernerin presented the book specifically as a quid pro quo, explaining that illness and war had devastated her; she concluded her dedicatory preface with the entreaty, “it is my beseeching plea [that] Your Noble Grace, for the sake of God, mercifully provide me, poor, desolate old woman that I am, with a merciful payment.” In a more subtle and far more elaborate exploitation of this combination of materiality and functionality, the exiled Austrian baron Hans Ungenad of Sonnegg and his wife Magdalena sent Anna of Saxony an ornate, illuminated manuscript, written on vellum and highly decorated. Combined with this careful presentation was the claim on the title page of the twenty- three- folio booklet: “Within are many highly useful recipes and medicines, proven many times with God’s help on many people of both high and low standing, as described with diligence.” The contents of the Ungenads’ manuscript were no less magnificent: its main feature, a recipe for a panacea salve, took up the first eight folios (sixteen pages in all) and required over 150 ingredients. Indeed, the first two steps called for seventy- nine herbs in all, after which Ungenad noted, “These are not the least of the items. . . . Oh, now see the main part

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f i g u r e 7 . A recipe for an eye water in the hand of Dorothea of Mansfeld, c. 1550. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C 317. By permission of the Sächsische Landesbibliothek—Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden.

that will work wonders against poisons.” This, he stated, involved carefully distilling the herbs with good wine and subsequently mixing them with fiftyeight different kinds of fats and oils, including fats from deer, ibex, fox, wild sow, hedgehog, lynx, ox, and elephant, as well as the marrow of a horse “that has not been ridden too hard” and the fat from the kidneys of a calf “that has been nursed for ten weeks.” The recipe was followed by a four- page description of its usefulness in curing a variety of ailments, including stone, stomach pains, pain in the back, appendages, and armpits, pain and flux in the breast, melancholy, dizziness, pain following childbirth, constipation, and plague.

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In order to further assure that the true worth of his gift would be understood, Ungenad accompanied the manuscript with an eight- page letter, accentuating the miraculous properties of the salve. He first set up the fallibility of most medicines: “Your Noble Grace knows, as a most wise, experienced electress, that medicines do not work the same on all people, and that everything also depends on our dear Lord, for if the Almighty God wills [a person to die], then all the doctors [in the world] cannot help.” Nevertheless, he wrote, “truthfully, merciful Electress, this salve has been proven many times on me, my former and current dear housewives, on my children, and many dear friends, who used many things that did not help and let other medicines carry them into the grave. But truthfully,” he continued, “if no medicine helps, this salve is such a good medicine that I in all my days have found no external medicine of its kind.” For example, Ungenad maintained, “all advice and medicine helped not a whit” when his “current housewife” was dangerously constipated after a difficult birth, to the point where she “became senseless and dumb, could neither eat nor drink, and cried for the end to come.” In desperation, Ungenad wrote, “I dared in the name of God to rub the salve on her stomach and loins and around the navel, three times,” and he continued using the salve “until she soon came to her wits and regained strength.” Every time the pains threatened to come back, Ungenad reported, he “used the salve again, and it led to a healthy recovery.” In the pages that followed, Ungenad reported numerous near- miraculous recuperations of this sort, citing personal examples of the salve’s effectiveness in treating all of the illnesses listed in his recipe collection. The enormous effort Ungenad devoted to presenting his manual as both an ornamental object and a phenomenally efficacious remedy illustrates another motivation behind the popularity of medical recipes: their relationship to wonders and the collecting of natural knowledge. While Ungenad’s recipe collection and letter promised an efficacious cure, they also presented a complicated process, an absurdly intricate list of ingredients, and nearly limitless healing properties, all of which underscored the salve’s wondrous nature. Whether or not the recipe was ever made, the owner of his manual, in this case Anna of Saxony, possessed both a beautiful book and the potential for a particularly spectacular cure. As Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park have shown, the sixteenth century witnessed a growing interest in therapeutic wonders, promoted especially by elite patrons. Concurrently, the medieval taste for collections of appealing objects expanded into a broader interest in collecting natural wonders. Ungenad’s salve spliced these traditions: the recipe collection was at once a medical wonder and a tangible object of knowledge.

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Collecting recipes thus dovetailed with the early modern fascination with collecting the material objects of nature. Although Ungenad’s booklet was written as if the reader planned on using it to make the salve, many recipe collections were not meant to be dragged into a smoky laboratory or medical kitchen. A manuscript from the court of the Palatinate, Cod. Pal. germ. 256, provides a particularly good case in point. Titled simply WASSER (waters), the manuscript was compiled at the wishes of Elisabeth of Saxony and was filled solely with recipes for all sorts of aquae vitae, many of them copied out of other recipe books in the Bibiotheca Palatina. Folio format, 558 leaves long, bound in white leather with clasps, and gilded with gold, the volume would have been difficult to use in practice on account of its size and weight alone. Moreover, its elaborate form and unstained condition suggest that it was never intended as such; instead, it may have functioned as a reference work. If the current pristine appearance of Cod. Pal. germ. 256 and other recipe collections in the Bibliotheca Palatina is any mark, a high percentage of the library’s recipe manuscripts were never taken into a distilling house. Instead, they were valuable as records of knowledge rather than practice. Recipes standardized procedures, demanding precision in quantity and method. In doing so, they presented a tangible source of knowledge about healing the human body. In addition to the early modern interest in amassing material objects from nature, the subject of much recent scholarship, early modern courtiers also sought out natural knowledge in textual form. As we saw in Anna of Saxony’s promotion of her own “knowledge and experience” in chapter 1, this amassing of textual knowledge was seen as a crucial basis of practice. Secrecy and Art Putting art into writing had a dangerous side to it as well. Once a recipe was written down, it could be widely disseminated. An entire literary tradition in both medieval and early modern science sprang up around divulging “secrets,” which, in most cases, meant “recipes”—a blurring that highlights the perceived value of recipes as privileged knowledge. As William Eamon has described, “professors of secrets” collected recipes from a variety of empirics and eventually published them in highly popular “books of secrets.” The quintessential book of secrets was the Secreti attributed to Alessio Piemontese, published in Italian in 1555, and likely written by humanist Girolamo Ruscelli (1500–1566). Although they covered a variety of arts, Piemontese’s secrets consisted largely of medical recipes. In his 1573 German translation of the work, dedicated to Countess Anna Alexandria of Fürstenberg, Johann Jacob Wecker described it as useful primarily for its medicinal content. Two

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years later, he published Piemontese’s medicinal recipes alone as a Book of Medicine (Artzney Buch), which he dedicated to Countess Kunigunda of Simmern. In both dedications, he praised the medical arts of his patronesses. In its German existence, then, the Secreti was tied immediately to noblewomen and court medical practice. The Secreti’s famous preface described Piemontese’s initial reluctance to publish, out of his fears that “if the secret and hidden arts became common to every man, they would no longer be known as hidden and secret, but rather common arts.” Although Piemontese ended up presenting this outlook as vain folly, exactly these concerns would have resonated with noblewomen practitioners, who expressed persistent anxiety about the possibility that their recipes might become common knowledge. Anna of Saxony proclaimed herself “displeased” in 1573, when she discovered that Katharina of Mecklenburg had completely forgotten about a borrowed recipe manuscript. Anna warned, “we do not wish that it should get in the hands of other people and become common, as the recipes in it can be used for much evil.” Duchess Anna Maria of Württemberg put forth a different—and perhaps more honest— reason for keeping recipes secret, with the observation that “what every man has is no longer an art.” A third argument against making courtly recipes broadly accessible can be found in an anonymous manuscript of gynecological recipes dated 1548, which stated, “nature becomes used to what is common, and it does not work anymore.” The concerns that courtly medical recipes might become widespread thus had at least three different roots: (1) that medical skills in the wrong hands could be used to cause harm, (2) that they would lose their exclusivity, and (3) that they would no longer work. Loss of exclusivity was by far the most pressing concern among the three: the wondrous nature of elaborate medical recipes such as Hans Ungenad’s miraculous salve hinged in part on their uniqueness, a factor also seen in Zangmeister’s assertion that her recipes were not “taken or copied from printed books, of which everyone can obtain an exemplar for money.” Given the popularity of printed recipe books, there was always a lingering fear that exclusive court recipes could receive wider dissemination. Indeed, it is significant that until the end of the sixteenth century, very few recipes from courtly medical circles trickled into printed books. That all changed in 1594, when Oswald Gäbelkover, a physician attached to the ducal court of Württemberg, published his Artzneybuch, a collection of medicinal recipes “compiled from the written experiments of many people of high and low standing.” Included in this work were hundreds of recipes attributed to noblemen and noblewomen, in a manner that mirrored the many courtly medical recipe manuscripts discussed in this chapter.

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Gäbelkover noted in his preface that he had originally compiled and organized the book for Duke Ludwig of Württemberg, who had had it printed in a very small edition, which he had kept in its entirety. Ludwig had then given the book away to various favorites as a gift, but “always with the instruction that it should not be made common.” Following Ludwig’s death, however, corrupted versions of the text had appeared in Basel, Frankfurt, and Eisleben, and Gäbelkover had received permission from Duke Friedrich of Württemberg to reissue the original in order to counteract the errors in the unsanctioned editions. How much of Gäbelkover’s explanation can be taken at face value is unclear. He certainly received Friedrich’s permission to publish the book, but there are no extant copies of the three corrupt editions he mentions. His own book, on the other hand, became instantly popular. While the 1594 edition was printed in folio, it was quickly reprinted in quarto in 1596, and it was translated into English as The Boocke of Physicke in 1599. The fate of Gäbelkover’s book demonstrates the danger of written “arts” in the age of print. As soon as a recipe left the hands of the writer, it was impossible to know where it would end up. For this reason, the sharing of recipes could be fraught with anxiety. As we have seen, Lady Elisabeth of Lymarin refrained from sending precious advice in writing because she did not trust a messenger to keep it secret. After giving numerous recipes to Duchess Anna of Bavaria in 1563, Anna of Saxony became worried that she had divulged too much and received nothing in return. “Now that we have trustingly given Your Dearest nearly all of our most secret arts,” she wrote, “if Your Dearest knows any particular and special [arts], we ask that she not keep them from us, and we will preserve them for ourselves alone in all secrecy.” A quid pro quo of this nature was the only way to be assured that treasured recipes would not be spread widely: the electress added, “we especially request that Your Dearest not make the ones she has received from us common.” Echoing Piemontese’s (rhetorical) fears that his treasured secrets would become “common arts,” noblewomen jealously guarded their “most secret arts.” Nevertheless, there was a crucial difference between courtly noblewomen and the “professors of secrets.” As Eamon argues elsewhere, a professor of secrets generally thrived on being known as the only person with the knowledge of his particular arts, and he used that fact as a means to garner patronage from princes and others. Although courtly recipes were frequently attributed to a particular woman, noblewomen were less loath to share their Künste with trusted individuals—as long as they could be assured that their recipes would remain in the elite social sphere of the courts. In fact, too much emphasis on secrecy was as undesirable as too little. When Margareta Leuschnerin, the wife of physician Christoph Leuschner, sent Anna of Saxony a

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sealed box containing a letter about a “secret art” in 1577, Anna responded angrily that she understood very well “what sort of charlatanism [geugkelej] you are dealing in” and wanted no part of it. So vehemently did she rebuff Leuschnerin’s offer that she returned the offending letter as well. It seems likely that Anna reacted in part to the nature of Leuschnerin’s art, whatever it was, but her sardonic assurance that the sealed box had “come into our hands unopened” also censured Leuschnerin’s overly secretive manner of presentation. By sending the letter back, Anna could disengage herself from any taint of illegitimacy (and keep Leuschnerin’s recipe away from the inquiring historian). Leuschnerin was not one of Anna’s usual correspondents, and she was a commoner (albeit the wife of a physician); hence her excessive secrecy made her art doubly suspect. Sharing medical recipes was thus crucial in creating a closed circle of collective and legitimate medical knowledge between noblewomen and their correspondents, despite the danger that the written recipe could be shared too widely. Conclusion A medicinal recipe was not necessarily a remedy: it had to be made in order to have any practical importance. That potentiality is what makes recipes complicated artifacts to tease apart. The promise of a remedy imbued the recipe’s physical status as a scribbled set of instructions—or its immaterial existence as a memory in someone’s head—with meaning. When recipes became written documents, their material manifestation gained value far beyond the cost of ink and paper. Aristocratic men and women in search of any means to good health were acutely aware of this inherent worth; this is why Dorothea of Mansfeld’s “ugly little old book” was such a valuable commodity, and why Anna of Saxony was so anxious about giving away her best secrets. The recipe, in the words of William Eamon, was “a prescription for an experiment, a trying- out.” In arguing that the material value of recipes depended on their link to a set of actions, a Kunst, I do not intend to indicate an unequivocal link between text and practice. Certainly not all recipes were made in practice, and in many cases it is difficult to know the exact relationship between the text of a recipe and the set of practices it indicates. As Joachim Telle has shown, there was a certain amount of popular skepticism toward the expansive claims of efficacy in many recipes, as evidenced by the number of satirical medical recipes that became popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Meant to spoof elaborate cures such as Hans Ungenad’s, satirical recipes mimicked the form of medical recipes but emphasized the uselessness of many supposedly mi-

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raculous remedies. One popular sixteenth- century satirical recipe, reprinted in a number of sources through the early eighteenth century, reminds us that the link between recipe and Kunst was fragile: Recipe for Drinking Fools Take the blue of the sky / The rumbling of a bridge / The fat of a mosquito / A little bit of the shrill of a trumpet / A quart of crab’s blood / Five rusty horseshoes / Five scythe points / Ground in a pepper mill / The juice of a bludgeon / The intestines of an old manure fork / One lot of bird song / One lot of bell tone / Put everything together in a glass mortar / Pound it with a fox tail / Put it in a wax crucible / And let it simmer one hour or three into a salve / Then take one lot of pepper soup / A piece of unburned ash / One Ellen long and one thumb thick / Rub the loins with it. Probatum est.

The whimsical mockery of this recipe cautions us against taking too literally the direct connection between recipe, Kunst, and remedy. Many recipes, even those intended in all seriousness, were never made, and in most cases it is impossible to know how much patients agreed with the claims of efficacy. Nevertheless, the popularity of medical recipes in the court setting grew out of the fact that many recipes were actually made. Recipe collections were not simply intended to bulk up a princely library—they were also used in practice. Katharina of Braunschweig, for example, persistently requested Anna of Saxony’s recipes for three different quince juices, stating, “we have been gathering numerous quinces here the past weeks and we would like to make them into those juices and use them.” Because therapeutics was a reality, not merely an abstraction, the efficacy of the remedies that recipes produced—or lack thereof—took center stage. Even Hans Ungenad’s wondrous salve seems to have been intended to be made in practice: along with his letter expounding on the medicine’s virtues, he sent Anna of Saxony some of the more obscure ingredients that went into it, including elephant fat, a particular kind of mushroom, and St. Quirin’s Oil. In many cases, the connection between Kunst and pharmaceutical practice was direct. Recipes thus formed the basis of the “knowledge and experience” that gave noblewomen such a prominent role in lay medical circles in early modern Germany. Chapter 3 will examine the exact process in which one of the most famous of these women—Dorothea of Mansfeld—became an exceedingly sought- after healer.

3

Dorothea of Mansfeld: A Mirror and Example for Rich and Poor

An epidemic swept through the eastern German countryside in the summer of 1572. According to Dorothea of Mansfeld, there was “an evil illness among the people.” The affliction caused the limbs of those affected to “swell mightily and tingle,” and many experienced pain “in the left side, and they have three days of fever with it.” This was the illness that drove hordes of sick peasants to Dorothea’s castle garden, as described in the introduction. So many of the locals suffered from the ailment that the seventy- nine- yearold countess cared for “one hundred and eleven of these people in one day.” The stream of patients would not be disappointed: Dorothea, as usual, had found a good cure. “On the second day [of the fever],” she explained, “I make them a draft [drangk] to purge them, and [they get] better.” She specified that the concoction, a mixture of herbs, roots, and honey simmered in water, should be drunk warm, and declared: “it helps them all.” Once the fever vanished, “many become nauseous, and I give them my electuary [latwerg] for the stomach, which I have made more golden than I used to. Thereafter I give them a water for the head, which helps them all,” and her patients, as she related, “truthfully . . . have a vast trust in [the medicine].” At the same time, Dorothea expressed reluctance to take full credit for the cure, stating, “Art is not the master here, and whatever I give them I tell them, ‘Take this and use it as I tell you, so will the dear Lord give you his blessing of health.’ And they say ‘Amen.’ ” She added, “the majority recover and they come from more than 8 and 10 miles away to get the draft.” Dorothea’s description of this epidemic clearly encapsulates the three most striking features of her medical activities. First and foremost, Dorothea was extraordinarily well versed in the practice of medicine, comfortably diagnosing the “evil illness” and making medications to assuage it. Second, she

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engaged in an extensive practice of charitable healing for the droves of “sick poor people” who made the journey to Mansfeld Castle. Finally, although she modestly attributed her patients’ recovery to higher powers, she left no doubt of the success of her cure. Her description of the illness can be found in a letter to Anna of Saxony, her patroness, which included a recipe for the warm draft in addition to the various assurances of her medicine’s efficacy. Well aware of Anna’s interest in medicine, Dorothea frequently presented her with such tidbits of medical information, which she knew would be as welcome as any material gift. This chapter examines the interaction of these three factors—healing, acts of charity, and the patronage economy of gift giving— in Dorothea’s struggle to survive as a widow from a money- strapped noble family during the upheavals of the Reformation. From at least the late 1530s until her death in 1578, Dorothea of Mansfeld’s healing talents gained widespread acclaim throughout the Holy Roman Empire: as mentioned in the introduction, the physician Philip Michael Novenianus praised her medical skill as “known not just in one kingdom, but all across the German lands.” She sent medical advice and medications to a number of German princes, and she even contacted Martin Luther during one of the Reformer’s many illnesses. She was also a prolific author of medical recipes; her name held enough recognition that her recipes were incorporated into a large number of medical recipe collections from Saxony and the Palatinate, and physician Oswald Gäbelkover included one of her remedies in his printed book of medicine. As has already been mentioned, the Nurembergbased doctor Johannes Magenbuch corresponded with her and forwarded her recipes to colleagues. Several nineteenth- and twentieth- century historians have characterized Dorothea as heillustig (driven to heal) up to the “unconsciousness of her deathbed,” and indeed, by all reports (including her own), she insisted on caring for the poor in her castle garden until she was well into her eighties. To her contemporaries, however, this acquired expertise was intimately intertwined with a second matter: Dorothea’s dedication to the charitable care of the poor, from which she drew much of her experiential knowledge. Clergyman Hieronymus Mencelius, for example, eulogized Dorothea as a “praiseworthy example to many, and especially to those of high status,” asserting that the countess acted “as a mirror, so that all can look at her and learn what a good name and eternal praise it brings when aristocratic people are Godfearing, benevolent, and mild and compassionate toward our dear Poverty.” Later chronicles and genealogies of the Mansfeld family continued to single out Dorothea for her “fear of God and her benevolence” (Gottesfurcht und Mildthätigkeit). To these authors, Dorothea’s medicine represented an out-

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ward manifestation of her goodness, piety, and charity. Mencelius compared her medical abilities, which “served innumerable people . . . but especially the poor, and, through God’s blessing, saved them from many evil, dangerous illnesses,” to the good works of the biblical figure Tabitha, a widow praised for giving clothing to the poor. A funeral oration by Cyriac Nicolai did not even mention Dorothea’s medical activities specifically, instead recounting that “every year she provided such immense aid to poor people that the poor have lost a true champion.” Even through the nineteenth century, Dorothea’s name remained synonymous with charitable healing, as can be seen in Mansfeld genealogist Friedrich Niemann’s assertion that “even at a very old age she continued to show her charity by letting herself be carried to the apothecary in front of the castle and handing out medicine to the poor with her own hands.” Finally, Dorothea’s medicine and her piety won her the friendship—and patronage—of Anna of Saxony, a relationship that is preserved in the long series of letters they wrote to each other between 1557 and 1575. The close tie between the two women was public enough that Mencelius addressed the preface of his published eulogy to Anna, remarking that Anna had “especially loved” Dorothea and “treated her with much goodness and kindness.” Anna’s interest in medicine paralleled Dorothea’s, and the latter acted as a mentor and assistant to the former. In return, Dorothea received both financial and political support from Anna and her husband, Elector August of Saxony. Although interactions between Anna and Dorothea were characterized by deep respect and affection, the unequal social status of the noblewomen also meant that Dorothea’s medical talent functioned as a commodity to be traded for favors from the Saxon electors. Her letters, like the one described above, frequently described grand healing triumphs, often accompanied by the medicine or recipe that brought on the given success. A widow for the last forty- eight years of her life in a family crippled by bankruptcy and infighting, Dorothea counted on her charitable medical activities to help her keep above the fray. To fully understand Dorothea’s healing, one must examine the reciprocity between medical expertise and charitable works that was central to the medical practice of most noblewomen. The legend of Dorothea as a “mirror and example” of charitable giving obscures her extensive medical practice; likewise, the narrow focus historians of medicine have given Dorothea’s medical practice ignores the moral imperative with which she operated. As this chapter demonstrates, the equation of healing with charity was crucial both in legitimizing Dorothea’s medicine and in preserving her social standing in a turbulent political and religious landscape. Her reputation for benev-

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olence won the friendship (and patronage) of a number of German princes, both Catholic and Protestant, and she maintained friendly relations with a successive line of the powerful electors of Saxony—no mean feat, given the constantly changing political and religious situation in Saxony between 1520 and 1553. Indeed, by gaining the reputation as “god- fearing, benevolent . . . mild and compassionate” and by providing medical advice and medications to ailing monarchs, she managed to steer clear of questions of doctrinal affiliation, remaining accessible across confessional lines. Dorothea’s case shows that it is impossible to separate medicine from its wider cultural arena. Her medical practice was at once an exercise of her experimental interests, an expression of faith, and capital for political favors. In spite of the simple definitions of her eulogists, she negotiated a complex array of difficult situations—widowhood, religious divisions among her sons, a changing religio- political landscape, and financial problems—more easily with her reputation as a talented healer genuinely dedicated to the poor. Medieval historian Judith M. Bennett argued in 1992 that “the history of charity and poor relief, as it is now written, is largely a history of how the empowered rich helped the impotent poor.” This chapter complicates the conception of charity as the mighty aiding the poor: as we shall also see, Dorothea needed the poor nearly as much as the poor needed Dorothea. “A Well-Stocked Apothecary” By the time of her death in 1578, Dorothea’s medical establishment at Mansfeld Castle was prominent enough to warrant an extensive description in the chronicle of Cyriacus Spangenberg (1528– 1604), a clergyman in Mansfeld. The “old countess,” reported Spangenberg, kept a garden “that one spoke of far and wide,” wherein were planted “not only . . . all sorts of fertile trees,” but also “many good herbs.” To the right of the garden, the chronicler continued, “The countess had a sturdy house, in which she kept, in a well- stocked apothecary, all kinds of medicines, spices, oils, salves, syrups, conserves, and the like; also other deliciously distilled waters. In addition, she had nicely kept rooms with collected herbs, roots, and seeds, next to which was a pretty library with all kinds of German medical books, devotionals, and histories.” Alongside this building, Spangenberg reported, she had a distilling house, which housed “her various burning and distilling ovens with the distilling equipment belonging to it.” Among the many noblewomen who became known for their medicine in early modern Germany, Dorothea was truly remarkable.

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Determining exactly how and where Dorothea gained her medical knowledge is nearly impossible. Only the barest of facts can be gleaned about the early years of her life, affording little but informed speculation as to the possible origin of her unusually passionate interest in healing. Born the eldest daughter of Count Philip of Solms-Lich (1468–1544) and Adriana of HanauMünzenberg (1470– 1524), Dorothea belonged to a small noble family in a corner of what is now part of Hesse. Next to nothing is known of her childhood; even the date of her birth is frequently (incorrectly) cited as 1482, rather than the more realistic 1493. The second of twelve children, she was according to several indications educated together with her elder brother, Count Reinhard I of Solms-Lich (1491– 1562). Their father, Count Philip, was an avid humanist, and Reinhard was given a humanist upbringing in Lich rather than being sent off to be educated at another court, as was the more common practice. The young Reinhard’s documented interest in chemicals and recipes suggests a common origin of his and Dorothea’s interests in distillation, and he seems to have shared an interest in medicine as well: his name is one of the few that appear in Dorothea’s recipe collection. The most obvious signal, however, is Dorothea’s handwriting: as mentioned in chapter 2, she wrote in a humanist hand (see figure 7), which points strongly to a humanist upbringing. Until a year or two before her death, she wrote all of her letters and recipes herself rather than dictating them to a scribe. Married in 1512 to Count Ernst II of Mansfeld-Vorderort (1489– 1530), Dorothea became the mother of thirteen children (eight boys and five girls) before she was widowed at the age of thirty- eight in 1531. Almost nothing is known of her life as a wife and mother, although she arrived in the territory of Mansfeld at a precipitous time, only a few years before events would throw her in-laws—like much of Europe—into bitter conflict. Geographically and ideologically, Mansfeld was especially primed for the disputes ignited by the Reformation. Martin Luther was born in the Mansfeld city of Eisleben in 1483 and spent the first few years of his life there. He maintained a close affinity with the territory throughout his life, finding friends and fervent supporters in Ernst II’s cousins, Albrecht VII of Mansfeld-Hinterort (d. 1560) and Gebhard VII of Mansfeld-Mittelort (d. 1558). Dorothea’s husband, Ernst II, and his brothers, on the other hand, remained loyal to the pope, and Ernst II served as a captain in the army of Duke Georg the Bearded of Saxony, a steadfast Catholic. Albrecht VII’s choice to embrace so enthusiastically the new Protestant beliefs rankled already tenuous relations between the cousins, among whom the rule of Mansfeld had been split in 1501; the territory of Mansfeld endured infighting between the Vorderort and the Mittelort/

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Hinterort lines of the family for decades, even after several of Dorothea’s sons had converted to Lutheranism. Living at Mansfeld Castle, where three sections housed the feuding branches of the family, Dorothea was confronted with these religious divisions at close quarters. A hint of lasting bitterness about the family rivalries can be read in Dorothea’s uncharacteristically uncharitable reaction to Albrecht VII’s death in 1560: “Not one single soul mourns him; everyone is glad that he is gone, God comfort his soul.” Dorothea’s own religious affiliation remains difficult to determine, as will be discussed in more detail, but unlike her husband, she maintained friendly relations with Protestant as well as Catholic princes. Her daughter Elisabeth married Duke Georg’s feebleminded son Friedrich in 1539, in a last- ditch attempt to produce a Catholic heir to the duchy. The effort was made in vain, as Friedrich died four weeks later, but it confirmed Mansfeld-Vorderort’s friendship with Duke Georg even after Ernst II’s death. After ducal Saxony passed into Protestant hands later that year, Dorothea seems to have cultivated friendly relations with a long succession of dukes (later electors), no matter their denominational preference. In 1545, she sent a letter of medical advice to the physician in charge of the care of Duke (later Elector) Moritz, who switched back and forth between the Protestant and the Catholic camps, and her friendship with the staunchly Lutheran Anna and August of Saxony began by the early 1550s. Virtually no record survives of Dorothea’s life prior to her widowhood, and precious little before her correspondence with Anna of Saxony from 1557, as most documentation pertaining to the county of Mansfeld was lost in the nineteenth century. The bits of evidence remaining to us suggest that her reputation as a talented healer must have already been quite substantial by the early 1540s. Dated entries in her recipe collection indicate that it was well under way by then, and the physician Magenbuch corresponded with her and commended her to a colleague shortly before his death in 1546. The first surviving medical advice from Dorothea in her own words, from 1543, suggests that her practice of making medicines and diagnosing disease was well established by that point. Her visibility rose drastically in the period between 1550 and 1570, in tandem with the increase in overall interest in recipes described in chapter 2. We can thus assume that her medical talents were known to her local networks well before the 1540s. “Great and Extensive Experience” However she developed her practice, the earliest evidence of Dorothea’s medicine comes in the form of letters regarding two exceedingly prominent indi-

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viduals: Martin Luther and Duke Moritz of Saxony. She initiated contact with “the prestigious and highly learned . . . Martino Luther” in 1543, after her son’s servant Johann Ulia returned from a visit to Wittenberg and described to her the various “bodily ailments” plaguing the Reformer, particularly headaches and dizziness. Skeptical of the treatments reportedly prescribed by Luther’s physicians, Dorothea sent two letters containing her own advice and remedies. Peter Assion has rightly pointed to this contact as important evidence concerning both Luther’s last illnesses and the extent of Dorothea’s medical practice. Equally as telling, however, the letters illuminate Dorothea’s authoritative approach to disease, the body, and treatment, based on her own experience, as well as her perception of herself as a healer more competent than Luther’s assembled physicians. To treat the Reformer’s headaches, Luther’s physicians had opened a wound on his leg to create an egress for corrupt humors—a method akin in theory to bloodletting. Dorothea fervently disagreed with the practice, proclaiming, “I do not . . . believe that it does any good to open a flux in a healthy body, when there was none before, for where you once had one problem, they have perhaps, with good intentions, made two.” Instead, Dorothea reasoned, the original pains in his body came from untreated “dizziness and heavyheadedness,” and to this end she sent Luther a “little glass [bottle], on which is written ‘For Dizziness,’ which should be used together with a sneezing powder.” The sneezing powder, she wrote, could be found on “this enclosed piece of paper,” indicating that a recipe accompanied the little bottle, and Dorothea also sent two kinds of aqua vitae, with detailed instructions for their use. Expressing optimism that these measures would protect Luther from “such difficulties,” Dorothea insisted, “I have great and extensive experience.” Luther’s response to this letter has been lost, but it is clear that he did respond with interest. A letter written by Dorothea two weeks later determined that, given Luther’s reply detailing his condition, his illness would “not become a flux” but was rather “simply a pain from evil blood.” However, Dorothea refused to send treatment without a more complete description of Luther’s symptoms, explaining, “if [the pain] is on the right side, it comes from the liver, and if it is on the left side, it comes from the spleen. It is necessary to know this before I can give you my advice.” These statements demonstrate a familiarity with Galenic medical theories of physiology and the roles of the liver, which digested food on the right side of the body, and the spleen, which digested food on the left. Dorothea’s insistence on the importance of the two organs for diagnosis signals that she clearly had encountered Galenic medicine in some fashion. Unfortunately, no inventory of the library mentioned by Spangenberg survives, so it is impossible to know whether she read Avicenna

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or Galen herself, whether she received her medical theory in consultation with physicians, or whether she had gained basic Galenic concepts of physiology from another source. In any case, the confidence with which Dorothea diagnosed and treated Luther’s ailments demonstrates without a doubt that, just over a decade into her widowhood, she had amassed a broad knowledge of therapeutic medicine as well as a reputation for her healing. Luther’s case was not the only one in which Dorothea determined her own medical assistance to be preferable to that of a learned physician. When Duke Moritz of Saxony became seriously ill in 1546, Elisabeth of Rochlitz apparently expressed concern about her cousin to Dorothea. Moved by Elisabeth’s distress, Dorothea wrote to Sebastian Roth von Auerbach, the physician responsible for Duke Moritz’s medical care: Dear Doctor, the noble duchess of Saxony, the widow of Rochlitz, told me tearfully and with a heavy heart how my noble lord, Duke Moritz of Saxony, is suffering from an illness, and she described to me His Grace’s sickness, which truly pains me with all my heart. And Her Grace told me that my noble lord had suffered from a fever and [that] as he was recovering His Grace went out riding or hunting and perhaps through the riding overstrained himself and overheated so that his urine became bloody and a flux began from the head which wounded His Grace’s throat and one arm was no longer as strong as the other, all occurrences that I worry came from too much activity.

The sickness, Dorothea had learned from Elisabeth, may have been the result of too much hard drinking, which “affected the head and brain powerfully, and surely overheated the liver as well and filled it with an excess of liquid, and it cannot be helped but that a great illness result from this.” Although Dorothea had never met Moritz herself, she sent Auerbach advice for his condition, motivated by the concern that unless “one finds a way, through the mercy and help of God, to set things to right, the injury will have a very bad effect.” The four pages of detailed instructions that followed left little doubt that Dorothea considered her suggestions to be the duke’s best hopes of returning to health. Her advice ranged from directives on cooling Moritz’s overheated system (mix violet water in with his wine) to bloodletting (tap the artery on his right arm, but put fresh sage leaves over the artery the night before) to soothing his liver (give him violet and rose juleps—also useful for the flux in his throat) to preserving him from a stroke (put aqua vitae on his tongue, hold his nose closed to let the vapors rise to his head before he swallows). She also sent Auerbach several medications and three recipes—one for a drink to fortify Moritz’s stomach and head, one for a capon plaster to strengthen the

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duke’s veins, and one for a “sneezing powder” (presumably the same one sent to Luther). Worried that Auerbach would not be able to obtain the spike lavender flowers needed for the capon plaster, Dorothea sent him some from her supply. Finally, she advised the physician to do his best to persuade Moritz not to lead his army into electoral Saxony, as he intended, for “if His Grace should become ill in a foreign place, what would become of him?” The confidence with which Dorothea instructed Auerbach on a wide variety of medical procedures, including preventing Duke Moritz from riding into war, underlines the high esteem with which she must have been regarded by this point. More important, however, it demonstrates even more fully than Dorothea’s letter to Luther that the countess considered her tried and tested remedies to be the patient’s best hope of recovery. Drawing on her long experience, as discussed in chapter 1, Dorothea specifically emphasized the proven efficacy of her suggestions. She enclosed her recipe for the fortifying draft with the assurance, “You will see it works wonders, for with God’s help I have preserved many people with it who were stricken with pestilential fever and also with plague.” Likewise, she concluded her lengthy advice on how to protect Moritz from a stroke with the words, “I have extensive experience [with this].” She also emphasized her personal involvement in the making of medications, remarking of the aqua vitae she sent, “I have been distilling it in the sun since this summer and I think [it] is very subtle.” Her recipe for making the capon plaster also underscored her deep familiarity with the process: Take a capon and prepare it as if you wanted to cook it, except when you go to kill it, hang it by the throat until it chokes and does not bleed at all. Then have it plucked like a goose and chill it but do not let any water get in it. When it is cold, take out the intestines if they have been soiled, otherwise not, and put [the capon] in a pot. Pour wine over it and two good handfuls of spike lavender blossoms, which I am sending to you in case you cannot get them there. Let the capon cook slowly until done, then take it and mash it down in a mortar and sieve the broth from the lavender flowers. Take the flowers and the mashed capon and spread them on my noble Lord’s arm, as warm as His Grace can stand, and when [the plaster] cools throw it back in the broth in which the capon was cooked and put it back on [the arm] until it no longer bothers him. God give his grace that the veins become strong again.

As we have seen, noblewomen frequently emphasized their direct experience with a cure to vouch more fully for its success. All of these statements served to reinforce Dorothea’s own authority as a healer and to remind Auerbach of her long- standing expertise. In their self- assured diagnosis and treatment of patients Dorothea had

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not seen personally, her letters to Auerbach and Luther are reminiscent of the letters of advice, or consilia, highly regarded physicians frequently wrote to distant patients. However, whereas physicians’ consilia generally addressed issues of diet first and prescribed medication only secondarily, Dorothea put medications at the center of her treatment. As in the letter to Luther, she displayed knowledge of Galenic ideas about physiology in her advice to Auerbach: she worried about Moritz’s overheated liver and expressed hope that “when the liver is put to rights, there will be no need [for further treatment],” a sign that she was attempting to address the root cause of the illness. Yet Dorothea’s approach to solving these physiological difficulties was quite different from the doctor’s. Auerbach’s own consilia, which can be found in the papers of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, were filled chiefly with recommendations for changes in and restrictions on diet. Dorothea’s recommendations, on the other hand, centered on using pharmaceuticals—following her own recipes and largely made by herself—to combat Luther’s and Moritz’s ailments. Instead of downplaying the experiential root of her therapeutics, token of the empiricism derided by learned physicians in their lower- class competitors, Dorothea based her authority on exactly these qualities. By emphasizing her expertise in empirical medical treatments, she declined to address the one area in which Auerbach could claim special ability. The elision likely occurred in part out of the implicit recognition that the physician would best know how to regulate Moritz’s diet, but Dorothea also portrayed her experiential knowledge as a certain means to good health for the duke. Since she was a noblewoman, her advice would have been beyond the criticism of Auerbach; at the same time, the unapologetic manner in which she directed the physician to treat Moritz indicated not only confidence in her own skill but also a tacit understanding that her reputation would be known to the reader and would give weight to her instructions. That is not to say that Dorothea generally disapproved of doctors’ treatments. Not only did she occasionally collaborate with physicians, she also called upon them when she or her children became ill and frequently insisted her own medications be used only with the advice of a doctor. It appears she sometimes went well out of her way to gain a physician’s opinion: she took her ill son Peter Ernst to Halle to see a physician in 1557 and used a doctor from Leipzig herself earlier that same year. In his dedication to Dorothea, the physician Novenianus specifically praised her “modesty” in knowing when to send patients “to an experienced doctor.” Whether this statement reflected the general perception of Dorothea, or whether it was meant to reassure other physicians that the countess was not overstepping her boundaries, is difficult to assess. While she often deferred to physicians’ opinions, she also did not

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hesitate to give her own advice as well—sometimes in the same sentence, such as her statement to August of Saxony that “although I know that My Gracious Lord has enough people to advise His Grace and help him, I nevertheless could not keep from telling Your Noble Grace my farmer’s skills [buern konstt] as well.” Despite her overall recognition of physicians as the main authorities in medicine, in certain circumstances she used her vast experience to portray her own cures as superior. Judging by Magenbuch’s assertion to a colleague that he had found her recipes “certain and proven” and by Luther’s positive response to her first letter, the perceived value of this experience was not negligible. Making Medicines As was the case for most noblewomen healers, Dorothea’s estimable reputation derived in large part from her prolific production of remedies and medical recipes. As Spangenberg’s chronicle indicates, she had a distilling house containing multiple ovens on her property, which she used to produce her “deliciously distilled waters.” In addition, her “well- stocked apothecary” was full of “all kinds of medicines, spices, oils, salves, syrups, conserves, and the like,” most of which she also made herself. This depiction of Dorothea’s pharmacy is strikingly similar to an idealized description of what a gentlewoman’s apothecary should include published by Wolfgang Helmhard von Hohberg a century later. The mistress of a landed estate, Hohberg wrote in his Georgica curiosa (1682), should be “familiar with distillation and have in store all kinds of good distilled waters.” In addition, she should “always prepare medicinal oils, balsams, spirits, salts, waters for the heart and for strength, sauces, syrups, and juices, juleps, electuaries, powders, salves, plasters, vinegars, little cakes [zeltlein], lozenges, and good vapors for her apothecary.” Her pharmacy should include “theriac, mithridatium, confection of alkermes and hyacinthina, bezoar stone, rhubarb, senna leaves, agaricum, and the like,” and she should also “collect at the proper time those things that grow nearby, good healthy herbs, roots, blossoms, fruits, [and] seeds, dry them, and store them.” While it is unlikely that Hohberg had Dorothea in mind when writing these instructions, both the scope of her apothecary and the medicines she made very closely resembled his ideal. Far and away Dorothea’s most important medicines were her various “deliciously distilled waters,” which she recommended for both internal and external use. In addition to many recipes for distillates, her remedy book contained a drawing of a simple still in her hand, with all of the elements labeled (see figure 8). In this depiction, a fire heated the contents of the distillation vessel, and the resulting vapors condensed in a tin tube threaded through a

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f i g u r e 8 . Sketch of a still in Dorothea of Mansfeld’s recipe collection, c. 1550. All of the parts of this simple still are carefully labeled: the fire, the alembic (krugk), the tin tube through which the vapors traveled, the vat of water, and the collecting vessel (glas). Beneath the vat one can see the name of the herb milium solis. Note the large stain on the bottom of the page, which reinforces the impression that this manuscript was used in the laboratory. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C 317. By permission of the Sächsische Landesbibliothek– Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden.

vat of water and dripped into a glass receptacle. Although this type of still tended to be used for making brandywine, Dorothea wrote the name of the herb milium solis (gromwell) at the bottom of this image, a sign that she also found the model useful for herbal distillates. The purpose of this drawing is unclear, and the distillation equipment it portrays is not very sophisticated, but its presence among Dorothea’s recipes underscores the centrality of distillation to her pharmacy. The practice of making distilled medicines had become widespread across continental Europe by the late fifteenth century, a token of the broad popularity they enjoyed. Stills could be found at monasteries, aristocratic estates, and municipalities, and there was little regulation as to who exactly had permission to distill. In sixteenth- century Germany, a significant cottage industry in making distilled waters developed in cities and towns, both for imbibing and for medicinal purposes. As has already been mentioned, the town of Nuremberg (unsuccessfully) banned “lady confectioners and old women” from distilling alcohol, so prevalent was the practice. Women, as this epi-

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f i g u r e 9 . Woman distilling, on the title page of Michael Puff von Schrick, Von allen geprenten Wassern, 1530. Courtesy of National Library of Medicine, Washington, D.C.

sode suggests, were particularly connected with distillation, as part of their overall responsibility for the internal workings of the household. An image of a woman working a still adorned the title page to several editions of the Austrian physician Michael Puff von Schrick’s book on the use of distilled waters, first published in 1478 and reprinted many times (see figure 9). Distilled waters were seen as a particularly appropriate remedy for the gentry, and they enjoyed immense popularity among noblemen and noblewomen. Physician Johann Jacob Wecker dedicated a book on distilled alcohols, oils, and vinegars to Countess Barbara of Waldeck in 1569, with the

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assertion that many individuals among “the tender and noble people” had difficulty using other remedies, “such as drinks or electuaries or other unhappy, impure medicines,” because of “the coarseness of their substance.” Aristocrats, because of their more delicate constitutions, could not easily tolerate the same coarse medicines as the peasant folk. Distillation, which contemporaries saw as a way to separate out the pure from the impure, provided a way to make medicines for these upper- class bodies. Wecker did not give any indication that he expected noblewomen such as Barbara to produce distilled waters themselves: he provided recipes only for the use of distillates, not for making them, and he placed the credit for discovering distillation with physicians. The “old doctors,” he claimed, “tried to find a way to change the coarse and unpleasant medicines into a pleasant, clear, and sweet form, and so invented this art [of distillation].” Nevertheless, his choice to dedicate the book to Barbara and to frame distillates as a specifically upper- class remedy reflects the popularity that distilled essences had among the aristocracy, and of course many noblewomen did distill their own medicines. Dorothea’s distilling house at Mansfeld Castle was at the forefront of a trend toward establishing court distilleries in sixteenth- century Germany. While Dorothea had a distillery by the early 1540s at the very latest, most courts began setting up distilling houses only in the second half of the sixteenth century—and Dorothea’s equipment seems to have been used as a model in many cases. Elisabeth of Rochlitz had a still and ten distillation flasks and tops at her manor house in Schmalkalden in the early 1550s, a fairly unusual setup for a small estate at a time in which most large courts had no distilling equipment. Elisabeth’s interest in Dorothea’s medicine is attested in her recipe collection, and it is not unreasonable to suspect that Dorothea may have helped Elisabeth in this endeavor. Certainly, she aided several courts in the big wave of establishing distilling houses that began in the mid- 1550s and intensified in the 1570s. She sent Anna of Saxony a distiller as well as glass and copper distillation equipment and some materia medica in 1557, shortly after the founding of Dresden’s Probierhaus, and she offered to come help Anna with distillation. Dorothea also lent her distiller to Margravine Elisabeth of Brandenburg-Ansbach for several months in 1572 so that he could “build a distillery” for her. The practice of one noblewoman helping another with setting up a distillery seems to have continued: Anna of Saxony sent Anna of Bavaria both distilling equipment and instructions for its use in 1563, assuring her that “if Your Dearest needs any further account [of its workings], we will be happy to explain and teach it to her.” While a significant amount of distillation at courts involved brandywine meant for daily consumption, the letters of all of the women mentioned above show that they were preoccupied

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first and foremost with making medicines. Dorothea’s operation at Mansfeld was one of the earliest examples of this trend. Dorothea’s most famous distillate was her aqua vitae, a strong alcohol that required multiple distillations and a large number of ingredients. Her recipe book contains entries for several different types of aqua vitae, but she did not write down the recipe for her most celebrated medicine, known as the “white and yellow aqua vitae.” The white version was a strong, clear liquid, while the yellow was a sweeter (but still highly alcoholic) cordial that was made by adding sugar and additional herbs to the white. Both could be used for almost any ailment, and both were immensely popular. As described in detail later in this chapter, the process of making the aqua vitae became a shared recipe among a tight group of women that included a number of Dorothea’s close female family members as well as Anna of Saxony, and it is through this network that a recipe for the aqua vitae survives. In an enormous medical manuscript from the Bibliotheca Palatina, compiled by Anna’s daughter Elisabeth, a recipe listed as “The Electress of Saxony’s Aqua Vitae” stretches over fifteen folio pages and describes both a white and a yellow version. According to the recipe, the white aqua vitae required 387 ingredients, nine different distillations, and two years of labor; the yellow version used a further 28 ingredients and an additional half year. This description, and the specific steps contained therein, match closely with descriptions of making the aqua vitae contained in Dorothea’s letters. The aqua vitae had a yearly cycle that required constant attention. Dorothea usually began it in late May every year, when many of the required herbs were at their peak, with a second major step conducted in late July or early August and a third in November. These were crucial periods that she almost never missed. On May 11, 1561, she denied Anna of Saxony’s request that she come visit Dresden with the apology, “May is dedicated to the aqua vitae, and if I squander it, I will not be able to make it.” So important was distillation to her medical enterprise that in November of 1571, when the seventy- eightyear- old Dorothea was too ill to make the trip down to her garden distillery, she had “an apparatus built in my quarters on which I [can] distill.” This setup did not become permanent: in May 1573, she reported that she had finally recovered from her long illness and that she was rising every morning at three o’ clock to begin the aqua vitae; she cheerfully claimed that she could “do my work very well, from morning until evening.” Because of the “exquisite” quality of the herbs that year, the aqua vitae was “a special joy” to make. In addition to the white and yellow aqua vitae, she also made a variety of distillates year- round: as we have seen, she used the heat of the summer sun to distill one of the medicines she sent to Duke Moritz.

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Aside from the distilled waters, another staple of Dorothea’s medical practice was the medicinal Tranck—literally “drink.” These potions usually consisted of a variety of herbs and often honey, steeped in wine, water, or beer and drunk either warm or cold. During the dreadful epidemic in the summer of 1572, her main remedy for the hordes of sick poor people streaming into her castle garden was a drink, made as follows: The drink that I currently give to the sick poor people 2 handfuls chopped licorice 2 handfuls senna leaves 1 handful hart’s- tongue 1 handful spike lavender 2 good handfuls bog bean flowers, very good for this illness 2 handfuls pulverized juniper berries 1 handful scurvy weed 1 handful yellow lily root, chopped finely 1 handful gray cress 1 handful mint 1 handful sage leaves and one- half Maß honey 1 handful hyssop I have a big copper kettle with 4 stobgen [approximately 15–20 liters] of boiling water, and I throw all of these things in and pour 4 stobgen of water over them and cover the pot firmly with a lid [and] let it boil until about 1½ stobgen have boiled off. Then I let it go through a sieve and I usually make 3 of these every day and give it to the people, warmed.

Dorothea described this drink as a purgative, and such was the nature of many medicinal drinks—indeed, a large proportion of early modern medicinal remedies, particularly among laypeople, involved purging the body of evil humors, as Gianna Pomata has described. Another common purgative was the electuary, a thick confect consisting of sugars or honey mixed with herbs and/or fruit that was taken internally. Dorothea frequently referred to her stomach electuary, and she also made a nut electuary and a quince electuary, among others. Lest we think that Dorothea, like Johann Jacob Wecker, subscribed to the idea that electuaries and drinks were better suited to the poor than to the rich, she recommended both to her aristocratic patients as well. She used her “pestilence electuary,” for example, when “poor and rich come and complain to me of frustration and pain in the head,” and she recommended a soothing (nonpurgative) medicinal drink to August of Saxony when he was suffering from a fever. Her papers also mention a variety of

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other medications, including salves, oils, plasters, powders to be taken in wine or water, and candied herbs, flowers, and fruits. Typical of noblewomen, Dorothea relied on naturalistic healing for the greater part of her medical practice—that is, medicine that did not invoke supernatural aid, except for the frequent assertion that her cures would help “with the help of God.” Her medications generally relied on the properties of items found in nature: herbs, roots, flowers, sugar, honey, and wine were her most common ingredients. Mansfeld Castle had an herb garden, as indicated by Spangenberg, which provided some of the materia medica. In 1570, Dorothea had yellow lily bulbs planted three miles from Mansfeld, and in 1572 she stopped using her own garden for anything except rosemary, because she liked the quality of the herbs in her son Hans Albrecht’s garden in Arnstein better. Materia medica that Dorothea did not grow herself she received from a variety of other sources, including apothecaries, local people, and fellow noblewomen and noblemen. Anna of Saxony supplied her with a large number of ingredients, especially more exotic (and expensive) spices that could not be grown in a typical garden; one letter from Dorothea to Anna in 1568 requested “3 pounds good ginger, 3 lots nutmeg, 2 lots nutmeg flower, 1 quentin long pepper, 2 lots galangal, 1 lot cloves, 2 lots cardamom, [and] 3 lots cinnamon rind.” These, she specified, should be sent finely ground, “not grated through a small sieve, for I want to make a hot electuary from them.” Unfortunately, no financial records from her estate survive to determine how often and from whom (aside from Anna) she ordered ingredients, and whether she paid for them in coin or in kind. If her situation paralleled that of Elisabeth of Rochlitz (see chapter 5), she probably received many supplies from apothecaries. In addition to pharmaceuticals, Dorothea also recommended cures that we might classify as occult, relying on imperceptible forces. In one instance, she sent Anna of Saxony a swallow stone to be worn as an amulet, which was thought to help eye diseases and blindness. On another occasion she procured a scarlet red skirt from the Netherlands that purportedly warded off arthritis in the legs. In addition, several recipes in Dorothea’s recipe collections were charms, almost all of them for wounds, which used religious phrasing and ritual gestures. In one recipe for stopping bleeding, the healer was supposed to say the following words: To still blood. Understand, red blood, through the blood of Christ, that you will still, blood, just as Christ’s did as he stood at the foot of the Holy Cross with heavy shackles,

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as true as it is, thus lend me, Father Jesus, first no blood, no grave wounds, no swelling as well, so this wound must do in the name of the Father + the Son + the Holy Spirit Amen. And while you say these words, put two fingers in the wound.

In this sort of recipe, the sound and repetition of the words themselves, such as the word “blood” or the string of phrases including the word “not” (die blut niechtt, die wonden schwer niechtt, schwell auch niechtt), in combination with the invocation of religious symbolism, were believed to effect the cure; the action of the healer—putting fingers in the wound—was purely a conduit for the words. Charms of this nature were quite common in medical therapeutics, and cures prescribed by learned physicians occasionally contained religious or magical elements as well. A Latin recipe for St. Valentine’s illness (epilepsy) in one of Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s recipe booklets, for example, instructs the practitioner to give the sufferer a Malvasian wine to drink while saying three paternosters. On the whole, however, Dorothea’s medical practice was mainly naturalistic, and Dorothea expressed discomfort with remedies that did not work through comprehensible means. In 1557, she declared herself skeptical of a spring on the lands of a nearby estate that was rumored to have miraculous healing properties, writing to Anna of Saxony: “Your Noble Grace would not believe how many people from this area ride into [the spring] and come out telling of all sorts of amazing recoveries that I think it is against nature. . . . I cannot tell Your Noble Grace the things people say about it, it sounds so unbelievable, but when people come back whom I know, I will let Your Noble Grace know what I have determined to be true.” Although she did not categorically deny the efficacy of the spring, Dorothea’s suspicion of it indicates a reluctance to attribute healing properties to a cure she had not witnessed herself. Only when trustworthy people familiar to her reported on the effects would she pronounce her final opinion of it. This combination of personal experience and trust, as discussed in chapter 1, was the greatest measure of a remedy’s efficacy. Dorothea continuously emphasized her expertise (or lack thereof) in the process of making medicines. When sending Anna of Saxony some bitter orange rinds in 1557, for example, she promised to candy them for Anna if no one on her estate knew how, explaining, “they settle the stomach and strengthen the heart, and this is the very best time to candy them, while they are still fresh. It takes a lot of sugar to candy them, and it has to be good sugar.” Likewise, she accompanied a gift of rose sugar with the explanation that it was “exceedingly good for the head, as experience will show.” Con-

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versely, Dorothea also pointed out areas in which she did not have the necessary experience to know whether a remedy or an ingredient was good or efficacious, as in the case of the healing spring. In addition to her skepticism vis-à-vis unproven medications, she occasionally acknowledged gaps in her own experience; when sending Anna of Saxony flowers preserved in salt, for example, she wrote that she had prepared them “as best I could, for I have never made any before and also do not know how one should preserve them properly.” Dorothea also experimented with making new medications. During the last three years of her life, she repeatedly attempted to make an aqua vitae for August of Saxony that would remain sweet after it was distilled, “so that it is a bit more pleasant to use.” When she learned in 1571 that August of Saxony was suffering from a bout of erysipelas (rottlauf ), a painful, spreading, red skin infection that was common in early modern Europe, she wrote to Anna that she wanted to “make a special aqua vitae with elderflowers and black elderberries.” Because this was a new remedy, she planned to test the results “on people who suffer from the same illness.” For example, she continued, “my son Count Hans Georg has it very badly, and I want to give the elder water to him, since elderflower water works very well on him, if only he weren’t so strange [afterward].” In this case, she derived the special aqua vitae (made with elderflowers and black elderberries) from a recipe she had already found to be reasonably successful (using elderflowers alone). Her use of her own son as a test subject suggests that she expected the new remedy at least to do no harm, but she clearly indicated that the water’s effects were an unknown quantity before the test. “If it works well, I will send some to Your Noble Grace.” “My Mother of Mansfeld” The skill with which Dorothea compounded her medicines made her a shining role model among the noblewomen who aimed to emulate her. In 1569, Countess Agnes of Solms complimented Anna of Saxony’s white aqua vitae with the assertion that “Your Grace will be famed as a master alongside my mother of Mansfeld.” In fact, Dorothea acted as a mentor in making medicines to a large group of noblewomen that included Countess Dorothea of Schönberg (her daughter), Countess Anna of Hohenlohe (her niece), Countess Agnes of Solms (her niece by marriage), Countess Magdalena of Mansfeld (her daughter- in-law), and Electress Anna of Saxony; it likely included other daughters and daughters- in-law as well. The first four women and other close female relatives spent considerable time working with Dorothea in her distil-

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lation house at Mansfeld Castle, and Dorothea frequently went to the Dresden court to help Anna of Saxony distill. With the exception of Anna, all of the women referred to Dorothea as “my mother of Mansfeld.” The lives of the women also remained intertwined independently of Dorothea. Anna of Saxony exchanged not only medical information with the countesses Agnes of Solms and Anna of Hohenlohe, but also personal advice and favors. When Agnes was widowed in 1561, August of Saxony agreed to take over the legal guardianship of her children, and Countess Anna provided comfort and assistance in childbirth to Anna of Saxony’s daughter Elisabeth. Dorothea of Schönberg acted as lady- in-waiting and confidant to Anna; after her death in 1573, Anna regretted that “we have lost not only a loyal servant, but also a good relative and friend.” There seems to have been a great deal of mutual affection among the women. Anna requested the presence of Countess Anna at the imperial election in Frankfurt in 1562, “so that we can . . . have all sorts of amusing conversations with you.” Similarly, upon hearing that Countess Anna was planning to travel to Mansfeld in May of 1563, she instructed Dorothea to “impress upon her on our behalf that she should come to us afterward, that she by no means leave the country before she has visited us.” Within this close- knit network, Dorothea’s aqua vitae became a shared recipe. In 1559, Agnes wrote to Anna of Saxony, politely requesting “a bit of the yellow aqua vitae, since my mother of Mansfeld is not home, and I do not yet know how to make it.” Her use of the word “yet” implies that she, too, intended to learn Dorothea’s recipe, which Anna had already mastered. As will be discussed further in chapter 4, Anna became famous across the Germanspeaking world for the yellow and white aqua vitae she had learned from Dorothea. Although she refused to divulge the recipe to outsiders, she did expect her daughter Elisabeth to learn it. Years after Dorothea’s death, when Elisabeth asked Anna to send some of the aqua vitae to her in the Palatinate, Anna replied that she had become too old to distill much anymore and chided testily, “we are more than a little bothered that your dearest does not distill the water yourself.” When Elisabeth repeated the request two years later, Anna told her to get the recipe from Anna of Hohenlohe since, “your dearest knows very well that we as well as the countess of Hohenlohe learned the aqua vitae from the old countess of Mansfeld.” She instructed Elisabeth to seek advice from Anna of Hohenlohe “if your dearest ever lacks anything else on how to make this aqua vitae . . . since she lives nearer your dearest.” Despite the fame Anna gained for the aqua vitae, she continued to see it as common and shared knowledge within the small group that had originally learned it from Dorothea.

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While Anna of Hohenlohe, Agnes of Solms, Dorothea of Schönberg, and Anna of Saxony seem to have been in especially close contact with Dorothea, the countess’s network of medical correspondents extended much wider. She made a collection of medical recipes for her son Hans Georg, and she frequently mentioned unnamed visitors who came to help her with her aqua vitae. It is difficult to judge the full extent of Dorothea’s reputation and contacts, as most of her surviving letters were written to Anna of Saxony; nevertheless, those letters afford occasional glimpses into the wide reach of her medical fame. One, written in 1557, worried, “Your Grace cannot imagine the demands put upon me by rich and poor folk for my white aqua vitae; I gave away two stobgen in three weeks, and in a few days I have to send it to nine cities on the Rhine.” At the center of this expansive network, stretching from Mansfeld through Saxony to the Rhine, Dorothea stood as a figure of wideranging medical authority. “Caring for My Poor People” Although she sent medical advice to many a prominent individual (often unsolicited), the epicenter of Dorothea’s medical practice, at least in her own eyes, was her care of the poor from the garden of Mansfeld Castle. It is impossible to fully understand Dorothea’s practice without this context, as Dorothea herself framed her healing as essentially charitable in nature. “I have little to do besides caring for my poor people [min armen leutt],” she wrote to Anna in 1569. “Whatever I give them helps them, and if I don’t give it to them myself, they refuse to take it. God helps them wonderfully [wonderbarlich].” At issue here is neither the extent to which Dorothea actually did help heal the poor, nor the average poverty level of the people for whom she cared. Indeed, Dorothea’s use of the word “poor” is too vague to give much sense of the relative economic and social status of her patients. Robert Jütte has shown that “poor” in its early modern usage did not necessarily mean the opposite of “rich” but could signify various degrees of poverty or ill health: in general, it referred to a person who inspired compassion or contempt for whatever reason. Important here is merely Dorothea’s identification of her medical practices as essentially charitable in nature, a characterization that was accepted without question by her contemporaries. Working within her own definition of poverty and poor relief, we begin to gain an impression of the central role the concept of charity played in her medical practice. Dorothea’s letters consistently emphasized the large number of travelers who sought out her medical care. In August of 1568, for example, she informed Anna that “many more than one thousand people” came to her for

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help for a strange eye illness, while in 1572 she reported giving an electuary to “several hundreds of people” to fight pestilential fever. After a deadly storm in 1571, she wrote, “People come all day to carry the ill into my garden,” and in another instance, “Your Noble Grace cannot imagine what an onslaught of people I have here; it lasts from morning to evening.” Similarly, Dorothea emphasized the long hours she spent caring for the poor, reporting in 1557, “Your Grace cannot imagine how the poor people keep me busy here. God knows I have nary a quarter hour of peace and all I do [otherwise] is eat and sleep, God be praised,” and, in 1569, “I work constantly every day.” The care of the poor formed the driving force behind her days. In addition to filling her days with work, Dorothea’s care of the poor dictated the type of medicine she practiced. Many of her medical recipes seem to have been created as a response to illnesses plaguing the county of Mansfeld, or, at least, local diseases heavily influenced the medical information she transmitted to Anna of Saxony. Her letters followed a predictable pattern of describing a disease, explaining treatment, and sending the recipe or medication to Anna, as the following two excerpts indicate: There is currently a sickness among the poor people, as many as seven or more in one house are affected, they become miserably weak and complain. The head causes a flux in the left side and it affects them terribly; twenty or even thirty of the aforementioned come in one day, more than less, so I give them this draft. In these parts, many people are becoming quite lame from the great pain they have in their limbs, they lie for two months before they can stand up and one cannot drive away the illness. I gave them a [distilled] water to drink, just two spoonfuls, once, and it helped many of them. The herb [used for the water] grows in May, and I will send Your Grace the leaves, so that Your Grace can get to know it and learn to distill it.

In the first instance, Dorothea likely included the recipe on a separate sheet of paper, while in the second, she promised Anna the herb, the recipe, and the product itself. In other cases, she included a recipe written directly into the letter, or she alluded to a recipe that had been exchanged previously. Quite frequently, in any case, her mention of a medical remedy was tied to a specific illness among the local population with which she had come to terms. Like her letters, Dorothea’s recipe collection, the “ugly little old book” described in chapter 2, was closely tied to her care of the poor. She pleaded with Anna of Saxony in March of 1564 to “send my old little book back to me with this messenger, as I can no longer do without it . . . for there is much in it that I have not yet copied out of it to make for my poor people . . . truly quite a

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few people have died here, and if I had had my book, God willing, I could have saved them, with God’s help, and now several more are ill and I cannot help them.” Dorothea promised to send the book back before Easter, so that “Your Grace can keep it as her own.” This exchange suggests that in addition to creating new recipes as needed for local ailments, Dorothea also had specific recipes on which she relied for her charitable healing. The recipes, in Dorothea’s estimation, were central to her ability to cure the sick poor, who died without them. In that sense, her ugly little book and her medical recipes in general were directly related to the care of the sick. Finally, Dorothea semantically linked her time spent in the garden of Mansfeld Castle to charitable healing. Not only were her distillery, apothecary, and library located in the garden, she also physically treated the sick poor there. As we have seen, the poor carried their injured into the garden after the great storm of 1571 and again in the summer of 1572. In one instance, Dorothea denied a request from Anna for her to come to Dresden, explaining, among other reasons, “I have to work in my garden so that I can minister to the poor people [armen leutt].” She connected the poor with her garden frequently enough that the assumption remained even when she did not mention the poor specifically, such as her complaint that events of “the past month have kept me from my garden house,” in February of 1563. By describing her work in making medications in her garden distillery—and, by association, her entire medical practice—as dedicated to the poor, Dorothea interpreted her healing endeavors as charity, even though her practice benefited the elite as well as the impoverished. Charity and Class While the degree to which healing represented the central cause of her life set Dorothea apart from other noblewomen, her characterization of her medicine as inherently charitable was not unusual. For most women—even those born to the gentry—the negative characterization of women’s medicine as Weiberkunst loomed large, and charity was one way to avoid it. Anna Maria of Württemberg noted bluntly, “the physicians do not think much of women’s arts, so one should reserve them for the poor, who cannot pay for the doctors’ arts.” Widows were especially linked to the care of the poor, likely because they were particularly vulnerable. A widow who did not remarry occupied a liminal position, often endowed with control over money and power atypical of her gender, yet at the mercy of her children and more distant relatives. As Catherine Lawless has pointed out, cultivating a reputation of piety and sanctity allowed a widow to escape the negative tropes associated with un-

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married, older women. Because charity was a sign of piety, widows who had the means frequently engaged in charitable enterprises and made donations to charitable institutions, especially hospitals and poorhouses. Charity thus became an arena in which women’s autonomous activities could—and did— become prominent, in a variety of sectors. Dorothea’s self- identification as a charitable healer—and the recognition she received as such from others—fit into a long tradition of healing and piety among elite widows. The link between aristocratic women and charitable healing featured in a number of vernacular medical works allegedly aimed at the “common man.” The physician Jacob Theodor Tabernaemontanus’s dedication of his 1577 Neuwes Artzney Buch to Elisabeth of Saxony, for example, specifically highlighted and praised Elisabeth’s charitable endeavors. He noted that Elisabeth had “put together a wonderful, magnificent, princely court apothecary, thereby reaching a hand to the people, and especially the poor.” In order to connect Elisabeth’s charitable healing to his own, reworked version of Christoph Wirsung’s Artzney Buch, Tabernaemontanus noted that he had clarified some points in Wirsung’s original text and added a new index “so that every common person knows how to work from it easily,” just as “Your Noble Grace has not only good and varied excellent medicines for the rich, but common, easy items for the poor and the common man.” The genre of medical works in German for the “poor common man” began its rise with the fifth and final book of Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Liber de arte distillandi de compositis (1512), the distillation manual described in chapter 1. Brunschwig called the book Thesaurus pauperum (Treasure Chest for the Poor), a title borrowed from the thirteenth- century Thesaurus pauperum of Peter of Spain, which had a broad manuscript tradition in both Latin and German. Very different in nature from the first four books, it related simplified, affordable recipes “with the intention of spreading them as far as they might reach.” Brunschwig emphasized the goal of “the comfort of the people and help for the sick” and presented the book as a charitable endeavor for the poor. The concept proved enormously popular, and the Thesaurus pauperum took on a life of its own. Separated from the distillation manual and reprinted as Haußapoteck (Home Apothecary), it went through twenty- four editions between 1537 and 1619 and was translated into English in 1561. A reworked version attributed to Brunschwig and published by Christoph Egenolff as the Hausarmenschatz (Home Treasure Chest for the Poor) went through sixteen editions between 1557 and 1658. More important, the portrayal of the Thesaurus pauperum as a manual of self- care for those who either could not afford a physician or had no doctor or apothecary nearby became a pervasive theme in sixteenth- century German medical publications.

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Numerous historians have noted a disjuncture between works addressed to the “poor common man” and their intended readership. Although literacy rates for sixteenth- century Germany are difficult to determine, most scholars suggest that somewhere between 5 and 40 percent of the population could read—almost certainly much closer to the lower figure, except in some cities. Moreover, it is implausible to expect that truly poor people, literate or not, would have had access to Brunschwig’s expensive, 350-leaf, foliosized Liber de arte distillandi. As Joachim Telle and Birgit Zimmerman both point out, Brunschwig likely intended his work for people who might provide medicines for the truly poor. In this, Brunschwig followed in the footsteps of Peter of Spain’s Thesaurus pauperum, which also was intended not for the poor but rather for learned physicians who treated poorer patients. In many cases, the appeal to the common man presented an altruistic motive for disseminating works in German. The rise of this genre coincided directly with many physicians’ antagonism against the dissemination of medical advice in the printed vernacular, and Lorenz Fries complained that he had been “hated and persecuted by other learned physicians” after the publication of his Arzneyspiegel (Mirror of Medicine) in 1518. To preclude such criticism, medical authors portrayed their printed works as help for those who had nowhere else to turn. Zimmerman has noted that nearly every work that stated the common man as its audience justified itself within a “social- ethical, Christiancharitable framework.” Indeed, most authors characterized the dissemination of home medical advice as an outgrowth of Christian charity. This emphasis on charity provided a natural link between the common man and noblewomen. While some authors simply connected their works to the charitable endeavors of noblewomen, as Tabernaemontanus did with Elisabeth of Saxony, others called on their noble patrons to give medicinal help to the less fortunate out of a sense of social responsibility. Johann Jacob Wecker praised Countess Kunigunde of Simmern in the dedication of his Artzney Buch (1575) specifically because the countess was a well- known “lover of medicine” whose talents came to the aid of “all people, but especially the poor.” He requested that she “accept my book, read it, treasure it, and give aid to the common man with it.” Johann Wittich, who dedicated his Artzneibuch (1596) to Countess Margareta of Mansfeld-Hinterort (1534–96), made this connection explicit, telling Margareta that the poor sought “help and comfort” from “princely, countly, and noble persons, also other wellto-do people in the cities, especially from elite female persons, because they know that women are often much more sympathetic and compassionate than male persons.” The purpose of his book, Wittich stated, was to act as a reference work for “high Christian matrons” like Margareta, so that they could “be

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helpful to poor, needy people in acute illness.” Both William Eamon and Zimmerman suggest that the most likely intended audience for works aimed at the poor common man was individuals who could provide medical care for the truly poor. So widespread was the connection between noblewomen and charitable healing, many authors treated it as an expectation. “A Proper Christian” Dorothea’s reputation for charitable healing allowed her to stay above the fray in the tumult of the Protestant Reformation. Charity became a target for Reformers, who viewed the Catholic practice of giving alms in hopes of salvation as a heretical attempt to make a bargain with God for one’s soul. Luther’s doctrine on good works (Von den guten Werckenn, 1520) disassociated charity and salvation, arguing that humans could not force God to grant grace with good works but were justified by faith alone. However, because Luther held that a pious life and charitable undertakings were a sign of grace, he also placed great emphasis on caring for the needy. Acts of charity thus remained important in both Lutheranism and Catholicism, although their theological meaning differed significantly. It is no accident, then, that Dorothea’s eulogists, both Lutheran clergymen, used her good works to characterize her not simply as a pious Christian but as a pious Protestant. Cyriac Nicolai made Dorothea’s devoutness the central focus of his funeral oration, praising her as “a proper Christian” (ein rechter Christe) and reiterating that Dorothea died “in the true belief [warem Glauben] in the Son of God Jesus Christ.” His frequent use of the words “proper” and “true” to describe Dorothea’s faith was an oblique assurance that she had converted to Lutheranism. Mencelius approached the topic less subtly, declaring outright that Dorothea had been “educated under the papacy and found it somewhat difficult to leave it.” However, he turned this vice into a virtue, comparing Dorothea’s papal upbringing to the biblical widow Tabitha’s heathen childhood and making her conversion to Lutheranism a token of her piety: “As Her Grace listened diligently to the pure preacher of the Gospels himself, Doctor Luther her countryman [Landeskinde], she was enlightened by the Holy Spirit, so that she recognized the Holy Truth, believed in Jesus Christ, and remained true to this belief and profession of the pure truth until the end of her days.” By the time Dorothea died at the age of eighty- five, most of her peers would have been too young to remember a time when there was only one religion; perhaps for this reason, Mencelius chose to emphasize her conversion. Asserting that a recently departed person had

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upheld all the proper tenets of her faith was a fairly common trope in most eulogies of the era, and both Mansfeld and Saxony were in firm Lutheran hands by 1578. Nicolai and Mencelius thus had every motivation to claim Dorothea’s charity as the manifestation of a true Protestant heart. Determining Dorothea’s actual beliefs is much more difficult. She had reached adulthood by the advent of the Lutheran reformations (she was twenty- three when Luther pinned his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church), and during the movement’s first decade she was married to a prominent defender of Rome. Although it was not unusual for husbands and wives to disagree on matters of religion during the early Reformation, there is no indication that Dorothea left the Catholic faith behind before the death of her husband in 1531. For the first thirty- eight years of her life, then, she likely was more or less an adherent of the Catholic church. Following Ernst II’s death, however, her position became more ambiguous. As mentioned earlier, her daughter Elisabeth married the Catholic Duke Friedrich of Saxony in 1539. Four years later, Dorothea wrote her letter of medical advice to Martin Luther, addressed it to the “prestigious and highly learned . . . Martino Luther, Doctor of the Holy [Word],” and demonstrated an active interest in preserving the Reformer’s health. One could read a conversion into the time between 1539 and 1543, although nothing in Dorothea’s letters gives any indication of a religious interest in Luther’s work. Moreover, Luther complained shortly before his death in 1546 that the old countess of Mansfeld was regarded as a “protector of the Jews,” hardly a sign of closeness between the two. Perhaps Dorothea converted; perhaps she didn’t. The lack of clarity on the matter is indicative of how vaguely she addressed the issue. Dorothea’s relationship with her own family further complicates the picture. As she unabashedly reported to Anna of Saxony in 1562, her brother, Reinhard of Solms, proclaimed at his deathbed that he wanted to “die in the belief in which [he] was born and baptized and raised.” Expressing bereavement at his death, Dorothea neither commended nor distanced herself from his religious preferences, although Anna of Saxony’s fervent Lutheran beliefs might have made it expedient to do the latter. Two of Dorothea’s sons also remained Catholic, and prominently so: Peter Ernst (1517–1604) became a soldier and statesman for the Holy Roman Emperor and later a beloved Catholic prince in Luxembourg; he famously engaged in hostilities against the French Huguenots (who were defended by his cousin, Count Volrad of Mansfeld) in 1569. Another son, Johann Gebhard, was elected archbishop of Cologne in 1558 and held the influential bishopric as an “eager Catholic” until his death in 1562. Most of Dorothea’s other sons became Protestant; in 1545, her step-

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son Philip and her son Johann Georg appealed to Luther to help settle the feuding between the two branches of the Mansfeld family, and Johann Albrecht fought for Duke Moritz of Saxony during the Schmalkaldic War. Dorothea thus maintained close familial ties to both sides of the Reformation’s religious debate, an occurrence that must have been very common among those of her generation. Further clouding Dorothea’s religious affiliation, the countess did not distinguish at all between her Catholic and Protestant sons in her letters, but referred to each of them indiscriminately as “my son” (min son). In the course of one letter, written from Mansfeld on May 11, 1557, she reported that her son Johann Ernst (min son hans ernst) had called her to care for his sick, pregnant wife, that Johann Albrecht’s wife (hans albrichts wip) was also close to childbirth, and that Peter Ernst (min son petter ernst) had come to Mansfeld, having “just spent four and a half years in prison, and I would not have recognized him if I had not known it was him, he looked so weak and miserable.” She gave no inkling that Peter Ernst’s prominent Catholicism set him apart from her other two sons, even though she mentioned that he was about to head back into war. As was reflective of her close relationship to both Catholic and Protestant acquaintances, Dorothea spent most of 1562 in Brühl, near Cologne, at the residence of “my son the bishop,” from which she sent Anna frequent reports on the comings and goings of her sons; on the marriage of Anna’s niece to William I, prince of Orange, and the young woman’s ensuing pregnancy; and on the tense political situation in France, where fierce fighting between Catholics and French Huguenots had begun in early March. Her reports painted a vivid picture of war and turmoil, but little of the religious divisiveness that provided the impetus for the conflict. A letter from July 26, for example, reported: I am once again with my son the bishop in Brühl, and I came back from Holland six days ago, where I was with my son Peter Ernst and his wife. . . . there is much uncertainty in the recent news, but in France there is no peace; [it is] the same old story, they are being sent quietly as if to war, but still one hopes for peace. Yesterday and today several officers came to a village only a half mile from Cologne, and today they had 350 men on horseback and foot to gather soldiers, and many among them call themselves black knights . . . but my son the bishop called the officers to him today . . . to arrange for them to move away from here. They are all headed to France, but there is not enough money. Thus the poor will suffer. Please tell all this to My Lord, Your Grace’s beloved husband.

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Dorothea gave little indication of the underlying political motives for these troop movements, part of the religious wars between French Calvinists and Catholics that continued intermittently until the Huguenots received rights of worship under the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Indeed, Dorothea sent her Lutheran patrons word of the impending Huguenot war from the home of her Catholic son without commenting on the religious strife. She expressed concern only for the plight of the poor, whose possessions and well- being were sure to be decimated by the underfinanced army. In the face of an open religious struggle, then, she remained placidly neutral. In her own personal faith, Dorothea was no more explicit. Her letters to Anna attest to a very deep piety but give little indication of denominational preference. She generally referred neither to the text of the Bible, nor to Jesus Christ, signs of Lutheran devotion, nor to Catholic rituals or saints. Instead, she invoked God in her every activity, ascribing to him an active presence in her daily life and especially in her healing: “If God wills that I should live so long, I want to make a good aqua vitae this year, with God’s help.” While she frequently used the adjective “Christian” (cristleich), she never tied her Christian beliefs specifically to any doctrine or creed. In a letter comforting Anna upon the death of her eldest son, Alexander, aged eleven, in 1565, she gave very general words of solace: “I have no doubt that Your Grace, as a patient, Christian princess, will find comfort in our dear God and Father, who is almighty, and carry your cross as God wills it; for whosoever is God’s child has no more worries in this world.” Even when addressing her patroness, a known champion of the Lutheran cause, Dorothea did not reference any religious preferences. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, Dorothea seems to have subscribed to the ideal of poor relief as the responsibility of a good Christian professed by Desiderius Erasmus and other humanists. Given her likely humanist education, this outlook is not particularly surprising, nor did it cause Dorothea any difficulty. Her unquestionable piety and her good works sufficed to assure others of her sanctity, and she seems to have been well respected across doctrinal divides. Her eulogists’ assertions of her fervent Lutheranism, then, mask a much more ambiguous approach to religion. Rather than taking a passionate stand in the religious strife, Dorothea healed her poor and praised God, quietly professing a brand of piety that made her seem unequivocally devout. Framing her life in terms of these charitable endeavors, Dorothea became a figure of moral, in addition to medical, authority. Whatever boon it offered for the local poor, her reputation for charitable healing also helped her in times of political and financial turmoil.

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Healing “Wonderbarlich” Money woes had plagued Mansfeld since the fifteenth century, when it lost its status as an independent imperial principality and became in name, if not in practice, a fiefdom belonging to the rulers of Saxony, Magdeburg, and Halberstadt. By the mid- sixteenth century, the partition of the domain among heirs, the infighting between the various branches of the family, a downswing in the price of copper, and unwarranted extravagance on the part of its counts had exacerbated Mansfeld’s existing debts. Dorothea’s branch of the family, Mansfeld-Vorderort, had been divided into six parts in 1563; in 1566, their debts had mushroomed to such a proportion that their lenders demanded action. Because Mansfeld-Mittelort and Mansfeld-Hinterort were in no better straits, August of Saxony took over the process of assessing the principality’s pecuniary circumstances, eventually determining that Mansfeld was 2.75 million gulden in debt. Hence began a downward spiral that ended, in 1570, with the counts of Mansfeld-Vorderort agreeing to turn over all of their possessions and the administration of the principality to Saxony, Magdeburg, and Halberstadt, effectively giving up their power. By 1580, Mansfeld officially ceased to be an independent principality. These troubles appeared only tangentially in Dorothea’s letters to Anna of Saxony, most frequently surfacing in pleas to August (via Anna) on behalf of her sons. In 1557, after Johann Georg had caused trouble for August, she wrote, “my son Hans Jorge . . . wants me to plead with His Merciful Grace that he will be a merciful lord to him and his brother and protect them.” Although speaking up in support of her children, she frequently wrote of them with an air of exasperation, placing herself rhetorically on Anna and August’s side of the conflict. After voicing a request for a favor from Hans Albrecht in 1564, she concluded, “I ask Your Grace not to look upon my coarse letter with disfavor, I did not want to write it, but the fool pleaded with me, so I had to do it.” In another case, she included a postscript to August in a letter to Anna, writing that her son Hans Ernst “is trying to be diligent about the household [expenditures]; nowadays he wants to be dutiful and stop drinking so much. I can force him in part using Your Noble Grace, if I tell him I will complain to Your Noble Grace [if he does not do what he says].” When she did mention her children’s difficulties, Dorothea carefully distanced herself from their troubles. This separation allowed Dorothea to ask for favors without being associated directly with Mansfeld’s crisis, although her rapid rate of gifts to the electors from 1566 until her death indicates that she felt the consequences of the bankruptcy. When a swallow stone Anna had requested Dorothea to find

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took longer than expected to arrive in Dresden, Dorothea was almost beside herself with the worry that the messenger had stolen it, as she had none other to give Anna: “It would be a great, dirty trick if he kept it, and I would be sorry in my heart and soul, for there is no other person on earth I would rather give it to than Your Grace.” Luckily, Anna soon received the stone. Similarly, a ring she sent August in 1568, which she claimed to have gotten from Duke Georg the Bearded of Saxony, August’s uncle, revealed an underlying air of desperation: “I give this [ring] to Your Noble Grace, and thus it returns to the blood whence I received it, and it binds Your Noble Grace with my children, so that I beg Your Noble Grace will be my children’s most merciful lord, and they shall be Your Noble Grace’s loyal servants, and I beg Your Noble Grace to protect them mercifully and keep them from violence.” Despite attempts to distance herself from her sons’ mischief, Dorothea was increasingly beholden to Anna and August during the last twelve years of her life. More and more, her healing became a valuable way to repay them for their favors. While Dorothea of Mansfeld and Anna of Saxony shared mutual respect and affection for one another, the combination of Dorothea’s lower social status, Mansfeld’s troubles, and Anna’s avid interest in the countess’s healing skills placed the women in a tacit position of quid pro quo. Wittingly or unwittingly, Dorothea crafted her descriptions of charitable healing to make her medical recipes and medications especially appealing to Anna. In 1565, for example, Dorothea described to Anna the case of a woman who came to her with “a cancer” in her breast (krebs an der brost). According to Dorothea, this cancer had plagued the woman for three years, and “many doctors and barbers had given up on her life.” Dorothea, in contrast, “took pity on her and did not wish to send her away” but instead “explained to her what she should do and also gave her a distilled water for that purpose.” Four weeks later, Dorothea related, “the woman came back, thanked me, and showed me her wound, which had healed nicely and completely.” Admitting that she herself had been skeptical of the woman’s chances, Dorothea attributed this amazing success not solely to her medicinal talents but also to the fact that—unlike the doctors and barbers—she had not given up on the woman but had “given her hope.” “Thus,” she demurred, “[the cure] happened according to God’s will.” Nevertheless, she assured Anna that she would include the recipe for the distilled water in the recipe book she was copying out for her, “because many women experience this illness, and in all my days I have never heard of anyone else curing a three- year- old cancer without cutting.” It is impossible to retrospectively assess the exact nature of the woman’s ailment or Dorothea’s role in healing it, but her retelling of the story, regardless, highlighted the efficacy of her cure (with help from the grace of God). Every part of it was

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related in a way that would increase Anna’s interest in Dorothea’s medicine: a hopeless case in which other practitioners had tried and failed, a fairly simple cure, an acknowledgment of divine sanction, and a recipe. The wondrous nature of Dorothea’s healing threaded through her correspondence to Anna and (occasionally) August of Saxony. In 1566, for example, she sent Anna an electuary and explained that she had used it against a “flux in the stomach” currently suffered by “the people . . . , so that they become deathly ill and many die.” In contrast, she maintained, “all to whom I give the electuary recover amazingly [wonderbarlich].” A red salve she sent August in 1577 came with a similarly impressive pedigree: “I give it to the people with warm beer, and neither dumbness nor the falling sickness harms them. Amazingly [wonderbarlich], in battle many people have their arms and legs chopped in half, and if they come out of it alive, I give [the salve] to them, and out of ten people not one dies. As long as their heads aren’t split in two, they come through alive.” Dorothea described both of these cures using the German word wonderbarlich, a favorite of hers. A combination of wunderbar (wonderful) and wunderlich (strange, odd), it appeared frequently in her descriptions of cures and her recipes, as did the word wonderlich and the phrase werdet jr wundern (you will be amazed). Her use of wonderbarlich stressed the remarkable efficacy of her medications, assuring the reader of their value while invoking wonder. More than simply portraying her remedies as especially efficacious, Dorothea occasionally hinted that her healing was blessed by higher powers. When a great storm struck Mansfeld in 1571, Dorothea described the damage to Anna, writing of all that had been destroyed, including a chicken coop in which she had been storing over forty glass jars of medicinal oils “for sweetsmelling salves.” The jars, she wrote, “were so covered with wood and slate that one could not even see the jars for all the wood and slate. And I did not think that a single jar remained unbroken.” Upon having the mess cleared, however, Dorothea discovered that “all of my jars were unbroken, and now they are sitting in the sun without a roof, but they are unbroken, thanks be to God.” In another case, she sent August an aqua vitae with a description of the wonders it had worked, which once again bordered on the miraculous: “A year ago this winter, a man fell under the ice and drowned, and no one could save him. Then a man came along and said ‘the old countess of Mansfeld gave me a water of life [lebendigk wasser], take it and put some in his mouth.’ They poured a little in [his mouth], and immediately he shuddered and opened his eyes and became quite lively. And he is still alive today, God be praised.” Whether touting the number of people she had healed or relating improbable recoveries, Dorothea’s descriptions of her medications gave them the highest

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possible appeal—and frequently piqued the electors’ interest therewith. In the case of the cancer, for example, Anna asked Dorothea to “include the newly tried and proven Kunst for cancer” in the book of recipes Dorothea was copying out for her. In addition to remedies that healed the sick poor, Dorothea provided Anna or August with medications for their own use. In February of 1568, she sent “preserved red clove sugar and lavender blossom sugar, both of which strengthen the living soul substantially and prevent the stroke.” She particularly recommended them for August, worrying that, “in the fall and in March one is at his weakest, and the air is not clean in many places.” In 1569, she sent Anna a red skirt “that one can wear under the rest of one’s clothes,” which she had gotten during her trip to the Netherlands: “All of the older women there wore red skirts made out of this cloth, which has been dyed scarlet. When I asked them why they wore the skirts, they told me that it strengthened their legs markedly. I had one made and wore it for one month, and after that, my legs did not hurt anymore, and since then I have never had leg pain.” Although the majority of the items Dorothea sent to the electors involved her medical talents, she frequently presented Anna and August of Saxony with more conventional gifts as well—she sent a “strange clock,” a ring, and an old Bible “that I think is two hundred years old” during a single week in February 1568. However, she did not have the means to procure many material items that were worthy of the electors of Saxony. Instead, Dorothea’s healing provided her most valuable asset, and she was well aware of its appeal. In 1568–69, the seventy- five- year- old countess attempted to make a new medicine explicitly as a gift for Anna and August—an aqua vitae that would remain sweet after being distilled. In her first mention of it, she described her desire to produce this new type of aqua vitae and promised Anna that “if it works, I want to teach it to Your Grace as well.” Her next letter acknowledged that her aqua vitae was “fairly lively” and speculated that it might not take sugar well; but she proclaimed “for the sake of both of you, as elector and electress, I want to do whatever is humanly possible to find [a sugary aqua vitae], with the help of God.” After several attempts to retain sugar during the distilling process, she finally sent her usual yellow aqua vitae and told Anna to add it to hot Malvasian wine mixed with sugar; “thus Your Grace will have an excellent aqua vitae.” Although it fell short in the end, this attempt to create a marvelous new remedy underscores the value she felt her medicines had in the eyes of Anna and August. In this manner, by ensuring the elector and electress of Saxony good health and providing them with wonderbarlich remedies, Dorothea turned her healing into a worthy present in its own right. Whether in response to these various medical

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gifts, or simply as a token of the genuine affection the electors felt for the countess, she remained well provided with items from Saxony’s apothecary through the end of her life. Conclusion In November 1575, three years before her death, the eighty- two- year- old Dorothea was still making medicines. Although her neat handwriting had become rather more scrawling, she asserted that “even in my old age I still go into my garden when the weather is good, and I hope, if God wills it, to begin the aqua vitae again, and I hope, if God wills it, to make it better every time.” This statement underscores the essence of Dorothea’s medicine. More than any other woman in this book, she portrayed healing as her raison d’être, and there is reason to suspect that the image of the noblewoman healer in the later sixteenth century was greatly influenced by her example. Her longevity, frequent travels, and frenetic work schedule meant that she had both a high output of medicines over the course of many years and the opportunity to discuss her healing with a large number of people. She directly encouraged and aided at least two subsequent generations of medically inclined noblewomen, as in the case of Anna of Saxony and her daughter Elisabeth, and her remedies appear in recipe collections all over Germany. Although she was by no means the only noblewoman who was active in healing in the early to mid- sixteenth century, she was the first to garner such a widely documented reputation. In overseeing an established medical practice over the course of more than forty years, Dorothea provided a model for those to come. Charity formed a crucial part of this topos. There is no question that in the long years of her practice, Dorothea remained singularly devoted to the care of the poor. The sheer number of hours she spent making medicines and caring for people in her garden, according to both her own accounts and those of others, is staggering. None of the other women highlighted in this book took such an active and literal approach to caring for the poor; the descriptions of the impoverished country folk streaming into the Mansfeld Castle garden are unique. Yet the healing endeavors of all noblewomen following Dorothea were portrayed by physicians as fundamentally charitable in nature. When the clergyman Mencelius deemed her “a mother of the country, a praiseworthy, good example for elite and common people,” he echoed current opinion but also presented a depiction of the noblewoman healer that was to become commonplace. No matter how seriously she took her obligations to the local poor, however, Dorothea certainly benefited from the pious reputation and renown for

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wonderful acts of healing. While there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of her devotion, she also used her reputation to her own advantage, writing of her charitable healing in a manner that made it as attractive as possible. Like her expertise in healing, her charity functioned as a marketable commodity in the informal reciprocity she developed with Anna of Saxony. Her case thus demonstrates the complex interaction of factors that allowed elite women to operate as medical authorities. Without her medical expertise, it is doubtful whether Dorothea would have achieved as great a renown for her charity; without her charitable reputation, her medical practice would have had less legitimacy. Finally, without the combination of piety and exceptional medical skill, she would not have attracted the considerable patronage of Anna and August of Saxony, the same rulers who were in the process of taking all political power away from her sons. Dorothea’s standing as a “mirror and example for rich and poor” was especially crucial to her healing given her status as a widow. Although her place in Mansfeld Castle was secure owing to the protection of her sons, she suffered at least as much as they did from the monetary woes that plagued the ill- fated principality. It is doubtful, moreover, that her healing would have garnered such positive feedback from prominent physicians had it not operated under the aegis of charity. As we will see in the example of Anna of Saxony in the following chapter, women who had a less precarious social position tended to portray charity as one among many aspects of their medical enterprises. For Dorothea, the praise she gained for understanding “the secrets, usefulness, and true principles of medicine” would have been unthinkable without her care of the poor “out of Christian love.”

4

Anna of Saxony and Her Medical “Handiwork”

When Anna of Saxony and the Holy Roman Empress Maria of Austria met at a princely gathering in 1570, Maria complained of a number of ailments from which she and her husband, the Emperor Maximilian II, were suffering. In response, upon her return to Dresden, Anna sent the empress a three- page letter of advice, accompanied by medications to help alleviate her symptoms. For general well- being, she sent “a little powder for all kinds of poisons, enclosed herewith in a little sealed box.” Because Maria had complained to her about bouts of dizziness, Anna included “a water, which I myself have tried on many notable people for the same complaint and found to be highly useful.” She also presented the empress with a golden saucer full of aqua vitae to treat her heart palpitations, explaining, “I have found that my aqua vitae, which I customarily distill, can be very useful for the same complaint when diluted and tempered with cinnamon water, and it strengthens the heart and vital forces wonderfully.” Finally, Anna sent Maria a recipe she had received in a recent letter from her mother, “famed to be a certain remedy for gout,” from which Maria’s husband, the Emperor Maximilian II, reportedly suffered. Two weeks later, Maria sent a return letter thanking the electress for “the powder for all sorts of poisons, also the water for dizziness and the recipe for the same, likewise the aqua vitae for heart palpitations that Your Dearest distilled herself and finally the recipe for gout that Your Dearest received from her beloved mother. And we have shown all of these things to our husband, the Holy Roman Emperor.” Anna’s letter to Maria was carefully crafted to appeal to the emperor and empress in every way possible. Her aqua vitae was sent in a golden saucer, rather than its usual glass jar, and her powder for poisons made its way to Vienna in a carefully sealed box (to prevent tampering). She sent neither letter

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nor medications directly to the empress, but rather through a trusted contact, Brigitta Trautson, who, she instructed in a separate note, was to “present them on our behalf with the most humble, proper reverence.” She also addressed Maria using the personal pronoun “I” (Jch), rather than the royal “we,” reflecting Maria’s higher rank. In addition to these symbols of grandeur, humility, and loyalty, Anna highlighted her direct involvement in the process of making and administering medicines. She accentuated that she had found her remedies successful on previous patients—“many notable people”—and mentioned that she had distilled the aqua vitae herself. The emphasis suggests that Anna expected her direct involvement to improve the medicines’ worth in Maria’s eyes—and indeed the empress explicitly expressed her delight in the aqua vitae “that Your Dearest distilled herself.” This focus on making remedies, which Anna sometimes termed medical “handiwork,” was a thread that wove through every aspect of her expansive medical practice. From the mid- 1550s until her death in 1585, Anna slowly built up an elaborate pharmaceutical operation. She had distilling houses and herb gardens at two palaces, Dresden and Annaburg, as well as a host of servants employed in helping her make medicaments. Her medicinal waters, especially the yellow and white aqua vitae that she had learned from Dorothea of Mansfeld, were much sought after, and she supplied friendly nobles and acquaintances with hundreds of jars a year. At her death, her stores at Annaburg alone contained 181 different types of distilled waters, catalogued alphabetically, as well as thirty- two medicinal oils, six vinegars, and two jars of rose honey. Inventories of her living quarters and library depicted cabinets brimming with medical ingredients and shelves full of medical books. Anna’s letters show that she involved herself directly in the manufacture of these remedies, in every step of the process—from the gathering of herbs to the making of remedies. In addition to her larger distilling houses, her quarters at the princely hunting lodge of Augustusburg contained a small, private kitchen for her medical work. Although Anna’s approach to medicine in many respects resembled that of her mentor, Dorothea of Mansfeld, it also had fundamental differences. In contrast to Dorothea, whose social circumstances were relatively fragile, Anna stood in a position of enormous strength. As the daughter of King Christian III of Denmark, she was born to the uppermost echelons of aristocratic society, a position that was enhanced by her thirty- year marriage to Elector August of Saxony. Rather than occupy the liminal position of a widow, Anna spent her entire adult life as a beloved housewife and princely consort. As August turned Saxony into one of the most economically and politically stable principalities in the Holy Roman Empire and Dresden became a vi-

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brant Protestant Renaissance court, Anna capably managed the royal household and eventually oversaw Saxony’s goods and services industries. She accompanied August on his hunting excursions and political visits, and the pair spent so little time apart in the course of their long marriage that no letters exist between them. So intimate were the spouses, according to legend, that Anna insisted on washing August’s underclothes herself, by hand, and they always requested shared sleeping quarters on state visits and hunting trips. Together, they became a part of Saxony’s national imagination: “Later, less peaceful generations have looked back longingly at the days of Elector August as the good old days, when ‘father’ August and ‘mother’ Anna toiled paternalistically amidst the people.” Katrin Keller has demonstrated the extent to which August and Anna of Saxony epitomized the Lutheran ideal of Hausvater and Hausmutter (master and mistress of the house) and, by extension, Landesvater and Landesmutter (father and mother of the country). Anna’s medical endeavors were easily incorporated into this broader image of “Mother Anna.” As in the case of Dorothea of Mansfeld, funeral orations proclaimed her delight in caring for the poor, and her later biographers emphasized her willingness to send medical advice and aqua vitae to patients rich and poor, noble and common. Karl Sturmhoefel summarized Anna’s medicine in 1905 much as her eulogists had 350 years earlier: “One is amazed at how she found the time to answer the countless requests for healing that arrived from royal personages and private people, from high and low.” Unlike Dorothea, however, she rarely portrayed her practice as dedicated to the care of the poor. Her papers provide ample evidence that she provided the local poor with medicines, but charity played a very small role in her self- representation as a healer. Instead, she placed her medicine far more overtly into two other sixteenth- century traditions: courtly fascination with hands-on scientific inquiry and the Lutheran focus on household gender roles. This chapter demonstrates that rather than being merely excused by her high status, Anna’s extensive medical endeavors played an integral part in her reputation as “Mother Anna.” The Danish Dairy Maid Both in her medical practice and in her broader day- to-day life, Anna was subject to a different set of norms than Dorothea of Mansfeld. Wed to August when she was sixteen, Anna spent most of her life in the position of princely consort, dying half a year before August. In the course of their thirty- sevenyear marriage, she bore fifteen children, only four of whom survived to adult-

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hood (three girls and one boy). Whereas Dorothea, as a widow, no longer had any official duties in the time of her most prolific therapeutic activities, Anna’s medicine was subsumed into her larger role as the wife of an elector. By all accounts, her marriage to August was not always a peaceful one—August’s choleric temper was widely known. Nevertheless, Anna and August functioned as a symbiotic pair, using the strength of their union to improve Saxony’s political and economic clout and to establish the principality as the most powerful Protestant state in the Holy Roman Empire. When Anna wed August of Saxony in the fall of 1548, she brought an adherence to strict Lutheran beliefs to the marriage. Her father, King Christian III of Denmark, had become an avid follower of Luther’s teachings during his education at the court of Brandenburg. With the help of Luther’s close friend, theologian Johannes Bugenhagen, Christian introduced the Reformation into Denmark. Anna’s mother, Dorothea, born a duchess of SaxonyLauenburg, was known to be strong- willed and politically engaged on behalf of the Lutheran aristocracy. Neither Christian nor Dorothea spoke a word of Danish, and their court mirrored the German Protestant courts of the Holy Roman Empire. As was customary, religious instruction formed the backbone of the entire household. Christian III famously read the Bible every morning in a loud voice, and he rigorously studied the texts of Luther and his followers. Dorothea of Denmark was also an eager reader of the Bible and the Psalms, and Anna certainly followed her parents in this practice: about 90 percent of the books she owned were religious in nature, as was the case for most noblewomen. Little is known of Anna’s remaining education, although one can piece together its basic outlines. Christian III is said to have encouraged his two sons and three daughters in discussions of religion, biblical history, and mathematics; he also greatly admired the mechanical arts, astronomy, and alchemy, and he owned a large library. To what extent any of these factors influenced Anna is impossible to know, although the inventory of her books includes several biblical histories and chronicles. Her later documents indicate that, at the very least, she was taught sewing, reading, music, and basic handwriting and arithmetic. It is quite possible that this training also included medicine: her biographers claim that her medical practice began under the tutelage of Cornelius van der Hansfort, a physician at Christian III’s court with whom Anna kept close ties. Given her young age at the time of her marriage, however, it is difficult to judge how in-depth this instruction might have been; her own letters generally name Dorothea of Mansfeld as her mentor. In any case, most of her training as a young woman seems to have

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been of a practical nature: she apparently knew some Danish, but she did not learn Latin or Greek. By the time she married August as a sixteen- year- old, Anna had been taught primarily the skills specifically expected of a Lutheran noblewoman: reading the Bible and running a household. August of Saxony was also brought up Lutheran, albeit far less rigidly than Anna—a point that became significant in the later years of his reign. While his mother, Katharina of Mecklenburg, converted to Lutheranism in the 1520s, his father, Duke Heinrich the Pious of Saxony (1478–1541), did not become openly Lutheran until the 1530s. August’s early education took place in Catholic Prague at the court of King Ferdinand of Hungary and Bohemia (later Emperor Ferdinand I), where he made a lasting friendship with Ferdinand’s son Maximilian, the future Emperor Maximilian II. Returning to his father’s court in Freiberg, he was taught by the humanist scholar Johann Rivius, and he embraced the more ecumenical Philippist branch of Lutheranism until his later life. August did not distinguish himself as a young man. He ran up large debts in his capacity as administrator of Merseburg and eventually gave up the estate in 1545 to join the court of his brother Moritz in Dresden. Following his marriage to Anna in 1548, August received a post in Weissenfels, where he and Anna ran into similar financial difficulties. Their situation changed dramatically when Moritz died without an heir, leaving August the electorship, but also 1.7 million gulden in debts and many political enemies. August and Anna thus focused their efforts on stabilizing Saxony’s economic and political situation. After securing his position as elector and leading the negotiations in the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, August turned to domestic policy. While his foreign policy has been criticized as “overly careful” and “somewhat idealess,” August is generally credited with turning Saxony into a model of financial success. In an attempt to combat the widespread poverty and joblessness that had resulted from the ongoing religious wars, August strengthened the agriculture, dairy, and mining industries; he also strongly promoted forestry, likely connected to his well- documented passion for hunting. Anna proved such a shrewd financial mind that August gave her oversight over Saxony’s agricultural and animal husbandry industries in 1568, responsibilities that, as Ursula Schlude has shown, had many similarities with her medical practice. Their activities in managing Saxony mirrored the managing of a profitable household; Anna, who decided to sell for profit the surplus fruit and dairy products produced at the princely palaces of Dresden and Annaburg, was nicknamed “the Danish dairymaid” and “the apple and pear woman.” This intense and localized agenda of strengthening the inner

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workings of Saxony led to the establishment of “Father August” and “Mother Anna” as dramatis personae (see figures 10 and 11). If August and Anna’s housekeeping talents placed them as the perfect Lutheran Landesvater and Landesmutter, their court life revealed them to be the perfect Lutheran courtiers. With Lutheranism well established in Saxony for the first time, princes began to incorporate elements of Renaissance Italian mannerism into a Lutheran framework. Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly has shown Moritz’s and August’s attempts to combine a Lutheran cultural tradition with Italian Renaissance art and architecture at the Dresden court. Both brothers promoted the performance of Lutheran music and biblical drama, and court festivals and tournaments included Lutheran symbolism and antipopish satire. The elaborate freestanding tomb August commissioned for Moritz, moreover, portrayed Moritz as the champion of Lutheranism. At the same time, both brothers sought ties to Italian Renaissance art, architecture, and music. One of the many Italian musicians at Moritz’s court, Antonio Scandello (1517–80), became August’s Kapellmeister (music director) in 1568, the first Italian Kapellmeister at any German court. August commissioned two brothers from Brescia, Benedetto and Gabriele Thola, to design Moritz’s tomb; he supported Italian painters; and he brought Italian engineers and architects to redesign Dresden and Annaburg in Italian Renaissance style and to build the hunting lodge Augustusburg. This merging of Lutheran and Italian traditions reflected a new style of court culture, doctrinally sectarian but open to worldly fashions and trends. Experimentalism at the Court of Dresden Given Anna and August’s close partnership in other matters, it is not surprising that they also shared an interest in working with their hands. Hands-on exploration of nature was quickly becoming a courtly fad in the later sixteenth century, and in the relatively peaceful years of August’s reign, a new interest in natural knowledge blossomed at the Dresden court. As outlined by Bruce Moran, August was an active member of a circle of Protestant princes, centered at the courts of Saxony and Hesse-Kassel, who engaged actively in the study of nature and the technical arts. Landgrave Wilhelm IV of HesseKassel, for example, was well- known for his mathematical and astronomical experiments, especially his accurate measurements of the new star of 1572 (famously also measured by another nobleman, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe). He also performed and documented a set of medical experiments on dogs in 1580. August shared Wilhelm’s interest in cosmology, and the

f i g u r e 1 0 . Electress Anna of Saxony. Portrait by Lucas Cranach the Younger, oil on canvas, after 1569. By permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

f i g u r e 1 1 . Elector August of Saxony. Portrait by Lucas Cranach the Younger, oil on canvas, after 1569. By permission of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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princes frequently exchanged and compared cosmological data and measurements. For his part, August was an experienced mathematician and avid surveyor; he surveyed portions of Saxony’s landholdings himself, a monument to the peaceful expansion of Saxony’s borders that took place during his reign. He exchanged surveying and technical instruments with Landgrave Wilhelm and with King Christian III of Denmark (his father- in-law), and he involved himself directly in the fashioning and improvement of technical equipment, including clocks, pedometers, and odometers. Gardening was another of August’s great passions, and in 1571 he published a small, technical manual on growing and grafting fruit trees that cited his own experience. He was also an experienced ivory turner and insisted that his son, the future Elector Christian I, learn the art of turning ivory. Like Landgrave Wilhelm, moreover, August had an avid interest in alchemy and medicine, although his practical interests centered more on the former. The Kunstkammer (cabinet of arts) August founded at the Dresden palace is a direct testament to his interests in experimentation and natural inquiry. As Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly has suggested, it was as much a cabinet of science (Wissenschaftskammer) as a cabinet of wonders or curiosities (Wunderkammer). Situated centrally in the Dresden palace, alongside his and Anna’s living quarters, the Kunstkammer comprised seven rooms containing vast collections of instruments, books, and tools. In contrast, it had relatively few works of art or objects displayed solely for their splendor, although many of the tools were beautiful as well as functional. The cabinet also contained a number of pieces of turned ivory and wood, many of the ivory pieces turned by August himself. Desks situated in various rooms of the Kunstkammer, complete with paper and inkwells, suggest that the room was intended not just as a museum but also as a working room. Sven Dupré and Michael Korey caution that there is no evidence any program of scientific research was actually carried out in there or that the scientific instruments were intended for anything but display, but the Kunstkammer was certainly practically oriented and reflected the hands-on nature of August’s interest in cartography, mapmaking, and mathematics. An alchemical laboratory built behind the Dresden palace, called the “Probierhaus” or “Goldhaus,” signaled his participation in the practice of alchemy. Just as he required his son to learn the art of turning ivory, August seems to have expected that his wife would act as a practitioner. In 1572, he had the princely hunting lodge at Lochau torn down and rebuilt (see figures 12 and 13). The new, expanded palace, which he called Annaburg, included a large distilling house for Anna’s medical work, as well as an extensive herb garden and Saxony’s first palace apothecary. A later observer noted that the

f i g u r e 1 2 . Village of Lochau, renamed Annaburg. Pen- and- ink drawing by Wilhelm Dilich, c. 1626–29. Courtesy of Widener Library, Harvard University.

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f i g u r e 1 3 . Annaburg, depicted in a pen- and- ink drawing by Wilhelm Dilich, c. 1626–29. The small house (e) behind and to the right of the main palace is identified as “Electress Anna’s Laboratory.” Courtesy of Widener Library, Harvard University.

distilling ovens in Anna’s laboratory were of a particularly marvelous nature, topped with life- sized likenesses of a variety of animals, including horses, lions, a monkey, and a dragon. Johann Kunckel von Löwenstern, who came across the ovens long after the laboratory had been destroyed in the Thirty Years War, found their magnificence remarkable given Anna’s reputation for thriftiness. In this sense, her distilling house mirrored August’s Kunstkammer in its inclusion of wondrous items that were also practical. The outlines of Anna’s practical endeavors also mirrored August’s: like other investigations into natural processes, especially alchemy, medicine required careful attention to detail and technique. Moran has demonstrated the importance attached to appraising recipes for chemical medicine at the court of Landgrave Moritz of Hesse (1572– 1632), methodologies similar to those Anna used several decades earlier. Like August, moreover, Anna experimented in a number of different practical areas. Ursula Schlude has noted that in her management of Saxony’s agriculture, she tried out various kinds of dungs on different fields to see which would function as the best fertil-

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izer. She also tried different forms of grafting and avidly sought unusual plants, grafts, and herbs. Her interest in gardening techniques was nearly as acute as her interest in medicine, and she received frequent gifts of flora as well as advice on how, when, and where to plant specific specimens. In one instance, Brigitta Trautson sent Anna some flower bulbs from Turkey with the instruction that, “with all due respect,” the bulbs would bloom more sweetly if covered with “a good rotten manure.” Even aside from her medicine, Anna, like her husband, involved herself with the messy details of hands-on practice. Learning the Handiwork Anna’s most ardent efforts were undeniably focused on medicine. The thirtyyear series of her letters, beginning in 1554, provides a detailed picture of her growing expertise in medical practice. As we shall see, Anna was very concerned with learning the correct technique of making medicine as well as establishing the finished product’s properties and application. From at least the mid- 1550s, she attempted to gain extensive personal expertise in making remedies on a trial- and- error basis. As discussed in the previous chapter, she learned how to make Dorothea of Mansfeld’s white and yellow aqua vitae, which became her most beloved medicine and a staple for which she became even more well- known than Dorothea. Anna claimed that the distilled waters strengthened “all natural bodily energy and senses,” and she recommended them as a “preservative against stroke and a restorative in fainting spells.” She also touted their usefulness in improving memory, reviving weak newborn infants and women worn out by childbirth, and as a remedy for dizziness, epidemic disease, stroke, epilepsy, dropsy, plague, chest congestion, heart palpitations, evil stomach, constipation, and eye pain. Such impressive healing powers did not come easily, and the process of learning how to make the aqua vitae was far from straightforward. A letter exchange with Dorothea of Mansfeld in 1557 paints a vivid portrait of Anna’s early difficulties in making the very remedy for which she later became renowned: “We put all the things that belong in the aqua vitae in it,” she reported, “and the aqua vitae in the jar bubbles and froths from [the ingredients], as it tends to do. Now, we remember well how you taught us a year ago what to do, and in what manner we poured out half of the jar and replenished it with another aqua vitae.” She asked for Dorothea’s written advice “in all haste” on how to proceed, “because we do not have any more of that aqua vitae, and we do not know if it would be proper for us to pour bad brandy wine on the [ingredients].” Anna’s letter, written mid- process, underscores both her basic familiarity with the procedure of distillation and the care she

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took to learn the various twists in the correct implementation of a recipe. Her description of this process closely matches the directions for making yellow aqua vitae that her daughter Elisabeth received from Anna of Hohenlohe years later: When one distills the white aqua vitae, one should pay attention to when the white water begins to come out, which is very bitter; one should take the distilled aquavit off, and earlier one should have a brandy wine distilled . . . three times, and [one] should put the brandy wine in a jar, and then take the aquavit that is in the [distillation] flask . . . and pour it hot from the flask, as hot as it comes from the [distilling] oven, and should pour it in the jar where the brandy wine is, and whenever one pours something in [the jar], one should cover it well until the frothing dissipates. One should let this stand for eight days, and it will become nicely yellow.

The consistency of this description with the procedure Anna described provides a window on knowledge that generally remains hidden in the exchange of medical recipes: techniques, as well as written documents, were passed on. In learning these techniques, Anna looked to Dorothea of Mansfeld as her mentor, as discussed in chapter 3. Although her status far outstripped Dorothea’s, Anna explicitly used the language of the schoolroom or apprenticeship to refer to their medical relationship. In 1559, she sent Anna of Hohenlohe a glass of yellow aqua vitae, requesting only that she “try it and test if we have learned our schooling [schulrecht] well” and tell her if it was as good as Dorothea’s aqua vitae. In 1564, she sought the approval of Dorothea herself, writing, “we are sending you, as our teacher [lehrmeister], two glasses of yellow and white aqua vitae as a test, with the gracious request that you let us know how you like it and if we have done it properly.” Anna’s choice of the word Lehrmeister in this setting is striking. An ambiguous word that could mean “teacher” but also invoked a master- apprenticeship relationship, Lehrmeister implied a hierarchy of knowledge. That Anna deliberately placed herself on the lower end of this hierarchy indicates the extent to which she respected Dorothea’s medical expertise. One can only conjecture how and when Dorothea and Anna became acquainted and when Anna’s instruction in medical practice began. Both women were friendly with Margareta of Watzdorf, the abbess of Weissenfels, herself a medical practitioner, and Anna and August spent the first years of their marriage in Weissenfels, from 1548 to 1553. Whether or not Margareta proved the matchmaker for the relationship between Dorothea and Anna, the two women must have encountered each other somehow in those years, as they were definitely medical collaborators by 1555, when Anna was twenty-

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three and Dorothea sixty- two. A number of references in Anna’s letters indicate that she gained much of her practical experience by having Dorothea physically demonstrate things to her, which suggests that the two women met before August became elector of Saxony in 1553, when Anna’s movement was less restricted. Anna continued to assign great value to Dorothea’s direct, hands-on mentorship of her medical work. At least once or twice a year, she sent requests for Dorothea to visit and nearly always reminded her to bring medical recipes or Kunstbücher with her. Dorothea was often unable to oblige owing to prior commitments or travels, but much of her early instruction of Anna seems to have taken place face- to-face. An exchange between the two women in the spring of 1564 demonstrates the extent to which learning proper techniques required this person- to-person demonstration. In a postscript to a letter written on March 14, Anna related that although she had made a “sweet- smelling green salve” with Dorothea the year before, she had difficulty replicating the procedure, and the salve was “separating and curdling.” Dorothea’s reply, dated March 26, provided the advice: “Your Noble Grace writes that the salve is separating and remaining thick at the bottom and thin on top. I think this comes from not stirring it enough, for as soon as it is taken from the fire, one should stir it in a copper kettle with a wooden spoon, the way one stirs saffron, for at least two hours. If it doesn’t become properly cool and shiny in two hours, one should stir it another two hours. Afterward, one should not let it stand in a warm room, but rather in an unheated storeroom [Kammer].” It seems that Anna had not received these directives two weeks later, for she wrote again on April 16, “Although we have received the recipe from you on how to make the salve, it did not work for us the first time. Perhaps the problem is that we no longer know how to do the handiwork [handt arbeit].” Because she knew Dorothea was traveling and would be unable to come help her, she asked Dorothea to “send us the recipe, with the whole process of how one should go about the handiwork once again clearly and comprehensively written down, so that if necessary, we can make the salve properly ourselves.” Having the recipe, then, was not enough—the tacit knowledge of how to do the handiwork provided the true means of turning recipe into remedy. The term “handiwork” reflects the key role skillful know- how played in making remedies, the kind of proficiency that Anna expressed the greatest interest in gaining. While it is likely that a servant would have done much of the actual work of stirring a salve for four hours, both Anna and Dorothea seem to have possessed direct, hands-on experience. In describing their medical activities, the two women generally wrote as if they carried out the procedures themselves, and it is very difficult to discern to what extent they were aided by

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others. Whatever her actual level of manual work, Anna explicitly connected her own person to the labor involved in making medications. As discussed in chapter 1, this interest in hands-on practice has generally been linked to artisanal categories of knowledge, and there is no doubt that artisans’ focus on experience and practice resonated widely in early forms of natural inquiry. Anna’s emphasis on “handiwork” was similar to the language used by surgeon Hieronymus Brunschwig in his masterpiece on distillation, which, he said, included remedies “that I practiced and learned from many authors [auctoribus] and empirics [Emberici] and thus learned and did the handwork through my daily practice, use, and practica.” As Pamela Smith points out, even learned physicians began to place more emphasis on hands-on practice after anatomist Andreas Vesalius published his masterpiece, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body, 1543), in which he depicted himself as actively engaged in dissection. As I argued in chapter 1, it would be too simplistic to attribute elite women’s interest in learning the handiwork of healing to artisanal influences, given the long tradition of noblewomen as medical practitioners independent of artisanal circles. Even the word Anna used for handiwork, handt arbeit, differed semantically from Brunschwig’s word for the same processes, Hantwirckung (derivative of Handwerk). The former connoted a higher form of working with the hands—the detail work on embroidery, painting, or any activity that required a high level of skill and talent—while the latter referred more often to artisanal and craft labor. Despite these semantic differences, the similarities between the concepts Anna and Brunschwig conveyed are striking. Alongside its place as a marker of artisanal knowledge, handiwork represented the key to successful practice in the very highest cultural strata. “Potency and Properties” Anna’s case shows that elite women participated in the meticulous work required to gain practical expertise. Learning to make medicines was a slow process that occurred in stages and sometimes involved mistakes. Anna had mastered the aqua vitae at least by 1559, when Agnes of Solms praised her as “a meister alongside my mother of Mansfeld,” but she still had difficulty with the sweet- smelling green salve in 1564. In 1568, Sabine of Hesse evaluated a quince tonic Anna had made from Sabine’s own recipe with the effusive praise, “Your Dearest has now learned it better than I can do it,” indicating that the tonic, too, took some time to learn. At least by the early 1560s, Anna had become confident enough in her practice that she began to teach others. In 1563, for instance, she accompanied a gift of distillation equipment

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to Duchess Anna of Bavaria with detailed instructions on how and when to prepare the herbs for distillation: “the roots that Your Dearest should put in the aqua vitae should be coarsely chopped, and Your Dearest has plenty of time to put the roots in the brandy wine so that they can steep. Likewise, Your Dearest should also chop the herbs coarsely, not too fine, and put them in.” As she became more proficient in the process of making medicines, Anna began to emphasize careful attention to every step of the “handiwork.” A letter to Margareta Watzdorf, the abbess of Weissenfels, gave particularly detailed instructions for a new remedy for the falling sickness. “We have just been informed of a certain and necessary art,” she wrote, “for which one requires the caul that is on the foal of a horse or donkey when it comes out of its mother, which one must gather immediately, before the mother gobbles it up.” Cauls, part of the amniotic membrane occasionally found on the head of humans and animals at birth, were considered to have very powerful magical and medical properties. Informing Margareta that “we would very much like to try this art,” but explaining that “we have no breeding mares here, and also no donkeys,” Anna asked for the abbess’s help, since “such things are easier to find in your area, and it is now almost the time of year when mother horses and donkeys foal.” She asked Margareta to have people go to nearby breeding farms and gather the cauls “before they are ripped away and gobbled up by the mother horse, as mentioned above. . . . And as soon as they bring you a membrane, you should write down carefully if it comes from a male or a female and from a donkey or a horse, so that one knows the difference between them.” Margareta should then hang the cauls to dry on a “wooden skewer” and send “as many as possible” to her. Moreover, Anna continued, she should take two cauls from donkey foals, “chop them very finely, and pour over them two Maß [3.68 liters] of milk taken from a donkey mare who has just foaled.” She should mix these together, let them sit four or five days, “distill them to water,” and send Anna this water “well sealed,” along with the dried cauls. Finally, Anna cautioned, Margareta should be sure to write on the jars of water which came from a male and which from a female foal, so that Anna knew whether to “use them on a male person or a female person.” The letter to Margareta illustrates that taking care with the proper handiwork had a significance that went well beyond the concern simply to produce a smooth salve or a tasty quince tonic. Remedies were used on people, and doing the work improperly, or neglecting to label jars correctly, could result in grave injury or death. When Anna had difficulties making the sweet- smelling salve work properly, Dorothea of Mansfeld warned her not to try it on August “unless Your Grace has tried it on some other person first, for it is a very strong salve and not to be recommended to delicate people untried.” If the

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salve worked on the test subject, “then it can be used without further worry.” While Anna’s curdled salve was not necessarily harmful, Dorothea advised her not to take any chances. Anna carried this apprehension about possible negative effects into her own practice. She was very careful to make sure she had all necessary information about the properties of a remedy and its ingredients. In a letter to Electress Amalia, second wife of Elector Friedrich III of the Palatinate, for example, she reported that she had tried a recipe for egg oil that “Your Dearest taught us how to make, among other very good and useful arts.” The recipe had “worked very well and turned out beautifully,” and she asked Amalia to tell her “what sort of potency and properties this oil has, and how one should use the same.” So important was this information that Anna requested Amalia write it in her “own hand, or otherwise confidentially in writing.” In another case, after receiving some medications from Anna Maria of Württemberg, Anna replied, “Even though Your Dearest sent us the swallow water and all sorts of juices, indeed we do not really know how and for what purpose one should use them.” She asked Anna Maria to send the missing information with her messenger. Upon learning that Johann Friedrich of Saxony’s wife had a surplus of “scorpion oil,” she asked her to “send us a little bit, and explain what is in such an oil and what it is good for.” Just as Anna was very careful to make sure she knew the exact properties of medicines, she also began to develop an intimate knowledge of the ingredients that went into them. In the spring of 1568, she started an herb garden behind her quarters at the Dresden palace. From a number of physicians and apothecaries she requested “all kinds of beautiful and strange plants, marvelous herbs and flowers” for her to “plant and cultivate.” The books in her library included three printed herbals and two books of natural history: at least one of these, a German translation of Pietro Mattioli’s illustrated commentary on Dioscorides, was sent for the specific purpose of assisting her in setting up the herb garden. Anna also made a decided attempt to increase her herbal knowledge in other ways. In a letter to Dorothea of Mansfeld, she enclosed “a little herb,” asking her “because you are familiar with many herbs, to let us know . . . if this is the real haircap moss [widerthon] or not.” Another letter pressed Brigitta Trautson for exact information on an unknown herb: “Recently you taught us a certain Kunst, with all due respect, for hemorrhoids. Now, we can no longer recall the herb from which one is supposed to distill the water” for the hemorrhoids. “Thus,” Anna requested, “we ask you graciously to explain to us all aspects of this Kunst, especially whether the herb must be dug up and distilled at a specific time, and what it is called in Latin.” The last request was a precaution, so that “if the herb has another

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name in these parts, we can ask someone what kind of herb it is.” German names for plants varied from region to region, and in elite spheres, Latin was the easiest method of assuring accuracy. With the Latin designation, Anna could have “our beloved lord and husband’s court doctors” translate the word into an ingredient she would recognize. If the inventory of her estate is any indication, Anna possessed an expansive command of medical ingredients of all sorts—herbal, animal, and mineral—by her death. A vaulted room in Annaburg seems to have served as her workroom in the last years of her life. Along with an image of her daughter Elisabeth and a cloth painted with the Danish coat of arms, the vault contained a desk and a bookshelf with 352 books, both printed and manuscript. Under this “pile of books” were four cabinets with drawers full of medical ingredients, among them all sorts of flowers and roots; stocks of garlic, elder, cardamom, quince pits, rhubarb, nutmeg, and wormwood; exotic ingredients such as myrrh, human fat, unicorn horn, agate, castoreum of beaver, mastix, theriac, and bone marrow; and six small boxes full of substances about which the scribes could only comment, “one does not know what it is.” In addition to the herbals mentioned earlier, her bookshelves contained at least fifty manuscript medical recipe collections, as well as printed books on distillation, surgery, anatomy, and the complexions. She also owned five books of Paracelsian medicine and five books by the popular medical author Walter Hermann Ryff, including three copies of Ryff ’s Kurtz Handbüchlin vnnd Experiment viler Artzneyen (Short Little Handbook and Recipes for Many Medicines, 1563). Anna’s knowledge of the components that went into medicines was sensory as well as encyclopedic. In 1565 she sent a letter to Barbara of Lignitz regarding an eye water Barbara had given her, along with the recipe. She was puzzled, she wrote, because “We think that the eye water contains mastix or myrrh, which is not written down in the recipe.” She asked Barbara to let her know “if it perhaps was left out” of the recipe “by mistake.” Both mastix and myrrh were strong- smelling substances, so it is not surprising that Anna noticed something was amiss. Her questioning of Barbara further demonstrates her concern with getting every element of a recipe correct. In addition to asking for information, Anna demonstrated her own familiarity with herbal ingredients in a letter to Elisabeth of Mecklenburg, to whom she sent medical advice and medications in 1565 to protect from the approaching plague epidemic. Among other things, she sent her famous Giftpulver (poison antidote) at the same time clarifying, “The root that goes in the aforementioned powder, about which Your Dearest has doubts, is also called polypody or stone licorice. It likes to grow in stony places, does not lie deep in the earth,

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is very knobby, yellow on the inside, sweet in flavor, and not very thick, has leaves or greenery like young ferns.” She concluded, “[it] is such a well- known root that Your Dearest, in our estimation, needs no further directives.” Anna took as much care in administering her remedies as she did in making them. Aside from the aqua vitae, her most popular remedies were her Giftpulver (to protect against poison and plague) and her Kinderbalsam, children’s balsam (actually a water, used both for curing children and for increasing women’s fertility). Whenever she sent a medication as a gift, she either wrote directions for its use directly into her letter or enclosed them on a separate sheet of paper. The instructions for her famous yellow and white aqua vitae remained constant from letter to letter: one should mix equal parts of crumbs from old, dry bread and crushed sugar, moisten them with the aqua vitae, and take this mixture “evenings and mornings, when necessary, approximately [the size of] one walnut at a time.” To treat dizziness or fainting, one should “use it without the bread crumbs or sugar, but rather pour one drop or a few into the sick person, and also rub the arteries, the heart, and the nose with a little bit of it.” Anna often explained that both the yellow and the white aqua vitae were to be taken in the same manner as a general “preservative against stroke and a restorative in fainting spells,” and they strengthened “all natural bodily energy and senses.” However, the yellow aqua vitae was “not as potent as the white,” and thus “also not as harsh and more comfortable for daily use.” Generally, she sent these instructions only the first time she sent a gift of the distilled waters, a pattern that she followed with her instructions for administering other medications as well. In many cases, Anna tailored medicines to specific illnesses. For the difficult pregnancy of Wilhelm the Younger of Oppersdorf ’s wife, she sent an electuary for the woman to take in the evenings and mornings, “as much as a large hazelnut, and she should not rise [in the morning] before taking it.” She also sent “fortification” to be taken the second or third day after starting on the electuary, as much as would fit on “the point of a knife” (ein gutte Messerspitz). Furthermore, she sent a “little glass of [distilled] water,” from which Wilhelm’s wife should drink twice a week, “each time one spoonful” once she got up in the morning, “no matter whether she took the electuary [or not].” Finally, she sent a plaster that Wilhelm’s wife should “spread over the whole body around the belly button and wear daily.” All of these remedies, she assured Wilhelm, had “worked for many women who used them,” and she asked only that he “let us know whether these medicines worked for your wife.” Thus the practice of medicine involved more than simply having a recipe or learning how to make it. It also encompassed the knowledge of all the

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properties of a remedy’s ingredients and the correct way, in both method and dose, of administering it to a patient. Noblewomen like Anna drew most of their medical knowledge from empirical experiences of success, but this does not mean that their practice was simplistic. Lynette Hunter has argued that elite women in England, in order to make their medical practice acceptable, depicted it as an amusing leisure activity. Anna’s case shows an entirely different picture: although she also mentioned the pleasure the practice of medicine gave her, she approached healing with the utmost sincerity and caution. Development and Experimentation Once Anna had become comfortable with the handiwork of making medicines, she began to make mechanical improvements to her distillation equipment. Frustrated by the poor quality of glass distillation flasks made in Saxony, in 1568 she sought help from Landgravine Sabine of Hesse to acquire distillation flasks made in the superior Hessian glassworks, as discussed in chapter 1. She politely requested that Sabine help her receive “twenty- five distillation flasks and tops,” which were to be blown “following the directives of the enclosed sample [Muster] and explanation.” Sabine obligingly had two flasks made and sent them to Anna as a trial, explaining that they were the largest the workers’ ovens could handle, and “if Your Dearest wishes the distillation flasks to be bigger, they will have to make the glass oven bigger.” Anna replied that she was very pleased with the flasks “in their size and proportion, especially that the glass is so wonderfully sturdy and even and the pieces also fit into one another very well.” Although she did not wish the glasses to be made any larger, she said, she did worry that “the tops fit a little too tightly over the necks, and if we were to glue between the tops and the flasks with linen, paper, and clay, the flasks would not fit over the neck of the top properly, and the vapors would not rise to the top properly.” She thus asked Sabine to have the glassworkers make “the necks of the tops a bit longer, so that the flask up at the top goes over them and sticks into them a few fingerbreadths.” (See figure 14.) The resulting glasses pleased Anna so much that she soon asked Sabine to have the glassworks make jars in which to transport her aqua vitae; she complained that the poorly made glass jars from Saxony broke easily when sent over long distances, “often causing us great harm.” Apparently, the Hessian jars satisfied Anna well enough the first time, as an ensuing letter thanked Sabine for the forty glasses that had arrived. Her requests for flasks and jars continued for the next fifteen years; in one instance, when a jar made in Saxony containing aqua vitae intended as a gift for Sabine had broken on

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f i g u r e 1 4 . Distillation top (Helm), as depicted in Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi de compositis, 1512. Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London.

its way, Anna wrote apologetically that the accident showed “how very thin are the glasses they make in these parts.” Thus, she told Sabine, she would be very grateful for “many strong” Hessian glasses. She also continued to ask for improvements to the equipment. In 1573, she reported that several of the distillation flasks had broken “owing to the negligence of our servants.” Reiterating that the flasks “are very suitable and useful for our distillery,” she asked Sabine to have twelve more made. This time, however, Sabine should “have the glassworkers told that they should make [the flasks] just as thick in the stomach as they are up at the neck, so that they can be used longer and we may pester Your Dearest less often for them.” In her evaluation of her own distillation equipment, her adjustment of the distillation flasks’ form, and her continual requests for the high- quality Hessian glass, Anna revealed a very close involvement in the practical and technical requirements of distillation. Glass distillation apparatus, while widely regarded as superior, broke easily. Because most people could not afford to constantly replace glass flasks and tops, alembics and curcubits tended to be made out of some kind of metal, particularly copper. Anna’s instructions to have the Hessian glassworkers construct a sturdy glass apparatus represented

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a practical attempt to solve a common problem, and her focus on improvement shows that her interest in practice was not static but rather constantly evolving. While the yearly production of aqua vitae was the most constant and extensive part of Anna’s medical pursuits, she continued to seek new recipes and new ingredients. In 1570, after finding herself unable to replicate a recipe for a plaster and salve that Anna of Hohenlohe had sent, she asked the countess to have the person who had given her the recipe come and show her how to do it, “for without the presence of the person, we have no confidence that this plaster and salve will be effective and help.” In 1585 she asked four different people to procure her “the herb that one calls Tabaco” and explain to her its medicinal properties. She also tried to make improvements to recipes she had already learned. After mastering Sabine of Hesse’s quince tonic, she asked Brigitta Trautson in 1570 to send her a recipe for “the quince juice that you tend to make without sugar” and requested that she “share with us a little glass as a test, so that we can be guided by it and learn from it.” When the estate at Annaburg had a surplus of lemons, she encouraged her servant Katharina Klein to add them to her recipe for quince electuary, telling her, “we have no example [Muster] for incorporating lemons into quince electuaries, but you should think about how to do such a thing and try it with a little bit.” These attempts to modify established recipes may well have been another legacy of Dorothea of Mansfeld’s tutelage; as we have seen, the old countess frequently experimented with new medications. Like Dorothea, Anna did her best to evaluate new remedies before she put them into wider circulation. Despite her dissatisfaction with her attempts to make the plaster and salve recipes that Anna of Hohenlohe had sent, she nevertheless reported, “We intend to have them tried and tested on other people and let you know what happens.” Likewise, she thanked Barbara of Schönberg for a recipe in 1584 with the caveat, “We want to test it on other people first and then try it on ourselves.” In addition to testing her own remedies, Anna sought cures that had been tried by others. After learning in 1582 that Anna of Seebach knew “many proven good medical Künste,” for example, Anna asked the widow to send her “those Künste that you yourself tried on your own body or other people and found to be good.” In order to make sure cures were vetted before putting them into wider application (or using them on her own body), Anna sought empirical evidence of their success. This is not to say that Anna employed modern experimental methods or that she engaged in an early form of the randomized clinical trial. The picture we gain of her practice is rather impressionistic. She did not systematize the results she observed, she did not keep extensive case notes, and she gave little

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sense of what exactly she meant by the “other people” on whom the recipes were to be tested. All we have are her references to certain cases and cures that she included in letters when relevant. However, even these incomplete records give a sense of the dynamic nature of her search for medical knowledge. Although she kept some stock recipes, like the white and yellow aqua vitae from Dorothea of Mansfeld, her expertise was constantly evolving, and she collaborated with other noblewomen in changing and shaping recipes and equipment to make them better. Improving equipment, learning to make new recipes, and testing the results to see if they worked were all key elements in the other hands-on experimental activities at court described earlier. Kunstiliren and Kunstbücher Anna’s medical practice was more than simply suggestive of broader conventions in court culture. She explicitly joined her medical practice directly to other scientific, technical, and alchemical endeavors at court by using the word Kunst to describe all of them. In 1560, on a visit to the town of Annaberg in mountainous southern Saxony, she sent a beseeching letter to Dorothea of Mansfeld: “We have quite a great longing to see you, especially here in the fresh air of the mountains, and we expect you will now be finished making your aqua vitae and other things, so that you will be able to come visit us at once.” She requested that Dorothea leave Mansfeld immediately and join her in Annaberg, and she added the request that Dorothea “bring with you all of your books of skills [Kunstbücher], not only those of medicine, but also the ones you described to us of the art of hunting and all other extraordinary items.” Using Dorothea’s Kunstbücher, she continued, “we will practice our skills together [mit einander kunstiliren] and select the best thereof.”  Converting Kunst into the verb kunstiliren both reinforced the active nature of their practices and related medicine to the other Künste she requested from Dorothea. Beyond her own interest in the Künste, Anna informed Dorothea that her visit would be especially welcome because “our dear beloved husband now also makes use of Kunstbücher.” She assured the countess that she should “bring with you whatever Künste you have without any hesitation. [They] will not be held against you, but rather you will do our friendly dear lord husband a great favor with them.” It is difficult to tell from this statement exactly what kind of Künste had piqued August’s interest. The context suggests medical recipes, which August occasionally sought (although not as avidly as Anna), and he most likely would have been delighted by the remedies for gunshot wounds and erysipelas Dorothea passed on to her son, Count Hans

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Georg. He also was a passionate hunter and certainly would have desired Dorothea’s knowledge about the art of hunting. In any case, Anna’s statement to Dorothea indicates that she and August would be learning the new Künste together. It also suggests that Anna’s interest in experimental practices preceded August’s; she depicted her husband’s ventures into the world of Dorothea’s Kunstbücher as derivative of her own. While this was not true of all of August’s practical endeavors—he had, for example, founded the alchemical Probierhaus in Dresden four years earlier—Anna’s description of his interests as dependent on hers presents a different picture from that normally given of gender relations and the search for natural knowledge. Her direct correlation between August’s Künste and her own, moreover, implies a unity among their practices. This methodological connection between Anna’s Künste and other courtly experimental practices did not necessarily mean that Anna engaged in exactly the same sorts of activities as the prince- practitioners Moran cites, although her interests overlapped with August’s to some extent. Their shared fascination with gardening has already been mentioned, and Anna did her part to aid August’s interest in timepieces: she sought Anna of Hohenlohe’s help in finding a specific kind of clock August desired in 1558 and later exchanged letters directly with the clockmaker. Likewise, mathematician Abraham Ries sent her his book of “the entire teachings of the Pythagorean method of measuring right triangles,” in order, he explained, to show “what sort of secrets are hidden and buried therein, and what great Künste can be constructed from it, and how useful are the mathematical arts.” In general, however, Anna did not show much interest in mechanical matters; Ries’s book did not appear in her library inventory, and she gave no indication in her letters of any great fascination with mathematics, astronomy, or the technical arts. Anna and August’s laboratory interests both overlapped and diverged. Nearly all studies of Anna have argued that she, like August, was an avid alchemical practitioner; indeed, even in the eighteenth century it was rumored that she made “ten marks of Rhenish gold” every day except for Sundays and holidays. Certainly, she was aware of August’s alchemical activities and assisted him to some extent: she thanked Duke Ulrich of Mecklenburg in 1560 for teaching her and August a recipe for sulfur, an ingredient frequently used in alchemical preparations. August, she reported, had “taken it upon himself to prepare the sulfur, following the recipe, but [it] gave off a very evil smell” and she asked Ulrich to confirm whether this “is part of sulfur’s art” or whether something had gone awry. She also reported that August had asked around for gold ore and vitriol—two other alchemical ingredients— for Ulrich, but had found none to date. Like August, she used alchemical

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methods such as distillation and sublimation, and until the renovation of Annaburg, she used the Dresden Probierhaus, the same space in which August conducted alchemical experiments, for some of her medical work. Yet Anna’s personal interest in alchemical processes focused entirely on their medical application. In an exchange with Ulrich of Mecklenburg’s wife Elisabeth, she reminded Elisabeth that “Your Dearest’s beloved lord and husband taught us many good Künste recently in Schwerin . . . especially one for sulfur and a red water that can be extracted from it.” She requested that Elisabeth ask Ulrich on her behalf “how one should use this medicine, and if one can use the powdered sulfur or the red juice extracted from it for epilepsy, and how much one should give to a male or a female person at a time, depending on age.” This case is fairly representative of Anna’s relationship to the alchemical arts. As already stated, she owned books on Paracelsian medicine, which relied heavily on alchemical methodology and imagery. One of the Paracelsian manuscripts was written in the hand of alchemist Marcus Müller, who spent time at the Dresden court. Paracelsian medicine found a particularly warm reception at the German courts, and Anna clearly was no exception. Nevertheless, there is little evidence that Anna considered herself an alchemist. She never identified herself with the practice of alchemy: the word Alchemie never appears in the thousands of her letters I have read, and unlike her husband, she did not own a single book on transmutational alchemy. Moreover, the inventory of Anna’s distilling house in Annaburg is quite different from an inventory of the Dresden Probierhaus taken in 1598. While the distilling ovens and apparatus are similar, Annaburg did not have the same equipment for melting and assaying metals as Dresden. Ubiquitous in the inventory of the Probierhaus, moreover, are containers corroded or calcified by chemical substances; the inventory at Annaburg, in contrast, lists chiefly plant and animal materials. Later rumors about Rhenish gold notwithstanding, there is no evidence that her interest in distillation extended to the transmutation of metals. Although it is impossible to draw a clear line separating alchemy, alchemical medicine, and remedies produced using alchemical processes, we can ascertain that Anna took personal interest in the alchemical experiments at the court of Dresden but focused almost exclusively on their pharmaceutical application. It is not surprising that Anna chose to identify herself with pharmacy rather than alchemy. Transmutational alchemy appeared most frequently in association with male practitioners, and Tara Nummedal has detailed the substantial criticism that female alchemist Anna Zieglerin faced from noblewomen at the court of Duke Julius of Braunschweig. Female alchemical prac-

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titioners existed, Nummedal contends, but women did not frequently identify themselves as alchemists. Nevertheless, it makes little sense to put Anna and August’s interests into separate boxes. Instead, both August’s and Anna’s activities should be viewed within the context of a broader court experimentalism, an umbrella that included both practical alchemy and practical medicine, as well as a wide variety of other Künste. Anna’s collaborative work with Dorothea of Mansfeld, Sabine of Hesse, and Anna of Hohenlohe points to a circle of noblewomen practitioners that mirrored (and interacted with) the prince practitioners discussed by Moran. Including medicine among the sciences studied at court allows us to expand the common image of early modern laboratory practices as masculine and homosocial. Princesses, too, were part of this tradition. Annaburg’s Medical Staff As neatly as Anna’s medical practice fit into the model of experimentation at the Renaissance courts, so too did it match the ideal of a well- run household. Alongside the experimental aspect to Anna’s medical practice, she produced medical remedies on a vast scale for widespread distribution. It was the broader application of her medical skills that won her renown as “Mother Anna.” She did not build this reputation on her own: owing to her travels with August and her fifteen pregnancies, Anna was often prevented from physically attending to the making of remedies. When she was away from her distilling houses and medical kitchens, a cadre of servants oversaw the process. In this sense, Anna’s medical practice was similar to Medici patronage operations in Renaissance Florence, as described by Melissa Bullard. Anna had more duties than she could possibly complete in a day, and she relied on servants to help her with tasks that did not require her immediate presence. No matter who actually made the medications, however, credit for all medical remedies went to Anna, much as Bullard illustrates in the case of Lorenzo de’ Medici and the invisible secretaries and agents who carried out his patronage operations. Yet even when she delegated responsibility, the success of Anna’s practice depended on her abilities to oversee a functioning household, and she kept a tight rein on all medical production. From the 1570s, the main locus for making medications was Annaburg. Appolonia Neefe, wife of the highly regarded court physician Johann Neefe, oversaw the distilling house, which was staffed by both male and female distillers. She was aided by Katharina Klein, widow of physician Balthasar Klein, who also acted as a nursemaid to Anna’s children and provided them with basic medical care. Johann Neefe also helped with the medical aspects

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of childcare. The pharmacist Johann unter der Linden prepared medical compounds, aided by his wife, who took over his apothecary after his death. Other names Anna frequently mentioned in conjunction with medical tasks were Agnes Loserin and Ursula Strang, both widows of barber- surgeons, and Dorothea of Schönberg, daughter of Dorothea of Mansfeld, who acted occasionally as lady- in-waiting. In addition to these women and men, who were mostly commoners of a relatively high social status, Anna sought out helpers to perform the manual work in her distillery. Some of these helpers were men, who also acted as messengers and carried Anna’s distilled waters across Germany. However, many of the distillery workers were women. In 1576 she asked one of her administrators, Andreas Weber, to hire a new woman for the distilling house. She specified that Weber should look for an older woman, preferably a widow, who was hardworking, loyal, and industrious. The woman should come from an honest family, and she should have a good reputation and intellect. She need not, however, know much about distilling. Anna explained, “As long as she is a little bit clever, we personally intend to teach her everything she needs to know.” An unspecified number of other servants, referred to simply as “the boy” (der Knabe) or “the maid” (die Magd, which could refer either to a housekeeping position or to a young girl), rounded out the estate’s medical helpers who fell under Anna’s purview. Anna’s assertion that she personally intended to teach the new distilling woman “everything she needs to know” suggests that she spent significant time in the distilling house herself. Indeed, in several other instances, she instructed her servants to prepare herbs or other ingredients so that she could start making certain recipes upon her arrival. For the most part, however, she relied on her servants to have the necessary expertise to make remedies while she was away. She charged Appolonia Neefe with distilling white and yellow aqua vitae when she could not be around to direct the process, and she gave Katharina Klein frequent directives for a variety of medical tasks. In one letter, Anna instructed Klein to distill wild thyme water and Ursula Strang to “wash down the vinegar room and heat it, also take rainwater from a rain jug and make vinegar, also set out the rosemary at the proper time.” A letter sent in 1566 to a lady- in-waiting, Ordulana Erzdorf, gave Erzdorf instructions on collecting “May dew” (Meyentaw), an ingredient in many remedies. “As soon as May begins,” Anna wrote, “every night of the whole month, unless it rains, you should spread clean, unsoiled cloths on the lawn where the dew forms, and as soon as the sun comes up, you should wring the cloths into clean vessels.”

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In general, Annaburg seems to have run itself in Anna’s absence, but she stepped in to give instructions and settle disputes. When Joseph Neefe complained on behalf of Appolonia that the apothecary Johann unter der Linden was refusing “to allow his boy [Knabe] Heinrich to help her with the preserving and with the other things that Your Noble Grace left her to prepare,” Anna quickly moved to keep the peace. She informed unter der Linden that “Dr. Neefe’s wife is getting too peeved [sawer] to prepare all the things we have commanded of her alone,” and instructed him to “allow your Heinrich to go to the castle and help her every day.” Concurrently, she sent Appolonia a new list of medications “to make with diligence.” Thus she settled the dispute without allowing Appolonia to forgo her duties. Similarly, a letter to one of her ladies- in-waiting, Elisabeth of Auerswald, addressed a dispute involving unter der Linden’s wife, who was ordering around the gardeners. Anna stated that “we have neither authorized nor commanded her to order around our court gardener or give him something to do in our gardens. If we have need of blossoms or other things, we will surely inform you or our court apothecary ourselves.” On the other hand, Anna reasoned, “she may receive whatever she needs for the apothecary from our gardens.” Anna generally attempted to solve internal disputes to the basic satisfaction of all parties, but she reacted vehemently when she perceived servants as disobedient or lazy in completing their medical tasks. When Katharina Klein forgot to prepare a root that Anna had commanded her to ready for her arrival, Anna glowered, “we were very displeased to discover it, for there is no joking with this root.” She sent a specimen to Klein, ordering her to boil, chop, and pound it before her next arrival. While she seems to have left the matter at a scolding, Anna generally espoused the necessity of keeping servants in line. When Dorothea of Mansfeld pleaded on the behalf of a distiller and “room heater” named Stephan Burstellen, who had formerly served at Annaburg, Anna declined to take him back into service, explaining that Dorothea did not realize “what a stubborn, obstinate person he is, and now he has gone off and married.” Gardeners and distillers were expected to stay single, and marriage was a sure sign of betrayal and thus grounds for dismissal. In another instance, she sent Sabine of Hesse two servants, a cook and a dwarf, assuring Sabine that they would be good servants “if Your Dearest only acts quite sternly toward them and does not let them act up.” Likewise, when her daughter Elisabeth expressed distress at the nasty rumors one of her ladies- in-waiting was spreading, Anna dismissed her concerns by reprimanding Elisabeth for getting too chummy with her underlings. “Your Dearest should treat a servant like a servant,” she cautioned.

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To early modern elites, keeping servants in their place was an important part of a functioning society; Anna’s outlook merely reflected the traditional adherence to strict class divisions that were viewed as central to a healthy social order. This was not simply a product of the Reformation but rather a trend in cities and territories in both Catholic and Protestant regions from the mid- fifteenth century. Anna viewed social hierarchies as God- given principles; while minor imprudence could be overlooked, transgressions against the underlying social order were a crime to be punished by death. In a particularly striking case, Anna related to Wilhelm IV of Hesse the evil deeds of the wife of one of August’s former councilors, Hans von Tauberherr. His wife Anna, called the Tauberherrin (the wife of Tauberherr), had tried to restore her disgraced husband to August’s favors by seeking the help of a sorceress, who “boiled all sorts of herbs in a pot and said countless prayers over them, misusing the name of the Lord, in the presence of the Tauberherrin.” According to the sorceress’s confession, she “gave the Tauberherrin a water, with which she was to sprinkle her husband’s cloak, and as soon as he touched His Grace with the clothing, [August] would once again regard him with favor.” Unfortunately for the Tauberherrin, she had also mistreated members of her household, “who finally felt required to expose such evil deeds,” to which both the Tauberherrin and the sorceress confessed. The sorceress was burnt at the stake and the Tauberherrin given a lighter penalty of death by the sword. Anna expressed satisfaction at the result, for the following reason: “We do not give any credence to sorcery, for reasons too numerous to list here, but because such evil deeds are against God’s law, honor, and respectability, justice was thus done.” By attempting to gain August’s favor through unnatural means and by invoking God’s name falsely to do so, the Tauberherrin had transgressed against God and torn apart the social fabric. Hence, her death was warranted, despite Anna’s disavowal of sorcery. The Tauberherrin case demonstrates clearly Anna’s fervent belief in order and discipline, but such dramatic cases were rare. Indeed, in contrast to the Tauberherrin, who was betrayed by dissatisfied servants, Anna was far more likely to show kindness to those who worked for her and August. Servile obedience was crucial for Anna, given the integral role servants played in running her medical practice, and indeed her whole estate. In tandem with expecting strict obedience, then, she also made frequent gestures of kindness, sending remedies when servants were unwell and expressions of pity at the death of a spouse or child. Dorothea of Schönberg received an especially copious amount of medical advice during her daughter’s bouts of illness, but Anna also aided lower- status help. When Friedrich, a servant of August’s, was stricken with a “hot fever,” Anna sent “a salve that one customarily puts

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on the arteries in hot fevers” as well as five varieties of candied fruit as “fortification.” She expressed hope “that the Almighty God will soon relieve you of this illness and that you will continue to serve our most beloved lord and husband faithfully for a long time to come.” In another instance she instructed Ursula Strang to send a distiller named Jeckel, who was ill, to recover in “the fresh air in the mountains.” She and August also frequently provided financial and legal protection to the orphaned children of servants, including those of a deceased midwife named Mutter (mother) Anna. A fellow midwife, Mutter Dorothea, wrote that the four children “are now old enough that they want to learn something, especially the one boy, who has gone to school and [is] thought to be worthy of study [at a university], so there is reason to hope that the good deed would not be wasted on him.” Moreover, Anna placed great trust in a number of her long- term servants. The majority of her instructions to servants assumed prior experience and tacit knowledge in medical tasks. She relied on high- status servants, especially the physicians’ and surgeons’ wives, to keep her supplies safe from lesstrusted help in her absence. For example, she warned Strang not to let anyone take any medicines from her stores and reminded Katharina Klein not to give anyone any vinegars and to keep the oil house locked. Anna generally delegated the tasks requiring the greatest level of trust to Klein and to Appolonia Neefe. As we saw earlier, she instructed Klein to try adding lemons to her quince electuary, believing her to have enough medical acumen to create the new recipe herself. She also looked to Klein’s opinion on medical matters. Unsure whether her stomach pains in 1582 were due to pregnancy or “the stone,” she wrote to Klein asking “what you and the other honored, experienced women think.” Like Klein, Neefe also carried out the most confidential medical tasks. In 1571, Anna wrote to her from Bohemia with a list of things she wanted the apothecary unter der Linden to make for her. She added the extra request that Neefe “observe the theriac carefully, to be sure it is made meticulously,” indicating that she trusted Neefe’s diligence a good deal more than unter der Linden’s. In another case, she sent Neefe a recipe for a “healing green salve,” which she told Neefe to make, instructing her “with the trust that we are setting in you, do not let anyone read [the recipe] or copy it, but rather send it back under lock and key after you have made the green salve.” Although she did not let Neefe keep the recipe, she did entrust her with the exclusive knowledge. Neefe and Klein were both clearly subordinates, but both were physicians’ wives (or widows), giving them enough status and medical experience to be assigned confidential tasks. Anna’s talents for overseeing a tightly run medical operation at her estates, her reputation for a firm yet merciful bearing, her willingness to provide

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medical aid to patients rich and poor, and her role in aiding Saxony’s economic recovery all contributed to the introduction of the moniker “Mother Anna,” as she was referred to by the early 1570s, at the latest. Although all of these qualities fit closely with those expected of a medieval gentlewoman, they also directly reflected the Protestant emphasis on proper social order. Given Anna’s strict doctrinal upbringing and continuing adherence to orthodox Lutheranism, it is not unreasonable to assume that these aspects of her medical practice reflected Lutheran values and ideas about householding and social hierarchies. “As a Female Person” In addition to this strict adherence to the social order, Anna, in a number of ways, reinforced gender hierarchies in her medical practice. Far from attempting to escape the expectations of her sex, Anna frequently referenced her status as a woman and the importance of upholding the separate spheres of activity expected of men and women. A prime example can be found in her interaction with Duke Heinrich the Younger of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. For years, she provided Duke Heinrich with her aqua vitae. Throughout the 1550s and 1560s, Heinrich sent letter after letter to Anna requesting more of the distilled water, and obligingly, Anna sent jar after jar of aqua vitae to the duke. Yet when Heinrich, fearing that Anna had been slow to respond, sent an unsolicited second letter in the fall of 1563, the electress retorted, “We received and read Your Dearest’s second reminder about the aqua vite, but we had remembered Your Dearest kindly without such a reminder. And approximately one day after Your Dearest’s first letter arrived, we sent a fairly large glass full of our aqua vite out of our own kindly impetus.” Indeed, she continued, it had been necessary to send the water right away, “because at that time we were waiting daily for the Almighty God to mercifully allow us to give birth.” Thus, she assured Heinrich, “we wanted to provide Your Dearest with it beforehand . . . because we would not be allowed to trouble ourselves with it in our childbed.” Although she had not had time to send written communication with the aqua vitae, owing to her impending childbirth, she hoped that “the deed would speak for itself . . . even if we, as a female person, cannot send Your Dearest a letter at all times.” In its polite forcefulness, Anna’s response to Heinrich countered what she saw as two transgressions. First, in assuming she had forgotten to send the aqua vitae after the first letter, he insulted Anna’s abilities as a household administrator. Second, and more important, by overlooking the strictures put on women in childbirth, Heinrich placed his own medicinal needs over the

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convention of female seclusion in childbed. As custom dictated, Anna was confined to her quarters for six weeks in the presence of female attendants following the birth of her daughter Dorothea and was scarcely in any position to send prompt replies to Heinrich’s requests. The emphasis on her foresight in sending the aqua vitae before she went into labor served to illustrate Anna’s skill in keeping her promise to supply Heinrich with aqua vitae despite her womanly burdens. As a “female person,” she indicated, she had to work within her set of expected duties. Themes of childbirth and motherhood cropped up frequently in conjunction with Anna’s medical practice. Peppered within the many letters sent to her by fellow nobles were congratulatory notices at the birth of each of her fifteen children and, in turn, expressions of sympathy at the passing of the eleven young dukes and duchesses who died at a tender age. All told, Anna spent over twelve full years of her life either pregnant or in seclusion after childbirth. She took very seriously the long- standing Christian ideas of childbirth as a punishment for the fall of Eve. When her daughter Elisabeth complained of discomfort during pregnancy, Anna maintained, “even though Your Dearest may experience frequent pains from the spleen, Your Dearest must remember that such things are God’s will, and that [pregnancy] cannot take place without pain.” Nonetheless, she sent Elisabeth “the pills, salves, and oils that we tend to use ourselves during pregnancy.” Anna also drew on cultural ideas about the proper behavior of the sexes. In response to a request for medical advice from her brother, King Frederick of Denmark, Anna replied that in her opinion, “Your Majesty’s persistent illness results primarily from excessive drinking. We thus wish to courteously admonish and entreat Your Majesty, out of sisterly candor, to abstain [from alcohol] as much as possible in the future.” He should do this not only for his own sake, Anna continued, but for the “joy, comfort, and protection” of his wife and children, his country and countrymen, and his friends and fellow princes, who would be better off if Frederick were “preserved for a long time to come in good health and peaceful life.” Frederick, she concluded, should “take this our sisterly reminder and old wives’ sermon [Weiberpredigt] as nothing other than loyal and well- intended.” Drunkenness in early modern Europe, Michael Frank has argued, was both acceptable and expected for men up to a point. Excessive drunkenness, on the other hand, had the danger of emasculating, since it impaired proper reason and function. In entreating her brother to become more moderate in his drinking habits, Anna implicitly reprimanded him for allowing alcohol to endanger his duties as husband and king. Moreover, with her “old wives’ sermon,” she portrayed herself as the voice of sobriety, the proper manner of being for women. She echoed

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these warnings in a letter to physician Paul Vogel, who was at the Prussian court of Berlin in 1581 when Anna’s only son, the thirteen- year- old crown prince Christian, visited with “all of the people assigned to His Grace.” Worried about the expected confluence of Christian’s trip with the arrival of the administrator of Anhalt, the margrave of Baden and the dukes of Liegnitz, Anna instructed Vogel to remind Christian “not to let the man from Anhalt nor anyone else encourage him to drink too much.” Although ideas of moderation were common to both Catholics and Protestants, Anna’s warnings against too much drink resonated directly with Lutheran expectations that husbands and wives avoid immoderation when dealing with one another. In general, Anna frequently espoused specifically Lutheran concepts of the ideal social order. In a striking case, she dispatched her aqua vitae and other medications in January 1567 as a New Year’s gift to Archbishop Johann Jacob of Salzburg. Along with the remedies, she added, “Your Dearest implored us numerous times as we departed to pray to God for Your Dearest, to which we acquiesced, inasmuch as Your Dearest meant it seriously. . . . We wish to supply Your Dearest with the proper aqua vitae, which quells toward eternal life.” To this end, she included a “Bible in German and Latin, which was printed in our most beloved lord and husband’s university in Wittenberg.” A German Bible from Wittenberg could only refer to Luther’s translation of the Bible, likely not a welcome gift from the Catholic archbishop’s perspective. Anna indicated as much, beseeching the archbishop to “read through it for our sake, and [you] will undoubtedly find that we have the true Bible and the true understanding, although many words may be changed compared with the Bible that Your Dearest owns.” Hans Jacob appears not to have responded to her satisfaction, as a letter dated October of the same year and accompanied by more aqua vitae and other remedies asked the archbishop playfully “if Your Dearest granted us our wish and read through the Bible, and how he enjoyed the translation.” Expressing great hope that the archbishop would engage her questions, Anna reminded him that “women also have a place in God’s kingdom.” While Anna’s words were partly meant as friendly bantering—August and Hans Jacob were childhood friends, and Hans Jacob received Anna’s aqua vitae every year—she also used her medicine to emphasize her adherence to Lutheran beliefs. The idea of salvation as the proper aqua vitae was a pervasive concept, and female beatitude was a commonly discussed idea in both Catholic and Protestant thought. Yet given Anna’s Lutheran education and the context of her religious bantering with the archbishop, it is most likely that her statement about women was meant to highlight Lutheran beliefs; certainly, her gift of the Lutheran Bible was intended to emphasize that Lu-

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theranism was the “true” religion. The importance of women’s justification seems to have appealed to Anna. Three months later, in response to a letter of congratulations at the birth of her daughter Anna, she explained, “We suspect that our friendly most beloved lord and husband would have been better pleased if the Almighty God had given us a young lord and heir, but because the dear Lord wanted it otherwise, we must remember that the female sex is just as much a part of the kingdom of God as the male.” Avoiding Gynecocracy These statements should not be seen as a protofeminist demand for equality. Anna emphasized the importance of traditional gender and family hierarchies as much as she did social hierarchies. In 1570, her daughter Elisabeth was married to Count Palatine Johan Casimir, son of the Palatinate Elector Friedrich III. The partnership was intended to increase the Lutheran influence in the Palatinate, which leaned Calvinist under the reign of Friedrich, but the marriage quickly turned sour. Anna soon received reports that Elisabeth was behaving very badly toward her husband and in-laws. In an irate letter to her daughter, Anna rebuked her bitingly for having been “not only impatient, unbearable, and stubborn, and thus caused your dearest’s lord husband much effort, disquiet, and worry,” but also “very ungrateful, unfriendly, stubborn, and obstinate” toward Johann Casimir’s father and stepmother, Elector Friedrich and Electress Amalia. She asked Elisabeth to consider, “if you have even a little bit of reason left,” whether this was how she had been brought up, and whether “your dearest’s lord father, if His Grace were to learn of this, would take any fatherly pleasure in it.” She insisted that Elisabeth “act toward your dearest’s lord husband as is proper for a friendly Christian spouse” and threatened to tell August if not. “And what His Grace would do, we believe your dearest would discover to great detriment.” When the situation did not improve to Anna’s liking, ensuing letters restated the threat of August’s wrath and reiterated the wish that “your dearest and her beloved lord husband live in friendly good harmony.” She reminded Elisabeth to “make an effort to treat His Grace with all honorable obedience and friendship.” Anna’s attempted management of the situation between Elisabeth and Johann Casimir became more difficult following a purge of Calvinist- leaning scholars discovered at the Dresden court. In 1573, Anna and August learned that a number of their closest advisors had developed theological beliefs that came dangerously close to Calvinism. Most shocking among these advisors was physician Caspar Peucer, the son- in-law of Philipp Melanchthon and a close friend of Anna and August. Anna had paid for Peucer’s sons to at-

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tend university, and Peucer had stood as godfather at the baptism of Anna’s son Adolf in 1571. Not only did these crypto-Calvinists, as they came to be known, have close ties to the Calvinist Palatinate, they also had made a concerted effort to institute a Calvinist catechism in Saxony’s schools and to win August and Anna over to the Calvinist cause. In addition to this great betrayal, a number of private letters seized at the property of several of the crypto-Calvinists in 1574 contained language accusing Anna of exerting too much influence over August. Peucer, it was said, wrote that “if we can get Mother Anna on our side, we can soon get the lord as well,” expressing the widely held view that August’s attachment to orthodox Lutheranism was far more tenuous than Anna’s. An advisor to August, Georg Craco, complained even more pointedly of “gynecocracy” (women’s rule) at the court of Dresden, which he termed a “gyneceum” (house of women). By all reports, these letters threw August into a seething rage. He had all members of the cryptoCalvinist circle purged from the Dresden court. Peucer was imprisoned and set free only after Anna’s death; Craco was slowly tortured to death. As Katrin Keller has pointed out, one common element among nobles, patricians, and burghers alike was the expectation that husbands rule over wives. To invert this hierarchy was to pervert the social order, just as dangerous as the rebelliousness of the lower classes, if not more so. Craco’s charge of “gynecocracy” related closely to popular literature on the “Battle over the Pants” (Kampf um die Hose), a patrician and burgher theme that humorously depicted the perils of wifely insubordination. When the lady of the house “wore the pants,” it brought shame upon both parties. Thus the slurs “gynecocracy” and “gyneceum” were just as damaging to August as to Anna, implying that he was the weaker party and hence emasculating him. They also highlighted the implicit paradox that women of the highest status simultaneously presented the greatest threat. Heide Wunder has addressed the great apprehension about female regency in the sixteenth century; women who ruled inspired widespread anxiety, such as Queen Elizabeth I and Margaret of Austria, governess of the Netherlands. As Anna’s case shows, even safely married noblewomen of high rank walked a thin line between reverence and repugnance. The crypto-Calvinist affair made Anna’s attempts to convince her daughter to obey her husband more difficult. On the one hand, the charges of gynecocracy made it even more imperative for Elisabeth to play the role of the dutiful wife. On the other hand, Johann Casimir, who renounced his Calvinist beliefs as part of his betrothal contract to Elisabeth but soon returned to them, had close ties to the crypto-Calvinist circle at the Dresden court. Anna expressed concern that her daughter, too, would be won over to the Calvin-

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ist cause, and she could thus scarcely advise strict obedience in all matters of matrimony. As a compromise, she reminded Elisabeth that “one must follow God more than man.” She instructed her daughter to pray that God would “preserve and keep your dearest in the true understanding of His Holy Word and the proper use of the most revered sacrament [of communion].” However, “outside of matters of belief,” Elisabeth was to “conduct herself toward her beloved lord and husband with all the obedience and friendliness owed to him, and not to give His Grace cause [for displeasure] with any anger or unpleasantness.” Far from promoting a radical overthrow of the social order, then, Anna held firm, Lutheran- influenced views of the relationship between the sexes: women, she told Elisabeth, should act as both supportive partners and obedient subordinates. It is important to note that the crypto-Calvinist charges of gynecocracy revolved entirely around religion. The apparent joke that Anna was “wearing the pants” in her marriage had everything to do with her strict Lutheran beliefs. While her power clearly made her vulnerable to attack, her medicine had nothing to do with these charges. Quite to the contrary, her medical practice was rarely portrayed as anything but a praiseworthy attribute and proof of her status as a good Landesmutter. The few isolated murmurings that she also engaged in blacker arts, discussed in chapter 1, came from lower- status individuals and were met with derision. Anna may have been seen as overly influential in her religious convictions, but her medical endeavors fit perfectly into established ideas of gender hierarchy and appropriate female behavior. Following the crypto-Calvinist affair, her attention to her Annaburg laboratory did not decrease; there is no evidence that anyone saw a relationship between her remedies and her reputation as wielding untoward influence over her husband. Instead, her medicine was a model of the duties a Hausmutter was supposed to master. The Counterexample: Philippine Welser The extent to which Anna’s position as Saxony’s Landesmutter defined her medical practice can be seen especially clearly if we compare her with the consort of another of the Holy Roman Empire’s most powerful princes— Philippine Welser (1527–80), first wife of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol, the son of Emperor Ferdinand I and one of the most prominent Catholic princes in the Holy Roman Empire. Like August, Archduke Ferdinand was a great fan of the experimental and practical arts: he set up a variety of workrooms for his own amusement, including a smithy, a turning room, glassworks, and an alchemical laboratory, and he regularly presented his courtiers with small,

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decorative gold and silver pieces (Zierstücke) he had made. He waxed rhapsodic over the joys of pouring metal, and he was also known as an excellent mathematician. The palace he shared with Philippine, Schloss Ambras near Innsbruck, became the model of a Renaissance court under his rule. Ferdinand was a passionate collector of portraits, antiquities, and military armor, and, like August, he set up a Kunstkammer. All of his collections were displayed for his visitors, and portions of them can be seen at Ambras today. He also put together an impressive library of nearly thirty- five hundred books. In many ways, then, Ferdinand can be seen as a Catholic version of August: a true Renaissance prince, widely admired by his contemporaries both for his politics and for his learning. Philippine, similarly, was reminiscent of Anna of Saxony in many ways. She too became a local heroine, in part because of her reputation as a talented healer; most visitors to Innsbruck today will encounter her name before long. She kept a collection of medicinal recipes given to her by her mother, Anna Welser (née Adler), which she used to heal both close friends and the local poor. She had a well- stocked apothecary at Ambras, where she personally directed the making of medicines along with the court pharmacist, Gorin Guaranta. Like Anna, she received frequent letters from supplicants begging her for medical or financial help. Parallels exist in their family lives as well: Philippine’s twenty- three- year marriage to Ferdinand was nearly as long as Anna’s to August and famously harmonious. She was a fixture on the side of Ferdinand in all aspects of courtly life at Ambras. Just as Anna was a devout Lutheran, Philippine was known widely as a pious Catholic: a striking contemporary portrait of her on her deathbed shows her clutching a cross of indulgence given to her by Pope Gregory XIII. Yet one key difference made her story entirely unlike Anna’s. Philippine was not a noblewoman—nor was she even a member of the lower gentry. Her father was Frank Welser, of the renowned Welser merchant family in Augsburg. In contrast to the electress of Saxony with her royal Danish blood, Philippine was a commoner—a wealthy patrician, but a commoner nevertheless. Her marriage to Ferdinand in 1557, a love match, was conducted in the utmost secrecy. Although it was grudgingly recognized by Ferdinand’s father, the emperor insisted that the archduke and Philippine take an oath that they would keep it from becoming publicly known; it remained a secret until Pope Gregory XIII recognized the marriage in 1576. Although Archduke Ferdinand did everything in his power to support his wife, Philippine would never be the archduchess of Tyrol. Only two of his sisters recognized the marriage and established friendly relations with their sister- in-law; otherwise, Philippine was largely cut off from the high social spheres in which Anna moved, except

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at Ambras. Indeed, Ferdinand’s motivation for turning Ambras into a glorious Renaissance palace was in part to establish a space for his clandestine wife. Her sphere of influence was thus far more localized that Anna’s. She had a friendly relationship with the Italian courts of Florence and Ferrara, and she received letters of supplication from ladies of the Austrian and Bavarian lower gentry, but her circle of acquaintances remained tightly tied to her own family and the Tyrolean gentry; she certainly did not have the same international renown as did Anna. Although Ferdinand had a regular epistolary relationship with August of Saxony—whom Catholic princes greatly admired and secretly hoped to convert—Anna did not correspond with his wife, even after the secret marriage became known. Because her position was far less powerful than Anna’s, then, Philippine’s medical practice had an entirely different character. Like Dorothea of Mansfeld, she became particularly known for her charitable healing. Schloss Ambras had a special hospital set up for local invalids, especially the sick poor, and Philippine worked together with her mother and aunt to prepare medicines for the poor and for members of the court. Whereas Dorothea gained a widespread reputation, however, Philippine’s recipes remained in a fairly localized setting: she is cited in a manuscript recipe collection belonging to the Winkler Apothecary Museum in Innsbruck, but I have uncovered no recipes attributed to her in other manuscripts. In this sense, she resembled the hundreds of women from the lower gentry who remained only locally known for their healing and were chiefly remembered for their services to the poor. Her position as the beloved wife of a powerful prince gained Philippine far more recognition than she might have expected, including, in the end, papal sanction, but it did not erase the stigma of a patrician birth. Whether her medical practice and Ferdinand’s experimental interests overlapped at Ambras is unknown; documentation of Philippine is extremely thin, so specific details are difficult to tease out. We do not know if she saw her medicine as a form of courtly amusement in addition to a duty to the poor. In any case, her low status made it impossible for her to participate in the courtly circulation of knowledge in the same way that Anna of Saxony did. Conclusion Heide Wunder has argued that the “ruling couple,” not the prince alone, represented the true source of power in early modern German principalities. However nicely her medicine fit into Lutheran ideals, Anna’s standing as a powerful princely consort, rather than her religion, provides the key to her expansive pharmaceutical endeavors. As we have seen, Philippine Welser

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became known and loved for her medical activities in Tyrol—she simply did not have the status to carry her reputation beyond a local setting or to portray herself as a ruling partner alongside her husband the archduke, except at Ambras. Because Anna’s marriage to August cemented her position as the female head of Electoral Saxony’s household, her medico- pharmaceutical activities took on a different meaning than those of widows such as Dorothea of Mansfeld or lower- status women such as Philippine. Her firm belief in strict hierarchies—whether based on sex or on social class—underscores the extent to which she saw her hands-on endeavors as part of her general duties as wife and electress. There is every indication that her contemporaries shared this viewpoint: the charges of “gynecocracy” leveled against her owing to her religious convictions did not extend to her medical practice. Her remedies were requested far and wide, and their attraction was enhanced by Anna’s direct involvement in the experiential process of making them. Kunstiliren, practicing skills, could easily be incorporated into the range of activities expected of a Lutheran Hausmutter. Unlike Philippine or Dorothea, who depicted the sick poor streaming into Mansfeld Castle and Schloss Ambras, Anna made virtually no reference to charity in her hundreds of letters. This elision is all the more significant given that Anna, like Dorothea and Philippine, certainly participated in the charitable donation of medicines and food. A letter responding to Dorothea’s mention of the hordes of people plaguing Mansfeld Castle noted, “We can well believe that you have much traffic for your aqua vitae and can relate to it ourselves, for we also, in similar fashion, have had extremely high traffic for it here, and we have probably given much more aqua vitae away than you have. Nonetheless, one must help out good friends and the poor.” The inventory of Annaburg listed a “white cabinet outside of the ladies’ large room full of all sorts of medicines for the sick poor people,” confirming the charitable activities of the estate. Even her individualized advice often went to poor supplicants. In 1578, she instructed the pharmacist unter der Linden to send a barber named Meister Rudolf to help a poor woman who had pleaded on behalf of her sick husband; Anna stated that she would cover all medical costs. The orations written in honor of her death, as was customary, emphasized the charitable nature of her medical practice. She is remembered for her service to the needy to this day: a nineteenth- century mural in Albrechtsburg Castle in the Saxon city of Meissen depicts Mother Anna handing medicines out to the local poor. All of these sources indicate that Anna regularly engaged in charitable healing in a number of different ways. In contrast to Dorothea of Mansfeld and Philippine Welser, however, Anna did not portray her medicine as an essentially charitable enterprise. Instead, she was far more likely to de-

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pict her pharmaceutical activities either as part of the wider world of courtly practice or as an action on behalf of August as a diligent wife. Collaboration between husbands and wives on medical tasks was also common among the servants who ran Annaburg. Nearly all of the servants in charge of the higher- level tasks were married couples: the physician pairs Joseph and Appolonia Neefe and Katharina and Balthasar Klein (until Balthasar’s death), as well as the apothecary Johann unter der Linden and his wife. Two other oft- mentioned servants, Ursula Strang and Agnes Loserin, were widows of barber- surgeons who had served August, and when a new barber- surgeon, Meister Valten, arrived from the Netherlands, Anna instructed Klein to ask his wife for advice on the medical care of Anna’s son Friedrich. At least among the servants who helped her prepare remedies, medical couples seem to have been expected. Indeed, Anna treated unter der Linden and his wife as almost interchangeable, asking Klein in one instance to have “Johann unter der Linden or his wife” prepare a quince julep and, following unter der Linden’s death, instructing his widow to carry out a number of tasks she had ordered of Johann. Medical roles were gendered in her eyes—all of the barber- surgeons and physicians were male, and the distilling house seems to have been run mostly by women. The handiwork of making medicines, on the other hand, was equally accepted of men and women. In Anna and August’s case, this collaboration operated at a much higher level: that of the regents of the land, bound by both courtly and societal conventions. Hence Anna’s medical practice can be seen as a dovetailing of the ideals expected of a Lutheran Hausmutter and mother of the country, and the courtly fascination with experimental practices. As we have seen, Anna participated fully in both traditions without conflict. Her focus on the handiwork and her modification of both medical equipment and medical recipes closely mirror other experimental endeavors at court, especially August’s alchemical practice. There is no reason to assume, as historians have tended to do in the past, that the actions of experimentation were a male enterprise. As Alix Cooper argues, natural inquiry in early modern Europe was often a family collaboration. In equating her Künste with August’s, Anna was not crossing boundaries but rather reifying them.

5

Elisabeth of Rochlitz and the Experience of Illness

What did noblewomen do when they themselves got sick? Did they use the same potions, powders, salves, and aqua vitae that they advised and prescribed for others? Or did they, when it came down to it, call for a wellknown doctor? It is much more difficult to find answers to these questions than one might suppose, given the abandon with which noblewomen wrote of their medical practice. Because most medical care took place locally, patients tended to mention only significant events, such as the visit of a practitioner from afar. When Dorothea of Mansfeld became seriously ill in 1572, for example, she reported consulting multiple physicians. She did not, however, mention to what extent she tried any of her own remedies or those of other practitioners in addition to the doctor’s ministrations. In such cases, we are left to wonder what the absence of such a reference implies. Did Dorothea shun self- care when her own health was on the line? Or was recourse to her own medications so obvious that it did not even warrant mention? What were the important factors to noblewomen in choosing each method of health care? To explore answers to these questions, we are lucky to have a very complete account of the long patienthood of a third noblewoman, a duchess of Saxony known to her contemporaries as Elisabeth of Rochlitz (1502– 57). Elisabeth provides a slightly different model from that of the women we have met up to this point. Although she dabbled in medical practice, she did not gain the widespread recognition that Dorothea of Mansfeld or Anna of Saxony enjoyed. She offered occasional advice for the illnesses and complaints of her family members and subordinates, she kept an extensive collection of medical remedies, and she too distilled aqua vitae, but these activities were conducted on a much more localized level than the very public and far-

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reaching healing of Dorothea and Anna. She did not become widely known for her medical recipes, and, as we have seen, when she heard that her nephew Duke Moritz of Saxony had taken ill in 1546, she turned to Dorothea rather than offer her own advice. Although she possessed at least a basic level of familiarity with medical care as a practitioner, Elisabeth became more intimately acquainted with medical remedies from the other side, as a patient. From the early 1540s, she suffered from chronically recurring skin blemishes, aching joints, and fevers. In June of 1552, a sudden, incapacitating illness left her bedridden and clinging to life for three months; nearly everyone, including at least one physician, assumed she would not survive the summer, a presumption she regarded with much bitterness when she recovered her health later that autumn. From that point onward, however, the nagging complaints that had plagued her for years became more severe, as she increasingly began to exhibit symptoms that many of her acquaintances, including her own brother, eventually suspected to be the French Disease. (Elisabeth, as we shall see, fervently disagreed with this diagnosis.) She struggled with intermittent fevers, temporary blindness, bouts of madness, and oozing, flesh- eating sores that broke out on her arm and neck in 1556 and festered until her death the following year. We know all of these details of Elisabeth’s illnesses—and her responses to them—because she spent her final years at a small estate house in the remote Hessian town of Schmalkalden. Unlike noblewomen attached to large courts, like Anna of Saxony, she did not have a wide array of local doctors to choose from; Schmalkalden did not even have a resident apothecary when Elisabeth arrived there. Her account books indicate that she regularly underwent treatment from barber- surgeons, and she was treated by at least one local woman, but her isolated setting encouraged her to seek aid from afar. Despite her high rank, she was a childless widow on the fringes of the vibrant medical world described in the previous chapters, and she had to work hard to receive medical attention. Yet Elisabeth did have one advantage over many widows in her situation: the unfailing support of an influential male relative, her brother Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse (1504–68). Out of what appears to have been real affection, Philip provided his sister regularly with beer, wine, fish, grain, and game; he sent his own medicaments and medical practitioners to Schmalkalden; and he used his substantial influence to procure physicians from other princely courts. The landgrave even did his best to alleviate his invalid sister’s increasing boredom. At her behest he sought out items of diversion, including guinea pigs, a parrot, a glow- in-the- dark clock, and “eyeglasses suitable for those older than fifty.” The siblings’ close relationship, and the fact that they saw each other only rarely, have left the historian with

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a wealth of letters. It is almost certainly due to Philip’s solicitude that Elisabeth’s other papers have also survived: her medical recipe collection, several letters to and from medical practitioners, her estate inventories, her account books, and the documents regarding her death. Any description of Elisabeth’s patienthood, then, is also a tale of the relationship between brother and sister. The last letters between Elisabeth and Philip allow the historian unique insight into the patient’s experience of illness, usually so frustratingly elusive in this time period. Robert Jütte has depicted their correspondence as an excellent example of a sufferer “coping” with illness, and of the often fraught relationship between patients and medical practitioners. It also provides a poignant sense of the importance of family in a patient’s medical care. In addition, there is a third dimension to Elisabeth’s illness, a relationship equally as significant as that between patient and practitioner or patient and family: that between the sufferer and the divine. Like most early modern patients, Elisabeth expressed genuine faith in God’s power to heal, and her case provides a particularly rich example of the interaction between religious and natural healing. On the one hand, the duchess spent an extraordinary amount of effort seeking medicinal remedies and advice from physicians, apothecaries, surgeons, local healers, and fellow nobles. At the same time, Elisabeth stressed the ineffectiveness of these healing methods, asserting the futility of human care and insisting instead that the almighty physician (Almechtige Doctej) would protect her. While these threads may seem polar opposites to the modern reader, for Elisabeth they were two sides of the same coin. There remained a duality between the idea of disease as a trial to be endured piously and the notion that God had put herbs and medicines on the earth for the purpose of curing illness. As in the cases of Dorothea and Anna, Elisabeth easily fit healing, in this case the healing of her own body, into the wider moral landscape. This chapter will explore not only the medical choices Elisabeth made but also her experience of disease and its cures as portrayed in her assorted papers. Elisabeth’s case underscores the extent to which patients were caught up in the same careful interlacing of experience, authority, and religious piety as the practitioners we have examined in this book. These strands wove together in a slightly different manner for the patient than they did for the healer; in the unstable position of the invalid, Elisabeth had to balance her status as a sufferer desperate for medical relief with her faith in the healing hand of God. Yet as with Dorothea and Anna, her key concern was her own perception of the efficacy of specific treatments. She thus drew on all potential means to a cure—learned physicians, lay healers, her own medicinal

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remedies, prayer, almsgiving—with an abiding faith that God would heal her. As Michael Stolberg has shown in his exhaustive study of early modern patient letters, the belief in God’s direct ability to heal was both ubiquitous and entirely harmonious with naturalistic healing. In Elisabeth’s eyes, her illness was the center of both a microcosmic struggle with bodily symptoms and a macrocosmic connection to divine influence. The almighty physician loomed large in Elisabeth’s broader interpretation of her illness. As a number of historians have noted of late, the depiction of Christ as a physician or apothecary was common in early modern Europe. While Puritan England long provided the main focus for studies of this nature, recent works by Johann Anselm Steiger and Fritz Krafft have shown that the figure of Christ as a healer dominated Protestant and Catholic Germany as well. Allegories in art and literature generally used Christ the Physician as a metaphor relating the sick body to the sick soul, but in many cases patients took the analogy literally. In Elisabeth’s perception, Christ played a direct role as healer of both the sick soul and the sick body, and all healers and their remedies were subservient to his will. While these ideas were in keeping with widely accepted notions about the overlapping of religious and natural healing, Elisabeth’s papers allow us to see their very real impact on the medical choices of a chronically ill patient. Beyond simply providing her suffering body and soul with a connection to higher powers, Elisabeth’s trust in God as the ultimate authority in matters of health gave her the proximate authority to determine what course of action should be taken for each illness. As we shall see, she was a frustratingly impatient patient, quick to blame failure on medical practitioners rather than on her own ill heath. While her displeasure with what she perceived as ineffective medical care applied to all healers, her run- ins with learned physicians were particularly fierce—in part because she put such great hopes in their cures at the outset, in part because she completely rejected their diagnoses of the French Disease in the last year of her life. Her conviction that God, rather than any specific practitioner, would heal her allowed her to pick and chose her medical care as she saw fit, and she showed an increasing preference for recipes and remedies that would alleviate specific aches and pains rather than the regimens of physicians. In managing her ill health, she responded to the dual role of suffering patient (in need of relief from pain) and pious Protestant (in search of grace) in the manner that, in her eyes, best reconciled the two. Her medicinal choices provide evidence of the wide nets cast by early modern patients and the self- assurance with which they sought multiple options, from physicians to noblewomen to local healers.

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At the Forefront of Reformation Elisabeth was born in Marburg Castle on March 4, 1502, the eldest child of Landgrave Wilhelm II of Hesse (1469– 1509) and Anna of Mecklenburg (1485– 1525). Her early years were marred by the illness of her father, who contracted a vicious case of the French Disease in 1504 and was eventually confined to control the madness that came with it. In 1509, on his deathbed, he apparently entreated his two children to take care of each other, which made enough of an impression on the seven- year- old Elisabeth that she reminded her brother Philip of the incident throughout their lives. The years immediately after Landgrave Wilhelm’s death saw increased turmoil: Anna of Mecklenburg, having tussled with the Hessian estates over the handling of Wilhelm’s madness, was quickly sidelined as the estates claimed regency during Philip’s minority. Forced to live at Anna’s widow’s estate in Giessen, Anna and Elisabeth remained virtual exiles until 1514, when Anna won support for her regency over Philip. Her fight with the estates continued, however, until Anna convinced the emperor to declare Philip’s majority in 1518. During this power struggle, Elisabeth’s mother received substantial help from Duke Georg the Bearded of Saxony (1471–1539), and the close relationship was solidified by Elisabeth’s marriage to Georg’s eldest son, Johann (Hans), in 1516. Given her young age at the time—she was fourteen—Elisabeth spent more time living with her mother than with her husband through the early years of her marriage, but she moved to the Dresden court in 1519. The tumultuous nature of Elisabeth’s prepubescent years has left no indication of the extent to which she was educated, although her near- illegible hand suggests little formal training. She could certainly read and write, however, and did so with abandon, particularly after her conversion to Lutheranism in the early 1520s. To the chagrin of her avowedly Catholic father- in-law, she used her position at the Dresden court to advocate forcefully on behalf of the Reformers. She began a secret letter exchange with other nobles in favor of religious reformation, taking advantage of her close relationship to two of the most powerful Protestant princes, her brother Philip and her cousin Johann Friedrich of Electoral Saxony. However, as in the case of Dorothea of Mansfeld, she remained devoted to many individuals who chose to remain Catholic. Her husband, Duke Hans, and his brother, the simpleminded Duke Friedrich, both stayed with the old religion, and she retained a generally warm relationship with her father- in-law, Duke Georg, despite their many differences. Elisabeth’s life took a new twist in 1537, when Duke Hans died after a brief illness. Instantly relegated from her powerful stature as wife of the heir to

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ducal Saxony to the vulnerable position of a thirty- five- year- old, childless widow, she quickly requested a widow’s estate, as stipulated in her marriage contract. As a result, Georg granted her a territory that included the castle, city, and bureau of Rochlitz (see figure 15) with the cities of Mittweida and Geithain, as well as the castle and bureau of Kreibstein with its cities Waldheim and Hartha. He also gave her 4,400 gulden a year as a pension. Rather than retreat quietly into widowhood, Elisabeth used her control over Rochlitz to shore up support for the Reformation. Against Duke Georg’s wishes, she quickly began to install Lutheran ministers in parish churches, making Rochlitz the first Protestant area in ducal Saxony. Her impact on the region was dramatic enough that contemporaries began to refer to her as “the duchess of Rochlitz,” a name that stuck throughout her life (although Elisabeth always referred to herself as a duchess of Saxony). Philip of Hesse, perceiving the advantage of having his sister in a semi- autonomous position within Catholic Saxony, began (ultimately unsuccessful) negotiations with Duke Georg to recognize Elisabeth as a free sovereign ruler. During the Schmalkaldic War (1546–47), she kept up a constant correspondence with her brother and her cousin Johann Friedrich and learned two different types of code when she began to fear that her letters were being intercepted. Elisabeth’s tenure at Rochlitz came to an end in the last days of the Schmalkaldic War, after agents of her cousin Moritz, by then the ruling duke of Saxony, intercepted one of Elisabeth’s coded letters to Johann Friedrich. Moritz, whose increasing collusion with Emperor Charles V had aroused uneasiness among the Protestants, took the secret correspondence as a sign of betrayal and made no effort to protect Rochlitz when imperial troops invaded the city in March 1547. Elisabeth and her entourage fled the castle and escaped to Hesse, where Elisabeth spent a year at her brother’s court in Kassel in hopes of eventually moving back to Rochlitz. As it became increasingly clear that Moritz, despite their renewed friendship, had no interest in relinquishing Rochlitz, the Hessian estates gave Elisabeth control over the town and bureau of Schmalkalden as a lien for money Philip owed her. There she provided what support she could for her brother. Following Philip’s capture by the forces of Philip II of Spain in 1547, she looked after the young Hessian heirs and heiresses while Philip’s wife Christine went to plead with the emperor for her husband’s release. Elisabeth herself seems to have sought other means to procure Philip’s freedom: her papers contain horoscopes cast for Philip and his captor as well as geomantic tables, apparent attempts to find astrological or occult prognoses of his chances of freedom. However, Elisabeth’s remote location forced a decline in her political activities, compounded by her increasingly serious illnesses from the early 1550s. Although she continued to

f i g u r e 1 5 . View of Rochlitz. Pen- and- ink drawing by Wilhelm Dilich, c. 1626–29. Courtesy of Widener Library, Harvard University.

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demand news updates (Zeitungen) from Philip and to send her brother advice on political matters, the heyday of her political clout had passed. As this brief biography makes clear, the defining relationship in Elisabeth’s life was that with her brother. Through Philip, she gained a direct connection to the political events of the Reformation; she acted as a constant advisor to both her brother and her cousin Johann Friedrich. While he did not always listen to her advice, Philip clearly valued her opinion highly and in one instance even read her advice aloud to his estates. Elisabeth provided her brother with other forms of support as well, including a substantial loan during the Schmalkaldic War. In contrast to Anna of Saxony, who, as we have seen, chiefly relied on female networks to influence political events from behind the scenes, Elisabeth, backed by Philip’s unwavering support, engaged directly with the powerful princes of her time. Only twenty- one of her surviving letters are addressed to women, while several hundred are written to Philip, Johann Friedrich, or Moritz. While this disparity is certainly due in large part to preservation practices, her direct engagement with male figures on political issues is unusual. After Elisabeth’s removal from Rochlitz, Philip’s backing became especially invaluable. Although she complained frequently of Schmalkalden’s isolation and smoky manor house, her brother’s assistance allowed her to sustain an independent residence, despite her expulsion from her widow’s estate. As her health began to decline, her brother’s constant support would prove even more crucial. Sickness and Medical Recipes Elisabeth’s health problems began in Rochlitz. Her papers attest to recurring difficulties with facial blemishes, chest congestion, and aching joints during the 1540s. However, these bouts were fairly irregular until her exile from Rochlitz, after which her condition steadily worsened. In 1550, she suffered from “a flux in the head and lungs, redness in the face, and problems with the teeth and gums.” A particularly bad bout of illness in the summer of 1552 nearly took her life, and although she recovered, she was gravely weakened. In June of 1553, on her way to a planned meeting with Duke Moritz to negotiate the return of Rochlitz, she once again became ill and had to cancel the encounter. After Moritz was killed in July 1553, a grieving Elisabeth suffered months of blindness, eye pain, and fever, and she became a permanent invalid in 1556, when she was wracked by oozing sores and fevers. She also suffered from bouts of melancholy, which began at least as early as 1540 and recurred during her worst illnesses. When she was close to death in 1552, she caused her brother no little grief by giving her favorite gold, silver, and gemstone

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trinkets to servants, prompting Philip to worry, “Her Grace gives away too many things in illness, when she is so impatient and melancholy.” Elisabeth’s search for relief from her physical discomforts was as active as her political involvement, as demonstrated by the collection of medical recipes she left behind. The collection contains over one hundred loose recipes in a variety of hands, unorganized and lacking an index, ranging in length from a few lines to several pages. About 20 percent of the recipes are signed letters sent to Elisabeth by practitioners, including physicians, surgeons, barbers, apothecaries, fellow noblewomen, and local women, dating from the 1540s and 1550s. The remaining recipes are anonymous contributions from unspecified healers, some addressed personally to Elisabeth. Nine of the contributions are in Elisabeth’s hand and were either authored or copied by her, and over a third of the other recipes are in the hand of her secretary Sigmund Kirchmeyer, most likely copied from another source. A careful examination of this unbound recipe collection indicates that its contents, for the most part, were intended for use on Elisabeth. Although individual loose recipes can be found in collections across Europe, such an extensive unbound collection is unusual. Many sixteenth- century recipe collections likely started out like Elisabeth’s, but as we have seen in the previous chapters, those that have been preserved are generally bound volumes into which recipes have been copied. Elisabeth also owned two such collections, small booklets bound with paper and string, both of which contained more general remedies. In addition, she possessed an early- sixteenth- century manuscript fragment of Michael Puff von Schrick’s printed book on distilled waters, as well as a fragment on cosmetics. These four additional manuscripts are similar in nature to the other medical manuscripts that have been discussed thus far in this book: the recipes all have titles that indicate the conditions for which they are useful, and one is organized from head to toe by ailment. In contrast, the majority of Elisabeth’s recipes (53 percent) are untitled, although either the purpose or the type of medicament can be gleaned from the content of most of them (84 percent). (See table 1.) Only 16 percent give an indication of the ailment the recipe is intended to combat, while 59 percent reveal the type of medicament (purge, drink, bath, etc.). Both the illness and the type of medicament can be gleaned from 9 percent of the remedies. All of these things strongly suggest that the collection was used by Elisabeth or the people caring for her. Just as Dorothea had recipes in her head, Elisabeth had scraps of paper that were of little use to anyone but herself or those around her. The breakdown of cures also points to Elisabeth as the target of most of the recipes. About 60 percent of the remedies that refer to a specific ailment can be directly linked to symptoms Elisabeth personally experienced—espe-

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t a b l e 1 . Breakdown of Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s Unbound Recipes Titled Untitled Disease clear from title or content Type of medicament clear from title or content Both disease and medicament clear from title or content Untitled recipes, unclear purpose

47% 53% 16% 59% 9% 16%

t a b l e 2 . Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s recipes identified by disease and type of medicament Breakdown of diseases Pains in head, body, joints Cough/cold/flux Skin problems French Disease Falling Sickness Gout, stroke, nosebleed, stone, fevers, womb Total

8 6 6 1 3 1 each 30

Breakdown of medicaments Drink Bath/wash Salve or unguent Pill or “cake” Powder Powder in drink Aloes (used for skin) Powder for skin Herb applied to skin Plaster Purgative Amulet

24 13 12 9 8 5 5 3 2 1 3 1

Total

86

cially skin problems (20 percent), chest congestion/fluxes (20 percent), and pain in the head, body, and joints (27 percent). (See table 2.) Of the recipes listed by type of medicament, a disproportionate number (41 percent) are baths, salves, unguents, and other substances applied externally, while 28 percent are drinks (the most common remedy for chest congestion, but also used as purgatives). Nine percent can be definitively identified as purges, though it is likely that a far higher number fall into that category. In contrast, her unbound collection contains only one entry with remedies for epilepsy and no poison antidote, standard entries in most recipe collections. Recipes for fertility, childbirth, or infant’s diseases are lacking—presumably irrelevant

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for Elisabeth, a childless widow. The unusually narrow focus of these loose recipes thus indicates that they were, for the most part, a direct reaction to illnesses she experienced, rather than a more general reference work. Her two bound collections, on the other hand, were more wide- ranging. The narrow purpose of Elisabeth’s unbound collection presents an opportunity for the historian to gain a sense of what sorts of recipes were actually used on patients. The majority of Elisabeth’s recipes called for herbal ingredients. One medicinal drink included roots of wild saffron, borage, peony, parsley, and polypody; agarico cake; ginger; anise; bethony, hyssop, and chicory leaves; senna leaves from Alexandria; violet flowers; bugloss flowers; and rhubarb. Some of these, like parsley, betony, borage, and hyssop, would have been widely available; others, like rhubarb and agarico cake, would have been bought from an apothecary. Animals also provided diverse uses: raw, ground-up crabs and “crab eyes” (calcified deposits sometimes found in the stomach of European crawfishes) appeared in several unrelated recipes for sore throats, headaches, and eye illnesses; calf ’s blood, liver, and kidneys were common ingredients in heated medicinal drinks; and hens or capons were used for medicinal drinks and external plasters. Fresh, hot bread appeared in a recipe for baths (to be applied externally). As was common among the nobility, Elisabeth also seems to have had a certain fondness for expensive, exotic recipes with ingredients such as emeralds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, red coral, saffron, and gold. Finally, at least one recipe calls for chemical by-products of metal processing: white nickel powder and zinc oxide powder. For the most part, it is impossible to know exactly which medical preparations Elisabeth used when, and how often she used them. Even such a valuable resource as her unbound recipe collection can only indicate possibilities, not provide definitive answers. We must be careful, moreover, not to read too much into these recipes. While the remedies certainly formed one important part of her medical care, she relied on highly varied sources when she became ill: she was bled by a local barber, she received personal attention from physicians, she prayed and gave alms, and she was nursed by her ladies- in-waiting. Despite these caveats, a key facet to Elisabeth’s medical care did involve medications, and her recipe collection provides important evidence of the sorts of medicines she intended to use. As we will see in the following section, her other papers give insight into how exactly she used them. “All Sorts of Medicaments” One of Elisabeth’s most important medical resources was self- care, although I use the term with great hesitation. As we shall see, it is very difficult to draw

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a clean line between self- care and outside help. However, there were aspects to Elisabeth’s health care that took place almost entirely in the absence of professional medical practitioners. Although Elisabeth, like Dorothea and Anna, wrote nothing about her attempts at self- medication during her periods of illness, there are several indications that she made medicines on her estate and relied at least partially on them during periods of illness. In 1545, during Elisabeth’s time at Rochlitz, Countess Elisabeth of Palatinate-Zweibrücken reported that she had received bottles of distilled waters from Elisabeth, with an accompanying Zettel, or recipe. There are no inventories available from Elisabeth’s time at Rochlitz, but an inventory from her years at Schmalkalden shows that distillation equipment was set up over the quarters of her ladiesin-waiting. A number of references in Elisabeth’s letters indicate that she and her ladies regularly made—and used—medicinal distilled waters. In September 1553, the year she was affected by temporary blindness, she asked her brother to send a doctor from Marburg with “all sorts of distilled waters, for we were unable to distill any this year.” Similarly, several of her recipes— from both Rochlitz and Schmalkalden—call for distillation: a recipe for gout requires the ingredients “be distilled on a slow fire,” and another recipe calls for “brandy wine that has been distilled three times.” The very fact that Schmalkalden possessed distillation equipment reflects more advanced medical preparation techniques than one might expect, given the dearth of references to Elisabeth’s medical activities in her letters. As we have seen, stills were only just beginning to become common at noble estates, and if Elisabeth’s frequent complaints are any indication, the Schmalkalden manor house was not particularly well equipped otherwise. It is possible that the distillation apparatus was a result of Dorothea of Mansfeld’s influence. The two women were distant in-laws, and Elisabeth clearly had some interest in Dorothea’s medical practice. A recipe in her unbound collection is in Dorothea’s hand, as is a copy of the countess’s letter to the physician Sebastian Roth von Auerbach regarding the health of Duke Moritz, which specifically mentions interaction between the two women. Given Dorothea’s practice of sharing her knowledge of distillation with other female relatives, it is not too far- fetched to imagine a similar relationship with Elisabeth while she lived in Dresden or Rochlitz. Indeed, had Elisabeth’s correspondence with other women survived, we might have a very different picture of her medical interests. Whatever the case, the Schmalkalden estate seemingly expected to use a good quantity of medicinal waters in any given year, and Elisabeth and her servants distilled at least some of the waters themselves. Aside from the distillates, the majority of the recipes in Elisabeth’s collection involve fairly simple preparation methods, mostly basic cooking tech-

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niques such as boiling and sieving. As indicated by inventories of the Schmalkalden estate from 1553, 1557, and 1558, she had the apparatus for such recipes in her quarters: a pestle and mortar for grinding herbs and seeds, a brass scale and weights for measuring, old linen cloths for sieving or wrapping herbs, and a stove and pots for boiling. The presence of this material in her private quarters and not in the main kitchen suggests Elisabeth’s direct participation in some form, although it is impossible to determine whether she, her ladiesin-waiting, or other servants did the actual labor. In a few instances, she expressed interest in learning how to make specific medications. In 1549, for example, she wrote to Philip’s secretary in Kassel, requesting him to “speak with Michael Ruprecht the surgeon and have him make the water or oil for gout, as he promised us earlier.” She added in the margin, “He already promised he would come to us and teach us how to make it; accordingly, please . . . ask him to come himself.” One recipe in her collection contains the label, written in her own hand, “This is my draft for those with the breast sickness,” which may have referred to chest congestion from which she frequently suffered. In a few instances she also used medicine as a form of gift exchange: in 1552 she provided the wife of Peter Beinberg, the steward of Friedewald, with remedies and medical advice as gratitude for Beinberg’s assistance during her grave illness earlier that year. In contrast to what we found with Dorothea of Mansfeld and Anna of Saxony, there is no indication that making medicines played a significant role in Elisabeth’s day- to-day life, although this impression may be skewed by the absence of her correspondence with women. Nevertheless, she seems to have possessed the basic ability to make the simple remedies expected of an elite woman. Did Elisabeth use the medicines she made when she became ill? Her letters and recipe collections provide few answers, but again the inventories of her estate from 1557 and 1558 help us with this question. At her death, both the study in the duchess’s quarters and the tiny unheated room off the study contained tin cabinets full of medicines and electuaries (latwerge), and another room in her quarters held a bookshelf “in which are all sorts of medicaments.” The “middle room” of her quarters also contained jars full of distilled waters. This varied supply of medicines is reminiscent of the much later case of English gentlewoman Elizabeth Freke, who, as Elaine Leong has described, wrote down a list of the types and quantities of “cordiall waters” she kept in cupboards for “my own use” in 1712. Elisabeth left no such personal inventory of her medicinal waters, but their appearance in her estate inventory indicates that she, too, kept a substantial supply on hand for personal use. It is unlikely that Elisabeth made all of the medicines stuffed into her cabinets, especially given her bedridden state in the last year or so of life. A

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large part of the remedies came from apothecaries, as shall be discussed in more detail below. She also received prepared medications, especially salves, electuaries, and powders, from other sources via messenger. Some of these remedies came from licensed medical practitioners such as physicians and surgeons, who would have expected payment for their services; the surgeon Caspar Lyman wrote to Elisabeth in 1544 that “I am also sending Your Grace a medication in a little tin box, four times; also a confect of common fumitory, four times,” and several physicians referred to “this powder” or “this salve” in their letters to her. Others were sent as gifts from family, friends, and her subjects. Her brother Philip was especially proud of a quince electuary he sent in 1554, while a local aristocrat, Hermann von der Malmsberg, sent Elisabeth juniper wood in 1552 in the hopes that the smell of its smoke would protect her from the plague and thus keep him in good standing. Similarly, a woman named Margaret von Neffenstein sent cinnamon water, useful for “swooning and all unknown illnesses,” in 1552. Hence we can assume that Elisabeth’s medications came from a variety of sources, and likely only a small percentage would have been made on her own estate. Nevertheless, the cabinets and shelves full of “all sorts of medicines” indicate that Elisabeth, like Elizabeth Freke years later, kept on hand a ready supply of remedies for her own use. The practice of keeping a store of medications on hand is also reflected in Anna of Saxony’s storeroom full of distilled waters and oils and the “nicely kept” rooms full of medicines in Dorothea of Mansfeld’s garden house. Although Elisabeth rarely mentioned using her stores, one incident indicates that she regarded them as crucial. During a lifethreatening illness that struck her on a summer visit to the town of Friedewald in 1552, Elisabeth specifically directed that a servant bring saxifrage and cinnamon waters from her estate at Schmalkalden. Given the large number of other medical personnel who attended her during the illness, including two physicians, this request suggests that she viewed the cordials in her medical chest as highly valuable remedies. It would be surprising if the same were not true of Dorothea, Anna, and other noblewomen as well. Apothecaries In addition to whatever medicines Elisabeth made or used herself at home, her records also mention at least forty different practitioners whose help she sought. She relied most consistently on apothecaries, who have a significant presence in both her account books and her recipe collection. A good dozen recipes in her unbound collection, most of which are in Latin, were clearly meant to be filled by an apothecary. In many cases, the document in Elisa-

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beth’s possession represents the actual prescription sent to the apothecary, or at least a copy thereof. In addition to containing a recipe, these slips of paper indicate how the vessel containing the medicament should be marked— either with letters (“a salve, designated ‘A’ ”), or with a symbol such as #. This system was designed to avoid confusion when multiple recipes were filled at one time. In addition to these prescriptions, Elisabeth’s regimens also indicate that an apothecary was expected to make the recipes provided. A regimen from the well- known physician Burchard Mithobius, for example, contained dietary instructions in German, but Mithobius switched to Latin when communicating a medical recipe, which he introduced with the instructions, “in addition, have the apothecary make this powder.” The switch to Latin was presumably for the apothecary’s benefit, as many medicinal simples and compounds were known most readily by their Latin names. Six different apothecaries are mentioned by name in Elisabeth’s papers: Johann Kister of Schmalkalden, Eobamus Kosterer of Erfurt, Johann Ralla of Leipzig, Johannes Rodius of Marburg, and Jörg Windisch and the “old apothecary Pleitgen” of unspecified cities. In 1552 she settled a bill with an “Abtekerin,” either a female apothecary or an apothecary’s wife. She also used unnamed apothecaries from the cities of Dresden, Meiningen, Arnstadt, and Kassel. Most of the apothecaries mentioned did their business with Elisabeth at quite a distance; only once does the name of the apothecary from Schmalkalden—Johann Kister—appear in her account books, and she most frequently patronized Eobamus Kosterer in Erfurt and Johann Ralla in Leipzig. Payments to apothecaries represent one of the most frequent expenses in her account books. Elisabeth seems to have turned to apothecaries especially for medicines that could not be manufactured at her estate. Nearly all of the recipes intended for apothecaries—most of which are in Latin—contain compound or unusual ingredients such as mastix, theriac, laurel oil, potable gold, and precious gems, while the recipes addressed directly to Elisabeth require simple kitchen techniques and readily available herbal or mineral ingredients. In addition to their role in making medical recipes, apothecaries also provided Elisabeth with a variety of ingredients and materia medica such as cloves, nutmeg, and cassia, as well as the ready- made waters and oils that were common ingredients in recipes and popular medicinal remedies on their own. A detailed bill from the apothecary Kosterer in Erfurt provides insight into the exact nature of her purchases. Kosterer, who addressed Elisabeth directly in a letter attached to the bill, charged the duchess for a variety of basic materia medica, especially sugar, bitter orange, and almonds; several medications including syrups, powders, and pills; and completed recipes, for

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both herself and members of her household. The bill, which totals just over twenty gulden and covers the period from late 1550 to early 1552, also contains a plea by Kosterer for Elisabeth to pay him promptly, “for I am a poor good man and have need of the money, as I have no other sustenance.” Another apothecary’s bill, anonymous, undated, and simply titled “Item for my noble lady of Rochlitz,” includes charges for sealing wax, fennel seeds, betony water, and a “powder made of pearls,” in addition to several recipes. During bouts of fever and eye trouble in 1553, Elisabeth asked Philip to have an apothecary set up at her estate in Schmalkalden, arguing, “We spend considerable sums in the apothecary every year, and we cannot find such materia . . . ubiquitously.” Elisabeth kept up direct and active communication with the apothecaries upon whom she relied. Kosterer’s bill indicates that she directly oversaw the medical purchases to which he referred, and several of the recipes intended for apothecaries included requests in Elisabeth’s hand for ingredients, both herbal and mineral. The bottom of one recipe written in Latin, for example, contains instructions in Elisabeth’s scrawling handwriting: “You are to make this and send it. Also send this [the recipe] back. Also send a bit of ceruse and a bit of pompholyx.” In addition to the recipe, which contained pearls, rubies, and sapphires, she sought two materials that she presumably intended to prepare and use herself. Ceruse (white lead powder) and pompholyx (zinc oxide powder) were both used for skin conditions, as attested by Eucharius Rösslin the Younger’s claim that ceruse “cleans the skin, makes it pretty and smooth.” Even when she turned to other practitioners, her desire to direct her own medical care was ever present. Visits from Healers Aside from apothecaries, Elisabeth had frequent contact with a wide variety of other healers. The most easily traced—but probably not the most widely used—were learned physicians. There was no resident physician or surgeon at Schmalkalden; hence significant travel was involved if Elisabeth wanted a physician to come look after her in person. In 1549, she called Marburg professor Johannes Dryander to her when she suffered from “a heavy flux in the breast . . . which soon caused our throat to become raw.” She occasionally requested (and usually received) her brother Philip’s personal surgeons and physicians, and she also had Philip send for practitioners, apparently believing that her powerful brother would have more sway in convincing healers to make the trip to Schmalkalden. Philip procured, at Elisabeth’s request, a Jewish physician through their cousin August of Saxony in 1556, and he at-

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tempted (in vain) to convince the well- known Burchard Mithobius to come. Physicians were not the only practitioners Elisabeth requested from afar: she frequently made use of Philip’s surgeons, who provided plasters and other external cures, and in 1556 she asked her brother to locate and send a barber named Jörg Adam from Rothenburg. In the absence of these visits, Elisabeth had regular epistolary contact with several physicians and surgeons, with whom she corresponded on matters both political and medical. In 1544, while still at Rochlitz, Elisabeth received two different letters from the surgeon Caspar Lyman, as well as several recipes and medications. Matthias Razenberger, who contributed at least one recipe to her collection and advised her during her illness in 1552, sent Elisabeth a letter that same year, thanking her for news of political developments and invoking their shared Lutheran faith. Elisabeth’s relationship with Sebastian Roth von Auerbach dated back at least to 1537, and “Doktor Aurbach” appears more frequently than any other medical practitioner in her records from the last twenty years of her life. Although their contact seems to have been more sporadic after her move to Schmalkalden, Auerbach continued to send medical advice. Two of the regimens in Elisabeth’s recipe collection are from him, and he felt confident enough in her goodwill to request game for the wedding of his daughter in 1553, capitalizing on the fact that his daughter, too, was named Elisabeth. Owing to the absence of a resident physician or apothecary in Schmalkalden, it is likely that the majority of practitioners who visited Elisabeth were sought locally. As discussed in chapter 1, these local networks are the most difficult to uncover because they have a very small footprint in written documents, although Elisabeth’s papers do allow us to get a basic picture of the help she received. Her account books indicate that a barber paid her occasional visits, likely to oversee her regular bloodletting, although she claimed during a period of madness in 1556 that she had not been bled for ten years. “A woman from Wassung” came to administer an unusual cure for the pustules on her arm in 1556, putting “all sorts of branches and twigs” in the wound. Accounts settled after Elisabeth’s death by the bailiff Otto Glein include payments to a wide range of supplicants who helped Elisabeth in illness. The barber- surgeon Caspar Rung claimed that he had “served the blessed departed duchess often and with great effort in her illness, with plasters and other help,” but had never received payment; he was given half a thaler for his work. Another barber- surgeon, Veit Scharlach, reported that he had “bound her wounds and cleaned them and, as far as God’s grace allowed, looked after her and taken care of her with great diligence.” For his efforts, he had been promised “a new gown along with a good payment,” but

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as Elisabeth became “sicker and poorer and finally departed this earth at the will of God,” he had received “nothing but a robe that has been worn a long time.” Scharlach received 6 gulden, and a note at the bottom of his plea confirms his story: “It is true that he waited on Her Noble Grace with plasters and bandages for many weeks.” An even more generous payment of 7 gulden 3 thaler was given to a third barber- surgeon, Caspar Cragk. In addition, Glein’s accounts cite payments to several female servants who cared for Elisabeth. A woman named Margaret Weizeln, who “served Her Grace a year ago, and now in her illness,” was given 6 gulden, and Anna, a foundling whom Elisabeth had taken on as a servant, received 2 gulden. Margareta Auerochssin’s plea for money received personal attention from Philip of Hesse himself, who asserted that “since our dear departed sister raised the supplicant from childhood on, and she [Margareta] waited on her in her illness, the aforementioned Auerochssin should receive 24 gulden of the money our sister left behind,” an impressive sum. Philip similarly decreed that another women, Frau Grauswitz, should receive 50 gulden for waiting on Elisabeth in her illness. These few lines aimed merely at settling payments hint once again at the crucial role servants played in the lives of noblewomen—they were the people who interacted most intimately with great ladies on a day- to-day basis, but evidence of the extent of their numerous services (and close emotional ties to their superiors) rarely surfaces. In the case of Weizeln, the foundling Anna, Auerochssin, and Grauswitz, we can see some of Elisabeth’s most crucial resources during her many illnesses— and the substantial payments to Auerochssin and Grauswitz suggests that this relationship was readily recognized. In accessing this varied array of healers, Elisabeth maintained a high level of control over the direction of her care. She chose which practitioners she desired to see and maintained an active role in the ministrations they provided. In most cases, this seems to have been expected by healers. All of the physicians who wrote personal letters of advice to Elisabeth assumed that she had a significant degree of competency in self- care. In one letter, Razenberger instructed her to “take lavender water distilled from a hundred good blossoms. Or if Your Grace prefers to take another lavender water or any other good water, she should do so,” assuming that she would have such supplies on hand and knew how to use them. In response to Elisabeth’s request for a concoction against a flux in the chest, Auerbach wrote: “The recipe is enclosed, and I fully intended to send it to Your Grace sooner. Your Grace knows its use, so I will not explain it here.” The physician Heinz Poppe sent Elisabeth a prickly response to her request to suggest herbs for a bath: “Your Princely Grace can find many good herbs in the herb garden, as she surely knows herself,” which

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suggested that Elisabeth had an herb garden and knew how to use it. In an earlier letter, Poppe advised her to avoid eating dairy products, but added, “Your Grace must determine herself what is good to eat or drink.” In these epistolary exchanges conducted at a significant distance, the physicians left a good deal of room for Elisabeth to make her own choices. A Divine Purgatio Elisabeth thus employed a dizzying array of medical assistance for her various complaints, ranging from help that was close at hand to practitioners who made journeys of many miles. However, these assorted healers represented only one portion of her efforts to recover her health. Far more important, to her mind, were the measures she took to seek a cure from higher powers. During a period of illness in March 1552, Elisabeth received a letter from the Lutheran deacon of Schmalkalden, Caspar Aquilla, praising her for her desire to recover her health through repentance. “I am so wonderfully joyful that God’s bodily punishment has worked so strongly on Your Noble Grace as a divine Purgatio. . . . I thank my dear, pious Lord that our sweet Jesus Christ has graciously heard my prayers and comforted and overjoyed Your Noble Grace so mercifully with [Christ’s] sacrament and the sanctifying, living word of God, for the healing of body and soul. Amen.” From Aquilla’s point of view, Elisabeth’s illness was the outward manifestation of sin, “God’s bodily punishment.” Much as one would use a purgative medicine to rid the body of evil humors, so too was a “divine purgative” necessary to heal the soul. In Elisabeth’s case, this divine purge was the illness itself—the pain a conduit for the word of God. To what extent Elisabeth viewed her ailments as a punishment from God is unclear: Aquilla’s letter is the only indication of such thoughts. However, his letter does call to light two crucial beliefs about medical care in early modern Germany that certainly held true for Elisabeth. First, any return to health would ultimately come from God. It was commonly accepted among both learned physicians and laypeople that disease had a supernatural origin and that the first response should always be prayer. Second, healing for the body and healing for the soul were intimately intertwined. Elisabeth’s divine purge reflected the belief in the power of Christ to cure the pains of the body. Analogies between the sick body and the sick soul were widespread in early modern Germany and were based on a number of verses in the Bible, especially Exodus 15:26 (“I am the Lord, your physician [Ich Bin der Herr, dein Artzt]”). In his Sermon on the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Luther depicted Christ as divine physician in his explication of Matthew 11:25–30, in which

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Christ called himself rest for the weary. The passage, according to Luther, meant that “My Kingdom is a hospital for scourges, for I myself am a doctor. Thus whosoever desires health, a peaceful conscience, and a calm heart . . . he should come to me.” The depiction of Christ as a divine physician was a widespread tradition, enhanced by the close relationship seen between healing the body and healing the soul. Fritz Krafft has shown that images of Christ as an apothecary became very popular in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in both Catholic and Protestant artworks. Lay religious writings, particularly devotional manuals, often took on the motif of medicine for the soul. Elisabeth of Saxony, for example, owned an “Herb Garden for the Sick Soul” and a three- volume “Medicine Book for the Soul” in the 1560s. The latter claimed to contain a “healing and noble recipe or soul’s medicinal tonic from the holy word of God, like herbs discovered on the advice of the one true physician, the Lord Jesus Christ.” While the analogy of Christ as physician was generally used metaphorically to designate the healing of sick souls, diseases of the body and the soul were closely related. Mirroring Elisabeth’s avid hunt for a medical cure to her ailments, then, was an equally active search for divine aid. Charity represented her most common method of seeking God’s favor, and unlike that of Dorothea of Mansfeld, her poor relief followed a conventional pattern of financial gifts. She consistently gave alms “for the sake of God” (umb Gottes willen), and the most frequent entries in her personal account book from the years 1549–54 are those citing money given to the poor. In 1551, she gave 10 thaler to “poor people” (arm leutten) at least once a month, with extra contributions in September when her chamberlain, Rudolf von Bünau, was very ill. She also occasionally donated money to the hospitals of Schmalkalden, giving 2 gulden to the hospital (Spital) in 1552 and another 50 thaler to the Franzosenhaus, the infirmary for those suffering from the French Disease. In her last will and testament, she left 1,400 thaler to the Spital and 200 thaler to the Franzosenhaus. In periods of illness, Elisabeth employed both charitable giving and prayer in addition to her search for earthly medicines. Even though Luther’s doctrine on good works disassociated charity and salvation, Luther nevertheless pointed to poor relief as an important outward expression of inward Protestant faith. In fact, Natalie Zemon Davis has noted little difference in patterns of giving between Catholics and Protestants in sixteenth- century France. Elisabeth’s regular gifts were in keeping with her rank and gender. In periods of illness, however, she employed special measures. Not only did she increase the amounts she herself gave to the poor, she also solicited her brother’s help with almsgiving and prayer in her name. During a bout of fever accompanied by facial blemishes in 1553, she asked Philip to “give alms

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for us, and pray to God Almighty, and instruct Your Dearest’s preacher to do the same, so that we might have our face be as it was before.” In a letter dated April 1556, which lamented a festering wound on her arm, she once again turned to Philip for assistance from Lutheran congregations in Kassel, requesting, “Your Dearest may please have us remembered in the common prayer, though it be unnecessary to mention us by name. For we hold prayer and almsgiving in high esteem.” The line between the Catholic view of alms as a means to effect healing and Luther’s encouragement of almsgiving in praise of God’s choice to heal was very thin, and Elisabeth, as a laywoman, drew no discernible distinction. In periods of grave illness, she looked to good works and prayer not merely as a sign of grace but in anticipation that she might recover her health as a result. Elisabeth’s appeals to almsgiving and prayer in times of illness were not distinctively Protestant; as Andrew Wear has argued, Catholic and Protestant views of religion and healing had many more similarities than differences. Nevertheless, her general approach to healing fit in very well with her Protestant beliefs. She did not make pilgrimages to saints’ shrines, look for miracle cures, or invoke the names of the saints in any way—all crucial means of religious healing in Catholic regions. Her “divine purge,” moreover, emphasized the importance of the word of God and the direct involvement of Jesus, both central components to Protestant doctrine. As we have seen, the physicians she drew on most regularly were also devout Protestants. Nonetheless, the manner in which her religious faith directed her overall attitude toward sickness and health would have been very familiar to both Catholic and Protestant patients. “The Best Doctor” For most people in early modern Europe, the spheres of medicine and faith generally did not contradict each other or stand in opposition. Elisabeth relied on both when she became ill, intertwining them so as to make them nearly unrecognizable as distinct entities. Alms and prayer could be combined effortlessly with natural healing methods: in the same 1556 letter in which she asked Philip to give alms for her, she also requested he send her a barber named Meister Paul “so that he can look at the hole in my arm.” On the back of a recipe for a salve, she scribbled the words “God provides everything. O God, help grant me perseverance.” Religion was so much a part of the sixteenth- century worldview that one rarely finds instances in which it was completely disassociated from healing. In fact, certain religious arguments made the use of natural medicines not

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only acceptable but also advisable. Chapter 38 of the deuterocanonical text Jesus Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), very popular in German- speaking regions from at least the late fifteenth century, included the following verses on medicine: (1) Honour the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him. (2) For all healing is from God, and he shall receive gifts of the king. . . . (4) The most High hath created medicines out of the earth, and a wise man will not abhor them. . . . (7) By these he shall cure and shall allay their pains, and of these the apothecary shall make sweet confections, and shall make up ointments of health, and of his works there shall be no end.

The two main points of these verses were already common in fifteenthcentury medical texts: God had endowed physicians with their talents and had created materia medica for people’s use. The 1485 herbal Gart der Gesuntheit, for example, characterized the effort of disseminating “the properties of the herbs and other creatures” as a “holy work,” while Ambrosius Jung’s 1492 plague tract quoted verse 4 of Sirach 38. Particularly beloved of Protestants, Sirach was translated into German in 1529 by Zwinglian Leo Jud and in 1532 by Martin Luther. Quotations from chapter 38 were common additions to medical texts. The prominent Lutheran physician Johannes Dryander, for example, emphasized that “God endowed and divinely gifted the physician,” while the frontispiece to a 1538 Hausapothek contained the quotation “the Lord lets medicines grow on the earth, and a wise man does not disregard them.” Erik Heinrichs has found that Dryander and other Lutheran physicians were attempting at this time to establish a specifically “Lutheran” medicine, based on Luther’s own high praise of natural healing and designed “to comfort the sick through the forgiveness of sins and the divine gift of natural medicine.” Dryander’s purpose was twofold: to establish the physician’s primacy in the hierarchy of practitioners and to reassure patients that natural healing did not conflict with faith in God. On the first count, he contrasted the “divinely gifted” physician to “the others . . . who heal their sick by magic, by the devil’s arts, or by calling upon anything else but God.” In claiming the physician’s divine gifts, he also refuted a purported misconception among “common church servants and preachers . . . that they would be acting against God’s order if they told their sick to seek advice and help, because God wanted them to be sick and [had] laden them with the cross [of illness].” Although this description matches closely with Caspar Aquilla’s characterization of Elisabeth’s illness as “God’s bodily punishment,” it is unlikely that Dryander’s defense of physicians reflected widespread concern about earthly healing. Stolberg’s study of early modern German patients’ letters suggests that expressions of

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religious faith tended to focus on the optimistic belief that God would heal rather than on the idea that he had stricken them with illness as a punishment for sinful behavior. Nevertheless, the reluctance to use medicine was enough of a trope that Dryander assumed it would resonate with his readers. A number of Elisabeth’s statements confirm this rhetorical apprehension about the use of medical remedies. While awaiting the arrival of the apothecary Rodius from Marburg in 1553, Elisabeth contended, “We wish to use no medication [Ertznej] from him, but instead trust that our Lord God will help us back to health without.” She also instructed her brother Philip to discontinue the invasive mercury cure (Schmiere) his physicians had begun after he showed symptoms of the French Disease in 1539, cautioning, “We advise . . . Your Dearest to avoid any stronger medication and to abstain from taking it again, in the hope that Your Dearest shall heal with time and be given lasting health by our Almighty God.” Philip, who agreed to follow Elisabeth’s recommendation as much as possible, gave his sister similar advice for an illness she suffered in 1554: “Our consideration and loyal advice is also that Your Dearest be given nothing at all for her illness, but rather wait until the Almighty God may help Your Dearest back to health.” It is difficult to establish whether Elisabeth or Philip actually followed through with the conviction to avoid using medication or from what exactly they intended to abstain. Although Elisabeth declined to use Rodius’s medicine in 1553, she explained in the very same letter that she wanted him to visit her in order to “set up an apothecary” to reduce the high fees she had paid for medicines. She also requested that he “bring all kinds of waters with him, for we were unable to distill any waters this year,” an indication that she at least expected to take distilled waters for medicinal purposes. Clearly, given her many attempts to find a cure through earthly means, she evinced no fundamental objection to medicinal remedies. Similarly, Anna of Saxony occasionally advised leaving healing up to God when she felt she could (or should) not be of help. She declined to send Dorothea Susanna of Saxony-Weimar medicine in 1570 because she did not know “all the circumstances of the illness” and instead urged Dorothea Susanna to “let the merciful Lord, who is our only true physician, help Your Dearest back to health.” When her daughter Elisabeth requested advice for her difficult pregnancy, Anna responded that it was “dangerous to use anything internally or also outside the body, and we cannot recommend the juniper berry oil to your dearest,” and hence the best advice would be to “remember in a Christian spirit the common cross with which the dear Lord has laden all female persons and ask him diligently to give her the power to endure such complaints with patience through his help and assistance.”

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In all of these cases, the “only true physician” was not invoked to the complete exclusion of all other medical care. Nonetheless, the repeated references to God as more than simply a metaphorical physician, especially when read in combination with attempts by Dryander and others to show they were acting according to the will of God, indicate that concerns regarding God’s authority were prevalent. In Elisabeth’s case, statements of mistrust of earthly medicine frequently were tied to perceived shortcomings in the care she received from human hands. To return to the example of Rodius, who eventually visited Schmalkalden in September of 1553, Elisabeth’s description of his visit indicates that she did, after all, receive treatment from him and found it to be less than satisfactory. Reporting that her condition had bettered but that her eyes “are still a bit dark so that we cannot see very well,” Elisabeth complained that “we would not have let the doctor go so quickly, but he acted as if he would catch the plague [if he stayed].” She added, “we receive no [help] at all from doctors, physicians, or others, but from God alone, in whom we put our trust. He is the best doctor.” Calling on God as the ultimate authority could also serve as a justification for circumventing, contradicting, or protesting physicians’ care. When Elisabeth became completely incapacitated by a grave illness in the summer of 1552, her brother’s physician Johann Meckbach predicted that she would not survive the ordeal. Instead, she made a full recovery, and she responded to the physician’s false prognosis with ire. So certain had Meckbach been of her death, she wrote accusingly, that he “frivolously chose not to heal us.” Her indignation addressed not only the insult of having been given up for dead but also Meckbach’s presumptuousness in foretelling something only God could know. “We knew from the beginning that we would die at the will of the Almighty, to the sanctity of our soul . . . but this will not happen before its time.” Despite having received medical treatment during her illness from two physicians, at least one barber, her ladies- in-waiting, and her own home remedies, she announced her recovery with the words: “thanks be to God, I am hale and healthy, and no one helped me but God alone.” These statements echo a direct challenge to learned medicine on the basis of religious objections put forth by Paracelsus, who argued that “the art of medicine comes from only one, and that is from God.” While virtually no sixteenth- century individual would have taken issue with this statement, Paracelsus expressed his medical theology in terms of a direct link between God and nature rather than between God and the learned physician: healing properties could be found “in the medicine, not the doctor.” Elisabeth of Rochlitz was no Paracelsian; it is unlikely that she had even heard of Paracelsus, since she died before his works became widely disseminated. Nevertheless, Paracel-

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sus’s argument reflected an approach to religion and medical authority that would have resonated very closely with all of the women examined in this book. Anna of Waldeck described the success of Anna of Saxony’s remedies on her sister with the assertion that “no doctor could help her, but still God helped her through Your Electorly Grace’s medicine.” Nancy Siraisi has maintained that although there was widespread acceptance of natural healing in the Middle Ages, “rhetorical critiques of the medical profession” based on Christian tenets were very common. However, Elisabeth’s criticisms pointed to lasting questions about healing and authority that went beyond rhetoric. Although she did not question the overall legitimacy of the medical profession or the physician’s primacy within it, she also did not accept the depiction of the physician as a special agent of divine aid that Dryander and his peers were attempting to establish. Without special divine sanction, doctors were placed on the same level as all other healers. Disagreements with Practitioners Although Elisabeth had friendly relationships with many of the healers who treated her, particularly the physicians Auerbach and Poppe and a barber named Meister Paul, she was quick to criticize practitioners when she felt a disservice had been done. Although physicians were the practitioners for whom she had the most respect, they also tended to bear the brunt of her ire. As already mentioned, she took great offense at Johann Meckbach’s false prediction of her death during her critical illness of 1552, an error that was not soon forgotten. When Meckbach himself became ill a year later, Elisabeth could barely disguise her schadenfreude, sending her brother a list of medical advice for the ailing physician: “Tell him that yellow fennel water is good for stroke [den schlag] . . . also a sage potion from sage wine . . . rose hips ground to powder are also good for a stroke with lily- of-the- valley water.” She added, ”I am truly sorry about his illness; now he will understand the heart of a sick person lying on his deathbed. I will pray to God for him.” Her medical ministrations proved unnecessary, as Philip reported in his next letter that the doctor was recovering nicely. More revealing than her brief recipes, however, was her reference to Meckbach’s lack of empathy for her illness. Her declaration that he would finally understand the “heart of a sick person” underscored the emotional weight a physician’s prognosis could have for early modern patients and the sense of betrayal they felt at being given up for dead. As we saw in chapter 3, Dorothea of Mansfeld also pointed to this psychological dimension of the patient- practitioner relationship in her assertion that she

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had helped cure a woman’s breast cancer in part by “giv[ing] her hope” rather than giving up on her. Despite Elisabeth’s quarrel with Meckbach, he still fared better than a Jewish doctor named Hirsch, who visited Elisabeth amid great expectations in the summer of 1556. Elisabeth had originally implored Philip to procure another Jewish doctor, Urias Leopold, “who cured the eye of young Hermann of Spangenberg” and who had been recommended by August of Saxony. Hirsch was sent when Leopold turned out to be dead, and Elisabeth initially welcomed the substitution. She assured Philip that “even though we did not request this Jew . . . in the end he is much more skilled than [Leopold]” and proclaimed optimistically, “we feel sure he can heal us.” Hirsch dutifully arrived in July and reported to Philip that “Her Grace has a wide wound on the right arm, from which the elbow is crooked and without movement, and the swelling on the left cheek in the back has opened and become a hole.” Afraid that it would be dangerous to undertake a full- scale cure (Cura) during the dog days of summer, Hirsch proposed, for the time being, to control her condition “by assuaging the pain and cleaning the wounds.” A week later, he reported that “because Her Noble Grace followed and used the remedies that I prescribed for her, [she] has experienced good recovery and betterment . . . may God the Almighty continue to give his grace.” He once again promised to return once the dog days had passed. Elisabeth’s initial compliance with his orders soon dwindled, however, and it became clear that Hirsch, who had returned temporarily to his home in Frankfurt an der Oder to take care of family business, had no intention of coming back, despite Philip’s best efforts. Once he realized that Hirsch was gone for good, Philip placed the blame for the doctor’s reluctance squarely on his sister’s shoulders: “We were not a little troubled, and still are, that Your Dearest did not obey Master Hirsch the Jew, for we have no doubt he would have helped Your Dearest with God’s help. But now that he has gone home and cannot be convinced to come back, it will be highly necessary to think of other means that can help Your Dearest.” Far from regretting her role in Dr. Hirsch’s departure, Elisabeth wrote back that she had been verdorben (spoiled, ruined) by the physician and complained bitterly that “before the Jew came we could still read and write, but no longer”; moreover, she now suspected that “the Jew never intended to heal us, but instead to keep us alive for a time, in order to increase his own fame through the cure,” and she “regretted nothing more” than the large sums of money she and Philip had both given to the doctor. Even before she received Philip’s scolding letter, she claimed she would “give a thousand gulden of [my] own money to make it

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so that the Jew Hirsch had never come.” Although Jewish physicians were generally well regarded at the courts of Renaissance Europe, Jütte has noted that once Hirsch turned from hero to villain, his religious convictions made him an easy scapegoat for Elisabeth. She consistently included jibes against “the Jew” or “the Jew Hirsch” in her letters to Philip until her death. Physicians were not the only medical practitioners to become targets of Elisabeth’s wrath. When trying to convince Philip to set up an apothecary in Schmalkalden in 1553, she complained, “the apothecary in these parts is very negligent and lazy.” In May of 1556 she accused one of Philip’s barbers, Werner Gans, of “incit[ing] fever” in her, and when Hirsch first arrived in July of 1556, she expressed hope that “our Lord God has sent him to us, for the barbers have shamefully ruined [schendtlich verterbt] us.” However, Hirsch and Meckbach received the brunt of her ire, and her criticisms of them were more severe than those of other practitioners. This derived in part from the superhuman expectations she placed on learned physicians—she was, after all, a dying woman who had little hope for any recovery, and doctors, because of their greater prestige, began their treatment with farther to fall. At the same time, her expressed antagonism toward physicians was also rooted in Elisabeth’s own experience of the methods that improved her ailments, which gave no preferential treatment to the particular type of cure offered by learned physicians. A Flux in the Breast As discussed in the previous chapters, noblewomen in early modern Germany generally evaluated medical success using experiential criteria: a recipe had value if it was proven to be effective. Patients, for whom the matter of health and illness was most pressing, used similar criteria to evaluate cures. In nearly every reference to her illness, Elisabeth described her health in terms of the different symptoms she suffered. After a spate of bad heath in 1556, for example, she explained to Philip: “We were somewhat ill, but now things have improved with us, and our womb is no longer rising, and the flux in the breast has also fallen and dissipated so that we are no longer choking so much from it. The arm and hand still hurt us very much, but because the chest is recovering, we will wait and see and do nothing for it, as everyone is telling us to do so.” In Elisabeth’s perception, her discomfort was caused by a flowing that manifested itself in a series of related complaints; she took the improvement of her chest as a sign of the eventual recovery of her arm and hand. As in this case, she generally reported discomfort as “a flux” (ein Fluß), which could cause pain in various parts of her body, including her chest, head, and

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arm. Ulinka Rublack, Barbara Duden, and Michael Stolberg have all pointed to the central place of fluxes, or flows, in early modern ideas of the body. Fluxes rose and fell, as did body parts; as Duden describes it, “the inside could be grasped only as a place of an experienced but invisible flowing.” In the sick body, fluxes and moving body parts caused both internal and external symptoms and pain; the flux in Elisabeth’s chest, for example, made her feel as if she was choking, while her rising womb caused unspecified problems. As Duden has noted, patients placed particular emphasis on movement, perceiving that a flux could easily disappear, only to reemerge in a different part of the body. Gianna Pomata has suggested an essential difference between scholarly and lay theories of the body: while learned physicians focused on an imbalance of the four Galenic humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile), laymen and women held a vaguer concept of flowing fluids. In practice, however, physicians frequently described illness in terms of fluxes as well. One of the letters of consultation Sebastian Roth von Auerbach wrote to Elisabeth, for example, gave her advice for an earlier “flux in the breast” and described in detail the various potential motions of the flux, without once mentioning humors. Michael Stolberg has noted this convergence of learned and lay understandings of disease and has called fluxes “the most important concept of illness” in early modern Europe. In describing her problem as a flux, Elisabeth was thus speaking an extremely common language of disease. With respect to treatment, however, learned and lay attitudes were more likely to diverge. The quintessential therapeutic tool of the learned physician was the holistic regimen targeting the whole body. In Galenic medicine, illness was to be negotiated by manipulating six nonnaturals, the external living conditions: eating and drinking, movement and rest, sleeping and waking, evacuation and retention, air and winds, and emotions. While physicians also extensively wrote recipes for medications, remedies were only a small part of the overall cure, a marked contrast to the approach of the noblewomen outlined in this book. The regimens of health in Elisabeth’s recipe collection differ markedly from the rest of her recipes in the relatively small role they assign to drugs. Auerbach explicitly stressed the importance of this approach by stating, “medicament without regimen cannot bring true health.” Instead, diet represented the central area of the physician’s expertise. The diet Auerbach prescribed for Elisabeth’s flux, for example, deemed an expansive number of foods unhealthy, including (but not limited to) onions; garlic; mustard; horseradish; all foods seasoned with pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, and other fragrant spices; smoked meat, fish, and game; all stuffed dishes; all foods fried in butter; beans; lentils; and sauerkraut. Such a diet leaves the reader to won-

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der, given the culinary options available in sixteenth- century Germany, what the duchess could eat. Despite the severity of many such regimens, most aristocrats employed physicians to watch over their diets. Having a regimen, however, did not mean abiding by it. A lover of food and drink, Elisabeth harbored an intense dislike of the strict dietary restrictions required by such regimens of health, and in this she was certainly not alone. Although she frequently insisted to her brother that this time she would follow the doctor’s orders, she rarely followed through with a regimen for more than a few days. Indeed, this seems to have been the root of her difficulties with the Jewish doctor Hirsch. Days after his arrival, Elisabeth assured Philip, “We are obeying [Dr. Hirsch] now and are keeping to his regimen, and we are no longer allowed to drink any wine at all,” asking her brother to send beer instead. She expressed initial optimism that the regimen was helping her, yet however genuine her intentions might have been, she was clearly relieved to give up Hirsch’s strict regimen after his ignominious departure. Two months later she proclaimed, “Food and drink still taste good to us . . . whether the Jew likes it or not, and as proof of this we ate five [game] birds for lunch today.” Because the physician was inevitably connected with his dietary regimen, defiance of diet equaled defiance of the physician himself. Toward the end of her life, Elisabeth admitted the futility of even attempting a physician’s regimen. In response to her request in August of 1557, Philip agreed to send one of his personal physicians, a Dr. Volquinus, only if Elisabeth also promised to “follow his orders, for if Your Dearest does not intend to obey Dr. Volquinus it is better that he remain with us, since we [and] our sons and daughters have need of him.” Rather than acquiescing, Elisabeth replied, “Regarding Your Dearest’s wish that we promise to obey Dr. Volquinus, we cannot do such a thing, for we will not hold to it. Since he can be useful to Your Dearest and Your Dearest’s children, Your Dearest might as well keep him.” Although she grounded this refusal in the conviction that little could help her at that point, one senses that she was not entirely disappointed by her brother’s hesitation. Meister Paul’s Plaster Elisabeth’s reluctance to hold to a regimen brings us full circle back to medicinal recipes. To patients who suffered from truly debilitating symptoms, it was often preferable to draw on the medicaments that would relieve the individual complaints than to follow complex lifestyle adjustments, the efficacy of which was not always immediately obvious. Just as the experiential nature of medical recipes used efficacy as the prime measure of success, so

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too did Elisabeth judge her return to health by the immediate effects of a given remedy: the empirical experience of relief from pain and discomfort acted as the marker for the success of a cure. Pomata and Duden have both noted that patients focused on remedies that would purge bad humors from the body, but purgatives were only one part (albeit a large one) of an overall interest in medicaments. Duke Heinrich the Younger of Braunschweig, as we saw in the previous chapter, continually sought Anna of Saxony’s aqua vitae because he felt it was the most effective relief for his pains. Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s symptoms were mainly external, so along with purgatives (which figure prominently in her recipe collection), she sought salves, unguents, and baths to soothe her symptoms. Like patients today, sick people in early modern Europe were constantly looking for something to make them feel better, and that “something” tended to be a medicament more often than a dietary prescription. This preference for remedy over regimen can be seen especially clearly in Elisabeth’s relationship with Hirsch. Even as she sharply denigrated his worth as a doctor, she asked Philip to help procure an unguent and a plaster Hirsch had promised to provide her. Despite the ridicule she heaped on his dietary restrictions, she remained willing to try his recipes. Not only did this approach turn the physician’s preference for regimen over medicament on its head, it also meant that Hirsch’s unguent would be judged by the same criteria as any other practitioner’s recipes—by its efficacy. In fact, in the end Elisabeth found the unguent no more satisfactory than Hirsch’s dietary regimen; less than a month after requesting it, she complained that “until now we have used the Jew’s plaster, but will no longer do so as we have noticed no effect from it.” She asked Philip instead to “send the barber Meister Paul’s plaster, and to send us a copy of the recipe for it, in the hopes that it will be of more use to us.” Despite its modest origins, Elisabeth continued to use the barber’s plaster, made of egg white, honey, saffron, and flour, at least through April of 1557, and in one instance declared that “this plaster helps us the most of all.” In the end, it was the perceived success that mattered the most to patients, whether the source was a physician, a barber, or a noblewoman. The preference for remedies over regimen was neither absolute nor exclusive; at the same time that patients avidly sought whatever medicaments might help them, there was an enduring respect for learned medicine at court. Elisabeth’s brother Philip, for example, could not disguise his disapproval of his sister’s desire to use Hirsch’s unguent but discard his regimen. He agreed to send the remedy and its recipe, but his acquiescence was given “with no small reluctance,” due to the absence of a physician to administer the cure: “Your Dearest must have someone with her who understands such things,

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i.e., what measurements to use, so that [they] will work. For that Your Dearest intends to use these things without the advice of those who understand them concerns us greatly, and we cannot approve of it.” While Philip was perfectly willing to exchange medicinal recipes and even give medical advice in other instances, he showed himself hesitant to meddle in a cure initially prescribed by a physician—a caution linked to the genuine concern he felt about his sister’s condition. We should thus be careful not to overstate the learned/lay divide. Although Elisabeth tussled with Meckbach and Hirsch, she had a long and friendly relationship with many physicians, particularly Auerbach. When learned medicine failed to produce tangible effects, however, resistance to physicians’ methods increased. Elisabeth of Rochlitz was far from alone in this. As we have seen, Heinrich of Braunschweig pronounced Anna of Saxony’s aqua vitae superior to all of his doctors’ medications. Similarly, when Lady Anna of Waldeck became frustrated with the diagnosis and care she received from learned physicians, she sought help from Anna of Saxony. Her unusually detailed portrayal of her illness warrants a complete translation: Whenever I do a little bit of light or hard riding, or when I catch a bit of a chill, or when I get a lot of exercise, my womb rises to my heart, so that one has to go through great effort and work with me until I recover again, with bandages on the body and holding out strong smells and other means. What is more, for the past two years my feminine obligation [i.e., menstruation] has appeared only once in a quarter year and still not had a proper color, and I have such violent, excessive pains in my head, which I cannot drive away, until a flux falls violently from the head to the chest in the back and other appendages, so that one has to wrap me with warm cloths and otherwise go through great effort and work with me. And finally, when the womb and the head plague me so badly, I also get a strong hiccup or coughing that lasts a long time, and when it stops, I am so weak and exhausted that one has a hard time with me. Now, the doctores have many differing opinions, many say it comes from the womb, others from the stomach or the spleen (for I also have a pain under the smaller ribs on the left side), but none of them help me at all. But I cannot think other than that it occurs and comes from an evil womb [Bossen Mutter].

Disappointed with both the explanations of learned physicians and their remedies, Lady Anna provided her own self- confident diagnosis of an evil womb. In search of a cure, she turned to Anna of Saxony, as she believed Anna’s medicine had helped her sister- in-law recover from the same illness. As important as experiential knowledge was to the practitioner, it was absolutely crucial to the patient, who made choices based on the perceived efficacy of treatments on his or her own body. In an era of a vocal lay medical

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culture, many patients considered themselves just as able to judge what was wrong with them as a physician, and Cordula Nolte has suggested that noblemen and noblewomen felt particularly capable of self- diagnosis exactly because of their proximity to learned medicine. Whether or not aristocrats were any more likely to self- diagnose than other people, it is clear that there was a significant amount of patient autonomy among those best able to afford highly learned physicians. As the examples of Elisabeth and Anna of Waldeck illustrate, the idea in learned medical circles that only a university- trained physician could properly read the signs of disease and determine the cause ran aground on patients’ own self- confidence. Self-Diagnosis and the French Disease Elisabeth’s particular form of self- diagnosis is a good illustration of the extent to which illness was a malleable category in early modern Europe, open to a variety of possible interpretations and thus to a broad palette of interventions. In the last two years of her life, Elisabeth’s brother and the physicians who treated her became convinced that her suffering had a unified, underlying cause, and she was well aware of their opinion. A letter written to Philip in conjunction with Dr. Hirsch’s visit in July 1556 remarked tartly, “Your Dearest believes we have the French Disease [Franzosen].” The French Disease, most likely the ailment now known as syphilis, was a familiar scourge all over Europe by the mid- sixteenth century; its repellant symptoms plagued people of all social levels, and its venereal transmission inspired countless bawdy jokes. The first sign of the illness was pain in the joints, arms, and legs, which became especially intolerable at night. Eventually, painful, smelly pustules broke out on the body, which often festered and started eating the skin around them. In its final throes, it could cause blindness or insanity. However, these three stages could emerge slowly over the course of many years, and the disease often went into remission for long periods of time. Because of its mysterious nature, historian Guido Ruggiero has pointed to the French Disease as a potent example of the “slipperiness of signs” in early modern illness. For Elisabeth, the horrors of the Franzosen had hit close to home long before she fell ill herself. In addition to her father’s humiliating and ultimately fatal struggle with the illness, Philip was diagnosed with it in 1539, and he lived with bouts of it until his death in 1567. Elisabeth herself had been beset with rumors that she had contracted the disease in 1544, likely a response to the blemishes that appeared on her face that year; as the sores disappeared, the rumors seem to have died down. When the issue cropped up again in

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1556, Philip did not deny his suspicions but instead pleaded that “Your Grace not be ashamed of what sort of disease she has and let herself be healed.” He attempted to mitigate the stigma of sexuality associated with the disease by pointing out that “sometimes young children have this illness, and many people get it without having done something evil or unchaste.” Elisabeth was apparently already aware of the possibility of nonvenereal transmission of the disease, for after Philip contracted the illness in 1539, she advised his wife to abstain from sex “for a quarter year, for if children were to result, we fear they would not escape this illness.” Despite this knowledge, and despite the fact that her symptoms mapped closely onto the pattern of the French Disease, Elisabeth refused to believe that the Franzosen was the cause. Instead, she maintained, “the damage on our arm comes from a fall, and the throat is a [swollen] gland that originated from a bad tooth. And we have often had such things that disappeared again, and we have never had tooth pain except here in Schmalkalden.” She expressed exasperation at her brother for “act[ing] as if we wanted to hide and conceal our illness” and asserted that “if it were the French Disease, the wounds would not heal as, God be praised, is now happening.” For Elisabeth, the appearance and disappearance of symptoms pointed to isolated, discrete events. To Philip and his physicians, they suggested an underlying problem that needed to be addressed. Who was right? Did Elisabeth really have syphilis? Not only is it impossible for us to determine the answer to these questions from our vantage point several centuries later, it is also unhelpful. As Claudia Stein has argued, it is fruitless to try to map the modern bacterial infection known as syphilis onto early modern Europe, as people simply did not think in terms of disease ontologies. Far more interesting for our purposes is the malleability of disease categories that allowed Elisabeth and Philip to come up with such differing interpretations of her symptoms. The same set of complaints could point in two very different directions, which led to divergent conclusions as to the proper form of treatment. To address her symptoms, Elisabeth preferred isolated external measures. Even before the issue of the French Disease cropped up, she frequently expressed a predilection for surgeons and barbers, who were responsible for external treatments, over physicians. In the spring of 1556, for example, she thanked Philip for the physician he had sent to look after her but noted that “our arm has improved at the hands of Meister Werner,” a barber sent by Philip. She decided to “let it be for the moment, and use no other medicine, but first see what Meister Werner’s medicine can do for it.” As mentioned previously, a disproportionate number of her medicinal recipes were for

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salves, ointments, plasters, and baths, and her interest in Dr. Hirsch’s unguent despite her rejection of his regimen underscores this preference. Philip, in contrast, warned his sister against relieving “the superficial wounds for the moment,” instead of undergoing a cure “to heal the disease fundamentally.” He argued that “such outer things cannot be effective” and that it was absolutely imperative for his sister to “stop putting off the doctors and remedia that can help.” To some extent, their disagreement mirrored a larger turf war over the French Disease between doctors and surgeons: the primary symptoms took the form of external wounds and skin blemishes, the territory of surgeons, while at the same time there seemed to be an underlying internal problem with the body, the purview of physicians. Physicians’ suggested treatment for the French Disease fed into Elisabeth’s rejection of the diagnosis. It appears that Dr. Hirsch had initially traveled to Schmalkalden to begin a procedure called the Schmiere (literally “the smear”). Patients in the Schmiere were slathered with mercury ointment and put in a heated room or dry stove to sweat; in Elisabeth’s case, this procedure was to be done under the watch of Hirsch, in conjunction with his regimen. Although many physicians argued that the mercury ointment had an internal as well as an external effect, it also had serious side effects. Humanist Ulrich von Hutten, who published a memoir describing his battle with the French Disease in 1519, declared the mercury cure “so peinful that many had lever dy than so to be esed.” Aware of its dangers, Elisabeth gave Philip a long list of noblewomen and men who had been killed by the Schmiere and claimed she would rather die without the cure than risk a painful (and shameful) death as a result of it. In fact, fear of the mercury cure may have been a greater factor in her refusal to accept the possibility of the French Disease than the stigma attached to it. She expressed some interest in the “wood cure,” a treatment using the bark of the West Indian guaiac tree, to which von Hutten had ascribed near- miraculous healing properties. Philip, however, noted that the wood cure would require her “to eat nothing but a quarter of a young hen and a light baked bread and the wood water every day, and otherwise no beer or wine.” He thought the Schmiere would be more suited to her because of its less stringent dietary restrictions. In the end, Elisabeth underwent neither the wood cure nor the Schmiere, instead preferring the external remedies of surgeons and barbers. Significantly, she used both her own perception of efficacy and the uniformity of all medical practitioners in the eyes of God to justify her choice of treatments. In December 1556, after a series of physicians had failed to help her, she once again turned to Meister Paul, requesting Philip to “send the barber Meister Paul as quickly as possible, for our arm and hand are very swollen and hot . . .

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and we shall loose our mind if it is not helped.” She concluded this request with the assertion that “a poor man, given the grace of God, can help just as well as a rich one.” The grace of God acted as the catalyst for recovery; the practitioner was only secondary. With this outlook, Elisabeth could feel secure in picking and choosing the remedies that she found most effective: God favored no one particular medical professional, and God, not the healer, provided the final cure. Conclusion On December 7, 1557, at eight o’clock in the evening, Elisabeth of Rochlitz died. As the physician Johann Meckbach wrote to Philip, “Her Grace made a very good Christian end of it, without any screaming or shouting, just as if she had fallen asleep as usual.” In a great ironic twist, Meckbach, who had inspired such ire after falsely predicting Elisabeth’s death in 1552, sat at her bedside in her final days and dutifully reported her last wishes: that she should be taken without delay to Marburg, to be buried alongside her father in the choir of the Elisabethkirche. He had her body sealed in a lead coffin for the journey, “for it smells horribly.” Despite the best efforts of the assorted physicians, surgeons, barbers, and ladies who tended to Elisabeth in her last illness, her painful, smelly, oozing sores never healed; but it was her “good Christian end” that mattered the most to the physician at her bedside. Elisabeth’s response to her ill health helps shed light on the wider world of early modern patients and healers and the place of noblewomen within it. In this great era of self- help, patients could pick and choose healers and remedies as they saw fit, with the exact choice highly dependent on a given patient’s particular circumstances. As was probably the case for most socially elite women, Elisabeth relied extensively on physicians in serious illness. Closer to aristocrats in social status than any other licensed practitioners, doctors were not merely medical professionals to noblemen and noblewomen but frequently also close associates and friends. At the same time, physicians provided a particular kind of treatment, and it was not always the treatment patients wanted. Regimens of health, the bread and butter of Galenic medicine, could be more cumbersome than welcome during periods of acute illness. Because her most bothersome symptoms were mainly external, Elisabeth perceived the ministrations of surgeons and barbers to be most effective, and she also relied heavily on apothecaries and on her female servants. Others turned to different means they found helpful, as seen in Duke Heinrich of Braunschweig’s reliance on Anna of Saxony’s aqua vitae. There was an enormous variety of medical options available in sixteenth- century Europe, and

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the choices were not mutually exclusive. Elisabeth, as we have seen, drew on multiple practitioners simultaneously; Heinrich of Braunschweig, similarly, used Anna’s aqua vitae alongside the advice of his doctor. For Elisabeth, the idea that God was the ultimate source of medical relief, with all other practitioners on roughly equal footing below, gave her the freedom to seek out whatever help she found most effective on her own body. However much she believed in God’s power to heal directly, she also believed the long- standing idea that God worked through earthly means. The role of the “almighty physician” as the ultimate cause of sickness or health justified her resistance to terrestrial physicians (and other practitioners) when she deemed them unhelpful. Similarly, her conviction that “a poor man, given the grace of God, can help just as well as a rich one” reinforced her predilection for external over internal cures and encouraged her to look at a wide range of medical options. While Elisabeth’s case does not fully answer the question of how noblewomen used their own recipes when they became patients, it does provide some insight as to why any patient—male or female, high status or low— might seek out the care noblewomen provided. Like physicians, they were the social peers of their elite patients; unlike physicians, however, they focused on recipes rather than regimens. Despite Philip of Hesse’s disparaging comment about medicaments that would “remove the superficial wounds for the moment,” the extraordinary number of recipe collections from this period suggests that patients sought drugs that were targeted against specific complaints and symptoms as a matter of course. Noblewomen were tied not only to the care of the sick but to charitable healing, which imbued their medical efforts with a particularly pious undertone. It is no wonder that patients like Elisabeth sought their care.

Conclusion

High up on the wall of the city church in the German town of Darmstadt sits a plaque with epitaphs for two sixteenth- century regents: Landgrave Georg I of Hesse-Darmstadt (1547– 96) and his second wife, Duchess Eleonora of Württemberg (1532– 1618), known to her family and friends as Leonora. A casual visitor slipping into the church from the bustling pedestrian zone nearby might easily miss the memorial, dwarfed as it is by the far larger gravestone of Georg and his first wife, Magdalena zur Lippe (1552–87). Yet although Magdalena’s death may have inspired a more opulent display of mourning, a careful observer will note that Eleonora’s brief epitaph, too, was composed with a great deal of care. After a description of the landgravine’s childhood in Württemberg, her first marriage in Anhalt, and her arrival in Hesse, the rhymed couplets turn to the good deeds Eleonora undertook in her lifetime: She looked to God and did what’s right, Gave solace in all pain and plight, And every little girl and boy She loved with tender mother’s joy. Help and healing she gave the ill Through pharmacy and her great skill. God will grant her due for this, Beatitude and eternal bliss.

These lines provide a rare public reminder of the main themes of this book. While they contain many of the platitudes typically used to laud deceased noblewomen, extolling Eleonora’s piety, charity, and maternal compassion, they also cite her pharmacy (Apoteck) as a key manifestation of these virtues

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and a means to achieving divine salvation. The path to beatitude, the epitaph suggests, could be paved by pharmaceutical skill. In many ways, Eleonora represents a culmination of the phenomenon of the noblewoman healer. The fifth daughter of Duke Christoph and Duchess Anna Maria of Württemberg, she was highly noble and highly educated. She received thorough instruction in both Lutheran ideals and Latin literature, as befitted the daughter of the humanist Protestant Duke Christoph; a number of Latin documents in a child’s hand, signed “Helanora Ducisa Würtenbergensis propria manu,” remain among her papers today. It seems nearly certain that she also learned the principles of medical practice from her mother, Duchess Anna Maria, who has been mentioned numerous times in this book. Although she was known as emotionally fragile, Anna Maria also had a reputation as a talented healer, and all of her daughters demonstrated a keen interest in making medicines. It was Eleonora’s sister Sabine, for example, who helped Anna of Saxony with her attempts to develop sturdy glass distillation equipment and oversaw the court apothecary in Kassel. Intelligent, educated, and married off to prominent princes, the Württemberg duchesses epitomized the main characteristics of the noblewoman healer, and they all became local heroines in large part because of their charitable medical activities. Unlike the other women of her generation and those preceding her, however, Eleonora published her medical recipes. In 1600, she had an opulent, folio- sized volume called Sechs Bücher Ausserlesener Artzney und Kunst Stück fast vor alle deß Menschlichen Leibes Gebrechen und Kranckheiten (Six Books of Exquisite Medicine and Skills for Almost All Human Bodily Ailments and Illnesses) printed in the city of Torgau in Saxony. In its inception, this project did not differ greatly from the process that Anna of Saxony or Dorothea Susanna of Saxony-Weimar went through in compiling their recipes into impressive handwritten collections. Eleonora drew on the help of the Darmstadt court physician, Johann Conrad Ratz (fl. 1590), who organized the individual contributions by ailment from head to toe, indexed them, and had them copied into a manuscript in 1596. In contrast to the recipe manuscripts belonging to other noblewomen mentioned in this book, however, Eleonora’s seems to have been intended specifically as a template for publication. It was virtually identical to the printed work that followed it, and it contained a laudatory poem praising Eleonora’s healing talents. Panegyrics were common in printed works by 1600, but it is highly unusual to find one in a recipe manuscript, a key sign that Eleonora’s book was compiled specifically for publication. Why did Eleonora choose to become the first German woman to print her recipes? There are no definitive answers to this question, but we can make

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some educated conjectures. Eleonora’s second husband, Landgrave Georg, died in 1596, leaving her fate in the hands of her stepchildren. Although they seem to have been kindly disposed toward her, the publication of her recipes may have been a way to reward friendship and garner support in her vulnerable position as a widow in a foreign principality. A number of factors suggest that the book was not slated for broad dissemination but rather intended to be distributed as a gift: for one thing, only a handful of exemplars exist from the three editions of Sechs Bücher printed in Eleonora’s lifetime (1600, 1612, and 1617), indicating very limited print runs. Her brother- in-law, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm I of Saxony-Weimar, owned and regulated the press that handled the original Torgau edition and almost certainly had a hand in the collection’s publication. Any concerns about revealing her recipes in print may have been mitigated by the tight rein he would have had on the circulation of the work. It seems likely that Eleonora’s use of the printing press resembled the strategy of Danish astronomer and nobleman Tycho Brahe, who similarly printed only a small number of elaborate exemplars of his works to give to patrons and friends as gifts. Whether she wished to gain a specific party’s support with the volume or whether she simply decided to provide an impressive gift for friends and relatives is unclear. In any case, as a widow from 1596 until her death in 1618, she likely had need of patronage. By 1596, moreover, there was a prominent precedent for printing aristocrats’ remedies: physician Oswald Gäbelkover’s Artzneybuch, published in 1594. As mentioned in chapter 2, Gäbelkover’s volume was a posthumous version of Duke Ludwig of Württemberg’s recipe book, and it contained hundreds of recipes attributed to noblewomen and noblemen, including quite a few whom we have met in this volume. As such, it closely resembled the Sechs Bücher as well as the hundreds of recipe manuscripts that followed a similar format. Given her close ties to the Württemberg court in Stuttgart, Eleonora almost certainly would have been familiar with the Artzneybuch, and she likely knew Gäbelkover personally. Unlike Duke Ludwig’s remedies, however, Eleonora’s recipe book was printed specifically under her name rather than that of a physician. Ratz did not make his role in the Sechs Bücher explicit—only his initials, J. C. R. D. (Johann Conrad Ratz Doctor), appear in the volume. Instead, he cited Eleonora as the person responsible for the book’s recipes in the laudatory poem, a move that deliberately presented the work as a compilation of her medical knowledge. However others viewed the publication of courtly medical recipes, Eleonora seems to have decided that there were advantages to having her recipes appear in print. Ratz’s poem further underscores the sense that the volume was intended

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to impress her talents upon the reader. Significantly, he used a number of the themes discussed throughout this book to praise her medical skill: If anyone, to his good luck Found things of use here in this book, He first should give to God due praise Who gave us such good remedies. He then must turn to thank once more The praiseworthy Lady ELEONOR. Out of princely stock she came, The house of Württemberg by name, Who in her time, with diligence Did have this book compiled and hence Has also tried, to great acclaim, The better part of these items. And many examples are here by hand That, in Anhalt and in Hessian lands, Brought her the highest words of praise Which shall remain for endless days. Thus is she famed by wide decree A true mother of our country.

Eleonora, Ratz emphasized, had compiled the recipes in the volume and personally tried most of them, underscoring the primacy of experience and the popularity of recipe collecting we saw in chapters 1 and 2. She came from the highest of princely houses—the duchy of Württemberg—and her medical skill was widely known and praised in the two principalities into which she had married, Anhalt and Hesse. Because of her excellent remedies, she was famed as a mother of the country, much as we saw in the chapters about Anna of Saxony and Dorothea of Mansfeld. If the Sechs Bücher was an attempt at displaying Eleonora’s medical prowess, it did so in a manner very much in keeping with the central arguments of Panaceia’s Daughters. Eleonora’s work and Ratz’s praise of it underscore a common theme that can be drawn from this study: noblewomen achieved notoriety in medicine both because they were noble and because they were women. Dorothea of Mansfeld, Anna of Saxony, Elisabeth of Rochlitz, and their peers were able to operate with such authority—as practitioners and as patients—precisely because highly born ladies were expected to be knowledgeable and well practiced in healing. As Charles Rosenberg has noted, a large portion of sick care has always been provided by individuals who did not call themselves physicians. Noblewomen present an especially interesting case in point, because

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they were, as a group, tied to the care of the sick. Their experience with medicine was thus indelibly part of their wider social roles. At a time when illness and healing had a manifest presence in everyday life, rather than being cordoned off in a hospital or clinic, medicine could not be separated from poor relief, from religious beliefs, from social status. As we saw in chapter 4, noblewomen were not immune to the charge of overstepping boundaries, but their healing itself generally escaped criticism: the women examined here acted openly as medical advisors, experimenters, and experts, and they elicited praise for it. In many ways, the noblewomen discussed in this book found themselves at the forefront of sixteenth- century medical and scientific discourse, in both location and focus. Situated in courtly epistolary networks, and in some cases resident at courts known to support empirical practice, they had access to some of the most current information, books, materials, and methods. Similarly, their focus on pharmacy placed them right at the center of changing approaches to nature: as Harold J. Cook has argued, medical practitioners were central to the shifting attitudes toward the natural world that came to be known as the Scientific Revolution. The sixteenth century saw a variety of new efforts to incorporate experience into medical practice, from Hieronymus Brunschwig’s how- to book of distillation, to Paracelsus’s privileging of experientia over book learning, to Andreas Vesalius’s emphasis on performing his own dissections. Their efforts were joined by those of artisans, alchemists, authors of how- to manuals, and travelers. These varieties of experientialism coalesced more concretely in the later seventeenth century and began to move into the gentleman’s realm of scientific societies, but before that point, the cast of participants in scientific investigation included many nonspecialists. The praise given to Eleonora for having “tried” her recipes herself was part and parcel of this broader culture of hands-on knowledge. Eleonora’s book of remedies is also a testament to the long- lasting demand for noblewomen’s medical recipes. Not only did it go through three editions in her lifetime, it was reissued in 1678, in a quarto edition with a new title—Weymarisches Artzney-Buch (Weimar Book of Medicine). The new edition advertised its contents as “proven by many princely and other high- status people” and was intended for “all housefathers, apothecaries, surgeons, and nursemaids.” The preface, written by the publisher, Lorenz Cörner, noted that the book originally came from “the magnificent and highborn Lady Eleonora, of the high princely house of Württemberg,” who had compiled recipes “which she herself found proven in practice [in Praxi approbit].” A half century after Eleonora’s death, her medical recipes—and the practice that went into them—still held interest. Although only one other

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German- speaking noblewoman published a medical book in the seventeenth century, that work attests to a similarly enduring interest in noblewomen’s remedies. Duchess Eleonora Maria Rosalia of Jägerndorf and Troppau had her volume of over eighteen hundred recipes, the Freywillig- auffgesprungener Granat-Apffel des Christlichen Samaritans (The Christian Samaritan’s Freely Arisen Pomegranate), printed in 1695. It became one of the most popular home remedy guides throughout the eighteenth century, running through at least twenty editions between 1695 and 1752; the 1740 edition was reprinted in 1863. Significantly, several remedies cited in her volume came from Eleonora of Württemberg. Yet despite the broad interest in noblewomen’s remedies, and despite the similarities between their pharmaceutical endeavors and other activities of the early Scientific Revolution, noblewomen’s efforts at making medicines must also be understood as a part of their role within the early modern family. As mentioned numerous times in this book, the noblewomen who became best known for their medicines did so within traditional social roles: Dorothea of Mansfeld as a pious widow, Anna of Saxony as a virtuous consort. The idea of pharmacy as an activity to be pursued within the family can also be seen in the numerous glimpses we have of medical knowledge passing from one family member to the other, as in Dorothea’s training of her daughters and other close female family members, the medical proclivities of the daughters of Anna Maria of Württemberg, and Philippine Welser’s manuscript of medicinal recipes from her mother, Anna Welser. Sharing favorite recipes with family members was by no means limited to the female sphere: as we have seen, Dorothea of Mansfeld gave a recipe collection to her son Hans Georg, and Ludwig VI of the Palatinate sought the recipes of his sister, Dorothea Susanna. Because noblewomen were more commonly involved in making medicines than noblemen, however, the transfer of remedies between female relatives was particularly significant. A medical manuscript compiled in 1619 by the Countess Magdalena of Hohenlohe-Weikersheim (1547–1633) poignantly underscores both the value of medical knowledge within the family and the lasting legacy of sixteenthcentury noblewomen’s medical remedies. A large, elaborate, folio- sized tome comprising four books, the manuscript claimed on the title page to contain recipes for “all sorts of ailments of the human race, for male and female people, women in childbed, and small children” that Magdalena had used “over fifty years” in “the princely court and household.” It also noted that she had received the bulk of these remedies from her mother- in-law, Countess Anna of Hohenlohe (1524–94), whom we encountered numerous times in this book. According to the title page, Anna had gathered her recipes from “well-

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experienced doctors and surgeons, also highly illustrious female persons,” and kept them “in great secrecy and passed them on in consideration of her highly beloved descendants” out of “motherly love.” Magdalena had then “written down and organized” the recipes for her own daughter, Dorothea Walpurga of Hohenlohe-Weikersheim (1590–1656), “with motherly affection.” Although it is impossible to determine to what extent Dorothea Walpurga used these remedies, the manuscript seems to have been a valued family possession, as it was passed on through two subsequent generations: it contains the signature of Magdalena’s great- granddaughter, Dorothea Elisabetha of HohenloheWaldenburg (1650–1711). The remedies contained therein were thus handed down directly from mother to daughter or daughter- in-law through at least five generations. Considering Anna of Hohenlohe’s close relationship to her aunt, Dorothea of Mansfeld, it is likely that many of the recipes had an even earlier origin. The main characteristics of noblewomen’s pharmacy outlined in this book—remedies that had been proven by experience and had an air of exclusivity—remained appealing over a very long period of time. To be sure, the women described in this book, as the title Panaceia’s Daughters suggests, were far from the norm. Dorothea of Mansfeld, Anna of Saxony, Elisabeth of Rochlitz, Eleonora of Württemberg, Anna of Hohenlohe, and the other noblewomen introduced here had advantages that few people in early modern Europe, men or women, could match. Educated, landed, and in the upper echelons of German nobility, each had the means to procure recipes, ingredients, medications, and practitioners that went far beyond those of a peasant, burgher, or even patrician woman. In addition, they did not expect monetary recompense for their healing practices, which gave them the luxury of evading the criticism leveled against other lay practitioners. Most important, they were literate and had access to the textual tradition of exchanging medical recipes and medical advice, which allowed their names to be inscribed and propagated along with their remedies. Yet recognizing the status they gained as medical experts allows us to consider in a new light women’s relationship to the dynamic knowledge- making process of the early modern period.

Acknowledgments

This book is a long time coming, and I am grateful for the support, suggestions, and encouragement of many people along the way. I feel deeply fortunate to have worked with Katharine Park at both Wellesley College and Harvard University. Her astute intellectual guidance, enthusiasm, and perceptive comments and critiques helped shape this project from its inception, and I remain in awe of her ability to take rough ideas and help shape them into meaningful arguments. Thanks also to Steven Ozment and Charles Rosenberg at Harvard for their probing questions and sage advice. Robert Jütte pointed me toward the recipe collection of Elisabeth of Rochlitz in Marburg, and I remain indebted to him for this advice. Funding for the early stages of the project was provided by Mellon/CLIR, Wellesley College, the American Association for the History of Pharmacy, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, and I thank all of these organizations for their help. The book manuscript was mostly completed during my tenure as a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. I am deeply grateful to Trinity for providing the space, time, and funding to carry out additional research in the UK, Germany, and Austria and to finish most of the writing. I also benefited markedly from conversations with medievalists and early modernists at Trinity, particularly Sachiko Kusukawa, Richard Serjeantson, Aysha Pollnitz, Geraldine Parsons, Mark Chinca, and Gabriel Paquette. The University of Cambridge has an embarrassment of riches in terms of early modernists and historians of medicine, and I thank Ulinka Rublack, Janine Maegraith, Rob Ralley, Simon Schaffer, Jenny Rampling, and especially Lauren Kassell and John Henderson for the intellectual stimulation they provided. Thanks also to Ben Hopkins and Lila Rabinovich for their friendship and many book- related discussions.

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In the course of writing this book, I was lucky enough to have the help of a number of scholars and friends. William Eamon, Mary Fissell, Pamela Smith, Montserrat Cabré, Monica Green, Erik Heinrichs, Elly Truitt, and Jeremy Greene all provided suggestions on portions of the work. I owe a special thanks to Elaine Leong, who was always eager to compare notes about recipes, and Tara Nummedal, who helped me figure out many aspects of medicine and science at the German courts. Warmest thanks also to Deborah Levine for her willingness to act as a sounding board and for her last- minute editorial help. Ursula Schlude provided wonderful advice on Anna of Saxony and German translations. I am also deeply grateful to my colleagues at Tufts University for their support and advice, particularly Jeanne Penvenne, Ina Baghdianntz-McCabe, Steven Marrone, Virginia Drachman, Benjamin Carp, and Andrew McClellan. Special thanks to David Ekbladh and Elizabeth Foster for their camaraderie and knowledge sharing. My editor at Chicago, Karen Darling, made the long process of turning manuscript into book a pleasant and comprehensible one; her patience and guidance were much appreciated. Warm thanks as well to Susan Tarcov and Michael Koplow for their skillful copyediting and to Gene McGarry for his superb final edits and index. I also thank the members of the Synthesis series board for their feedback. I am particularly grateful to the two anonymous reviewers, whose helpful suggestions and critiques improved this book in many ways. In addition, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to present materials from this book at a number of conferences and seminars in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and I thank the audiences at those talks for their comments and suggestions. I taught portions of the bookin-progress in my classes at Tufts University, and I am grateful to my students for their perceptive questions and observations. My research in Germany and Austria would have been much more difficult without the aid of many helpful archivists and librarians. I am grateful to all the friendly Mitarbeiter at the Hessische Staatsarchiv Marburg, the Sächsische Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, the Sächsische Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, the Hohenlohe Zentralarchiv Neuenstein, the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, and the Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt. I owe a special thanks to Dr. Matthias Miller and Dr. Karin Zimmerman at the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, whose timely cataloguing of the medical manuscripts in the Codex Palatinum germanicum and willingness to answer my many questions furthered my research immeasurably. Thanks also to Ute Löwenstein in Marburg, Elisabeth Huwer at the Deutsche Apothekenmuseum in Heidelberg, and Katharina Seidel and Alfred Auer at Schloss Ambras for their helpful information and advice.

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Finally, I would be remiss if I did not thank my family and friends, especially my parents, sisters, grandmother, and in-laws, whose love and support made this book a much less lonely endeavor than it might otherwise have been. Most importantly, my deepest love and thanks to John Kuczwara, who provided unwavering intellectual, editorial, and moral support from the very start of this project, and to Nico and Eli, who delayed its completion for the happiest of reasons.

Notes

Introduction 1. Cyriacus Spangenberg described Dorothea of Mansfeld’s setup in the Mansfeld Castle garden in his chronicle of 1578; Dorothea wrote of the great hordes streaming into her castle garden in July 1572 (among many other examples). Spangenberg, “Mansfeldische Chronica,” 56; Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, July 13, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fols. 6r–v. 2. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, January 15, 1557, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 10r. “so konnen e k g niechtt glauben was ich anfordern habe von reichen vnd armen mins weisen aquafetten halben habe in drien wochen ij stobgen vorgeben vnd mus in korczen tagen an neune ortt ane rein schiegken mein freunden wertt also getrongen in meiner kamern ein zeugk su machen dar vff ich arbeitt dan vorin iar hatt ich nichtt zeitt in auß zu machen.” 3. Assion and Telle, “Der Nürnberger Stadtarzt Johannes Magenbuch,” 384. 4. Novenianus, Von den bösen vmbflechtenden Bauchflüssen, A2v–A3r. See also Schönfeld, Frauen in der abendländischen Heilkunde, 3. Hygieia and Panaceia are mentioned in the first line of the Hippocratic Oath. 5. Joubert, Popular Errors, 87. 6. See especially Murray, Witch Cult, and Ehrenreich and English, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses. David Harley disputes this notion in “Historians as Demonologists,” 1–26. 7. Stine, “Opening Closets,” 105. See also Hunter, “Women and Domestic Medicine.” 8. Strassburg, Tristan, ll. 6947–50; Nenno, “Between Magic and Medicine,” 48–49. 9. Estienne and Liebault, L’agriculture et maison rustique, 166r. 10. Wirsung, Ein neuwes Artzney Buch, A4v. 11. Pelling, “Thoroughly Resented?,” 70. 12. De Serres, Théâtre d’agriculture, 888. 13. See, e.g., Fehler, Poor Relief and Protestantism, esp. 137–44; Cavallo, Charity and Power, 171–72; and Chojnacka, “Women, Charity, and Community.” 14. Pomata and Siraisi, Historia, 17. 15. Moran, “Prince-Practitioning”; Moran, “German Prince Practitioners.” 16. See especially Smith and Findlen, Merchants and Marvels; and Schiebinger and Swan, Colonial Botany.

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17. On the medical marketplace, see especially Jenner and Wallis, Medicine and the Market; and Cook, Matters of Exchange, chap. 4. 18. Wiesner, Women and Gender, 94–96; Wiesner, Gender, Church, and State, 13–15; Stoudt, “Medieval German Women”; Nenno, “Between Magic and Medicine.” 19. Wiesner, Gender, Church, and State, 13. 20. Pelling, Medical Conflicts, 193. 21. Schönfeld, Frauen in der abendländischen Heilkunde, 86–88; Beisswanger et. al., Frauen in der Pharmazie, 3–22. 22. Wiesner, Gender, Church, and State, 13–15. 23. Pelling, Medical Conflicts, 189. 24. Kinzelbach, “ ‘Wahnsinnige Weyber.’ ” 25. Broomhall, Women’s Medical Work, 11. 26. Engelsing, Analphabetentum, 40–55. 27. Estienne and Liebault, L’agriculture et maison rustique, 166r. 28. Wunder, Dynastie und Herrschaftssicherung, 21. 29. HStA Marburg, Bestand (hereafter Best.) 3, Nrs. 61–81; UB Heidelberg, Codices palatini germanici 261–72. 30. Ritter, Vita Lutheri, 90v–92v; Jonas to Elector Johann Friedrich of Saxony, February 18, 1546, in Briefwechsel, 117–18. My thanks to Mark Chinca for calling my attention to these sources. 31. K. Keller, “Kommunikationstaum altes Reich.” 32. Bastl, “ ‘Ins herz khan man kein sehen.’ ” 33. Pelling, “Compromised by Gender,” 101–9. 34. Gerabek, “Consolida maior,” 88; Schönfeld, Frauen in der abendländischen Heilkunde, 62–63; Wahrig, Arzneien für das schöne Geschlecht. 35. Stoudt, “Medieval German Women,” 19–21. 36. Strocchia, “Nun Apothecaries”; Maegraith, “Nun Apothecaries.” 37. “von manchen gelerten vnd leyen man vnd frowen.” Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus, A2v. 38. Quoted in Schönfeld, Frauen in der abendländischen Heilkunde, 87. 39. Vives, Instruction of a Christen Woman, 139. 40. Ibid., 139–40. 41. Estienne and Liebault, L’agriculture et maison rustique, 1v. 42. Ibid., 16v. 43. Rankin, “Housewife’s Apothecary.” 44. Estienne and Liebault, L’agriculture et maison Rustique, 79r. 45. Ibid., 166r. 46. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 310, fol. 217r–v. 47. Schelenz, Frauen im Reiche Aeskulaps, 37. 48. Wirsung, Ein neuwes Artzney Buch, A5v. 49. Müller-Jahncke, “Apotheker”; Raff, Hie gut Wirtemberg, 532–33, 564, 570–73. 50. Papers of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, HStA Marburg Best. 3, Nr. 62, fols. 49v–60r (1558) and 104r–131v (1557), and Nr. 77, fols. 302r–307v (1553); papers of Anna of Saxony, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8032/2, fols. 3r–19v; papers of Eleonora of Württemberg, HStA Darmstadt, Abt IV, D4, 33/3; papers of Sybille of Württemberg, HStA Stuttgart, 60.8.C. Eleonora’s inventory can be found in the index but has been removed. 51. Bernschneider-Reif, “Das laienpharmazeutische Olitätenwesen,” 164–65.

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52. Janssen, “ ‘Eine Frau wie ein Mann’ ”; Assion and Telle, “Der Nürnberger Stadtarzt Johannes Magenbuch,” 372–73. 53. Weyer, Wolfgang II. von Hohenlohe, 358–59. 54. Rausch, Medizinal- und Apothekenwesen, 24–27. 55. Müller-Jahncke, “Apotheker.” 56. Telle, Pharmazie und der gemeine Mann, 51–133. 57. Wirsung, Artzney Buch, A2r. 58. Stromer von Auerbach, Regiment; Rösslin, Der swangeren frawen; Ryff, Confect Büchlin vnd Hausz Apoteck; Fuchs, New Kreütterbuch. 59. Novenianus, Von den bösen vmbflechtenden Bauchflussen, A2v. 60. Wirsung, Neuwes Artzney Buch, A5v. 61. The four books include three versions of Alessio Piemontese’s Secreti. Wecker translated the work as two books in 1571, which he dedicated to separate women: Countess Anna Alexandria of Fürstenberg and Lady Scholastica of Falkenstein. Wecker, Kunstbuch (1616), 2r– 7r, and Wecker, Kunstbuch . . . Der Ander Theil, unpaginated dedication. In 1575, he published a book of only the medicinal remedies from the Secreti, which he dedicated to Kunigunde of Simmern. Wecker, Artzney Buch, 2r– 3r. The final book was a work on distilled waters and oils, which he dedicated to Countess Barbara of Waldeck in 1569. Wecker, Ein nutzliches Büchlein, A2r–A3v. 62. Wecker, Artzneybuch. A3r–v. 63. See the inventory of Anna of Saxony’s books, SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd., IB vol. 24a. 64. P. O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship, 144. 65. Anna of Saxony to Cornelius van den Hansfort, January 5, 1562, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fols. 2v–3r. “Dieselbigen auch sonst niemand gemein machen.” 66. Park, Secrets of Women; Broomhall, Women’s Medical Work; Green, Women’s Healthcare; and Green, Making Women’s Medicine Masculine. 67. Stine, “Opening Closets.” 68. Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex?; Findlen, “Science as a Career”; Findlen, “Becoming a Scientist”; Findlen, “Scientist’s Body”; Mazzotti, Maria Gaetana Agnesi. 69. Green, Making Women’s Medicine Masculine, 308–10; Pollock, With Faith and Physic; Hunter, “Women and Domestic Medicine”; Hunter, “Sisters of the Royal Society”; Stine, “Opening Closets”; Pennell, “Perfecting Practice?”; Pennell and Leong, “Recipe Collections”; Leong, “Medical Recipe Collections”; and Field, “ ‘Many Hands Hands.’ ” 70. Eis, Mittelalterliche Fachliteratur; Assion, Altdeutsche Fachliteratur, 136; Eis, Medizinische Fachprosa; Keil, Fachprosa-Studien; Schnell, “Vorüberlegungen zu einer ‘Geschichte der deutschen Medizinliteratur,’ ” 91. 71. See, e.g., Assion, “Die Gräfin von Mansfeld”; Assion, “Das Arzneibuch der Landgräfin Eleonora von Hessen-Darmstadt,” 317–18; Bernschneider-Reif, “Das laienpharmazeutsche Olitätenwesen,” 163–67; Wendland, “Die Gräfin von Mansfeld”; and Zeckert, “Die Rezeptsammlung der Philippine Welser.” 72. Harkness, Jewel House; Kassell, Medicine and Magic; Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority. 73. Schönfeld, Frauen in der abendländischen Heilkunde, 86–97. 74. See especially Moran, “German Prince Practitioners”; Moran, “Prince-Practitioning”; Moran, Distilling Knowledge; Smith, Body of the Artisan; Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority; Harkness, Jewel House; Newman and Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire; Principe, Aspiring Adept.

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1. Whether Juana was in fact the person in question is not entirely clear. Anna of Saxony refers in her letter to the Empress Maria’s “sister,” the “queen of Portugal.” Juana of Hapsburg married Prince João Manuel of Portugal, but João died before ascending to the throne, and Juana, who lost the right of regency, was never queen; moreover, Juana died in September 1573. Another possible subject was the dowager queen Catalina, Juana and Maria’s aunt. However, because Juana was known to have medical problems in 1573, I am taking the word “sister” at face value. 2. Anna’s response was sent via a befriended gentlewoman, the baroness Brigitta Trautson. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Trautson, March 9, 1574, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 516, fols. 127r–128v. 3. Findlen, “Economy of Scientific Exchange,” 7; and Davis, Gift in Sixteenth-Century France. 4. Park, Secrets of Women, 87. 5. Anna Maria of Württemberg to Anna of Saxony, March 22, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/2, fol. 41v. 6. Smith, Body of the Artisan, 59. 7. Pomata and Siraisi, Historia, 17; Pomata, “Observation Rising,” 47-54. 8. Findlen, “Courting Nature”; Moran, “Patronage and Institutions”; and Eamon, “Court, Academy, and Printing House.” 9. Kircher-Kannemann, “Organisation der Frauenzimmer,” 238–43; Nolte, Familie, Hof, und Herrschaft, 222–31; and Essegern, Fürstinnen am kursächsischen Hof, 23–30. 10. Cod. Pal. germ 188, fols. 1–129. 11. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 303v. 12. Shapin, Social History of Truth, chap. 8. 13. Harkness, “ ‘Strange’ Ideas and ‘English’ Knowledge,” 138. 14. Anna of Saxony to Nickel Müller, October 14, 1566, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 142r. 15. In 1577, for example, she sent the request to Torgau, Eilenburg, Weissenfels, Leipzig, Liebenwerda, Meissen, Dresden, Pirnau, Stolpen, Radeberg, Moritzburg, and Dippoldißwald. SHStA Dresden, Kop. 520, fol. 13r. 16. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Brandenburg, May 3, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 516, fol. 49r. “Freundtliche liebe Muhme Schwester vnnd gevatter / Wir seint aus EL schreiben hertzlich erfreuet. Das sie / sampt jrem geliebten herren Gemahel vnnd Töchtern noch bej gutter leibsgesuntheit sein Vnd gebenn EL hin wider freundtlich zuuornehmen das es mit vns vnnd den vnsern Goth sej danck auch noch leidlich jst / Der Baumhertzig Goth wolle vns beiderseits ferner jm gnaden erhalten / Vnnd seint EL jderzeit frentliche willfarung zuerweisen schweserlich wohl genaigt vnd willig. Dresden den 3. Maÿ Anno 72.” 17. K. Keller, “Kommunikationstaum altes Reich,” 210. 18. Ibid., 216–17, and K. Keller, “Zwischen zwei Residenzen.” 19. Ray, Writing Gender. 20. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Bavaria, January 5, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fols. 68r–70r. 21. Mosley, Bearing the Heavens, 32–35. 22. Moran, “German Prince Practitioners,” 262–66; Moran, “Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel,” 69–85; and Harkness, Jewel House, chap. 1. 23. On science and court patronage, see Westfall, “Science and Patronage”; and Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, esp. chap. 2. See also Bedini, Patrons, Artisans and Instruments of Science; and Moran, Patronage and Institutions.

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24. Findlen, “Economy of Scientific Exchange,” esp. 7–19. 25. Harkness, Jewel House, 32. 26. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Hesse, April 5, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 513, fol. 32v. “Wiewohl wir mit EL noch nicht sonderlich bekandt sein.” 27. Sabine of Hesse to Anna of Saxony, April 26, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/2, fol. 29r. 28. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Hesse, November 28, 1569, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 53v. 29. Anna of Saxony to Cornelius von Ruxleben, December 16, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 129v. 30. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Trautson, August 19, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, fol. 91v. 31. Margaretha Watzdorf to Anna of Saxony, February 13, 1562, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8528/3, fol. 64r; SHStA Dresden, Kop. 527, fol. 114r. 32. Anna of Saxony to Anna Trautson, June 3, 1585, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 527, fol. 114v: “des krautichs so man Tabaco nennet.” 33. Anna of Saxony to the Cammermeister, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 520, fol. 89v: “vnd daselbst allerhand specerej einkauffen lassen.” 34. Hieronymus Lotter to Anna of Saxony, March 14, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8532/1, fol. 141r; Anna of Saxony to Hieronymus Rauscher, October 8, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, fol. 110r. 35. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Trautson, March 9, 1574, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 516, fols. 127v–128r. 36. Hart’s heart bone, called Hirschkreuzen (literally “hart crosses”) in German, remained a common medicinal remedy through the eighteenth century. See “Hirsch-Creutz” in Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universallexikon, 13: 229–30. 37. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Trautson, 9 March 1574, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 516, fols. 127v–128r. 38. Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus, fol. a2r. 39. Ogilvie, Science of Describing, 19. 40. On the evolving understanding of “observation” from the Middle Ages to the present, see Daston and Lunbeck, Histories of Scientific Observation, especially the articles by Park, “Observation in the Margins,” and Pomata, “Observation Rising.” 41. Ogilvie, Science of Describing, 17–21. 42. Rösslin, Kreutterbuch, preface. 43. This statement comes from a loose note addressed to Anna of Saxony, once tucked inside Dorothea of Mansfeld’s recipe collection, SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C 317. The note has since been lost, but the beginning of it is reprinted in Katalog der Handschriften, 238. 44. On medieval experimenta, see Schmitt, “Experience and Experiment,” 86– 87; McVaugh, “Experimenta of Arnald of Villanova”; and Agrimi and Crisciani, “Per una ricerca su Experimentum-Experimenta.” 45. McVaugh, “Two Montpellier Recipe Collections,” 178. 46. Schnellenberg, Experimenta, fol. 2v. 47. Anna of Saxony to Katharina of Brandenburg, November 12, 1556, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 114v. “Es dienet aber solch wasser fur alle jnnerliche kranckheitten so sich von Keldeursachen Sonnderlich aber fur den Schlack vnd Anmacht vnd ist sonst eine treffliche sterckung zu erhaltung des lebens vnnd menschliche kreffte / wir dan solche vnd dergleichen wirckung

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vnd Crafft nit allein von vielen Erzten hochruhmenn hören Sonderrn auch selbst gesehen vnd erfahrenn.” 48. Claire Jones suggests that the choice to use Latin was a deliberate one in vernacular recipes, given that Latin was the language of authority. Jones, “Formula and Formulation,” 199–204. 49. Ibid. Jones argues, in contrast, that many efficacy phrases have meaning. 50. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 182 and 187. 51. Jones, “Formula and Formulation,” 202. 52. HZA Neuenstein, Best. GA 75, U5, fol. 114r. 53. HZA Neuenstein, Best. GA 75, U5, fols. 224v–225r, 331v. 54. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 214, title page; and SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. B 201, fol. 1v. 55. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 184, fol. 1r; 182, fol. 1r, and 187, fol. 3r. 56. Elisabeth of the Palatinate to Georg of Hesse, March 19, 1580, HStA Darmstadt, Best. D5, 10/1. 57. She explained that when she experienced pain in the eyes, she mixed “half rose water and half fennel water and then just as much clean well water” with bread crumbs and bound “the wet bread crumbs in a clean veil” over the eyes. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Brandenburg, August 10, 1559, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 106r. 58. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Schönberg, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 50r. 59. Agnes of Solms to Anna of Saxony, January 4, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Loc. 8531/2, fol. 310r–v. “Waß ich vor das abnemen gebraucht hab.” 60. Hans Ungenad to Anna of Saxony, March 4, 1561, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 264v. 61. Joachim Röbell to Anna of Saxony, n.d. (1569?), SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8532/1, fol. 31r–v. “Das mein hausfraw ein bewert Artzney vor die seuche / douon die Schweine sterben bey sich hat / Welchs sich also bey mir auch befunden das meinem Nachtparn alhie ditz orts viel Schweine vnnd mir (Got lob) weil Jch dieselb Artznej dafur den Schweinen gegeben keines abgegangen.” 62. Anna of Saxony to Johann the Elder of Holstein, February 17, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 518, fol. 1v. “das S.L. viel lieber einen wohlerfahren geübten Wundtartzt oder Balbierer der einen glugksehlen handt zuteilen hatt / als einen der viel jnn Buchern gelesen / Vnd doch desselbige nicht erfahren noch jm wergk erweisen konnte.” 63. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Hohenlohe, November 24, 1579, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 521, fol. 338r. 64. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 187, fol. 3r; Ungenad to Anna of Saxony, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 264r. 65. Anna of Saxony to Wilhelm the Younger of Oppersdorf, January 16, 1582, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 524, fols. 5v–6v. 66. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 188, fol. 44v; HZA Neuenstein, U5, fol. 374ff. 67. Emphasis mine. Anna of Saxony to Katharina of Brandenburg, November 12, 1559, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 114v. “selbst gesehen vnd erfahrenn.” 68. E.g., UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 188, fols. 56v and 62r–v. “das hab ich gesehen.” 69. Ibid., fol. 50r. 70. Röbell to Anna of Saxony, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8532/1, fol. 31r–v. “das es Mispeln auff weiden gewachssen gewißlich seindt / Dan Jch dobey gewesen vnnd gesehenn das die Leutte denselben von den Weiden abgeschnitten.”

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71. Shapin and Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump, 55–79. 72. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Trautson, November 7, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 516, fol. 85r–v (Zettel). On the relationship between Anna and Trautson, see Katrin Keller, “Zwischen zwei Residenzen,” 365–82. 73. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Schönberg, August 27, 1565, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fols. 39v– 40r. “vnd had nichts anders eingenommen noch gebraucht / dann alle morgen ein newgelegt eÿ / das erst neulich von der henne kommen / vnd wo muglich noch warm seÿ / dasselbig oben geoffnet vnd ein wenig saltz darin gestrewet vnd also nuchtern auß getruncken. Ob nun wohl solches etwas eickelich vnd widerig ist / So konnen wir doch nicht achten das es euch ein zunehmen schedlich.” 74. Elisabeth of the Palatinate to Georg of Hesse, March 19, 1580, HStA Darmstadt, Best. D5, 10/1. “so habe ich nicht versucht.” 75. Anna of Saxony to Wilhelm of Lüneberg’s wife, n.d., SHStA Dresden, Kop. 523, fol. 4v. 76. Margareta of Ponikau to Anna of Saxony, October 23, 1566, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/1, fol. 81r. “Dan ich dy selbichge noch nicht vorsucht noch probiert habe dy keinen seint hy vm jar nicht geraten . . . vnd der liber got helffe das zy E kfl genaden jo wol geratten E kfl genaden haben sonst das gelick zu allem eingemachten dinge.” 77. As H. C. Erik Midelfort has shown, Anna of Orange, the niece of August of Saxony, lost all respect following her marriage to Wilhelm II of Orange after showing a taste for drink and dishonorable company and eventually taking a bourgeois lover. Divorced by Wilhelm in 1571, she spent the rest of her days in confinement and grew steadily mad. (She apparently kept popular medical manuals by her side.) Midelfort, Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany, 55– 60. 78. Shapin, Social History of Truth, chaps. 1 and 3. 79. Agrimi and Crisciani, “Medici e ‘Vetulae’ ”; Agrimi and Crisciani, “Savoir médical et anthropologie religieuse,” 1281–1308. 80. Green, “Documenting Women’s Medical Practice,” 336. 81. K. Keller, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 158–59. 82. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, 54 and 115–52. 83. See especially McVaugh, “Two Montpellier Recipe Collections,” 175–80; Park, Doctors and Medicine; Park, “Natural Particulars”; Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and His Pupils; and Crisciani, “Fatti, teorie, ‘narratio.’ ” 84. McVaugh, “Experimenta of Arnald of Villanova.” 85. Pomata and Siraisi, Historia, 17–18. 86. Ogilvie, Science of Describing, chap. 3; and Park, “Natural Particulars.” 87. Pomata, “Praxis Historialis”; and Pomata, “Observation Rising,” esp. 53-60. 88. On Wecker’s life details, see Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon, 53: 899. 89. Wecker, Practica medicinæ generalis; Wecker, Antidotarium speciale; Wecker, Antidotarium generale. 90. Wecker, Antidotarium speciale, fol. 3r. 91. Wecker, Alexii Pedemontanii De secreti libri sex, preface. On books of secrets, see Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature; and Leong and Rankin, Secrets and Knowledge, 1–20. 92. Wecker, Kunstbuch (1616), preface. 93. Schnellenberg, Experimenta, fol. 2v. 94. Ibid., fols. 7v–8r. 95. Smith, Body of the Artisan, 156. For an Italian example of the new importance of expe-

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riential knowledge, using the example of empiric Leonardo Fioravanti, see Eamon, Professor of Secrets. 96. On Brunschwig’s biography, see Hirsch, “Hieronymus Brunschwygk,” 688; and Sigerist, Fifteenth-Century Surgeon, 14–18. 97. Brunschwig, Das Buch der Cirurgia, fol. 9v. 98. Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus, fol. 15v. 99. Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi de compositis, fol. 142r. 100. Brunschwig, Das Buch der Cirurgia, fol. 9v. 101. Rösslin, Kreutterbuch, preface and 1–6; Lonicer, Kreuterbuch, fols. 2r–13v. 102. On Paracelsus’s philosophy, see Pagel, Paracelsus. For the varying facets of the man and his milieu, see the essays in Williams and Gunnoe, Paracelsian Moments. 103. The German Erfahrenheit from the sixteenth century can also be translated as “experience,” but because Paracelsus makes a semantic difference between Erfahrenheit and Experienz, I shall do the same. Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, 11: 190. 104. Ibid., 11: 29. 105. Ibid., 11: 26. 106. Smith, Body of the Artisan, 87–88. 107. On Paracelsus’s appeal at the European courts, see especially Moran, Alchemical World of the German Court; and Trevor-Roper, “Court Physician and Paracelsianism,” 79–84. 108. Dryander, Ein New Artzney vnd Practicyrbuchlein, fols. A5v–A6vff. 109. Ibid., fol. A6vff. 110. Bock, Kreütterbuch, fols a3v–a4r. 111. Kinzelbach, “ ‘Wahnsinnige Weyber.’ ” 112. Heinrich of Braunschweig to Anna of Saxony, February 23, 1559, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/1, fol. 265v: “e.l. konnen wir gnugsam nit anzeigen / wie gar woll vns solchs Aqua Vite bekumpt / geweißlich befinden wir vns von aller doctory Arzneyen nit so woll. . . . So konnen E. L. mit solchen ein sehr gar guter arzet sein.” 113. Heinrich of Braunschweig to Anna of Saxony, June 16, 1557, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8528/1, fol. 233r. 114. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C 282. The Latin version is C 281. 115. Anna of Saxony to Caspar Peucer, January 3, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8532/2, fol. 30r. Anna responded by sending Peucer a number of remedies. SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 194r. Peucer wrote back on January 10 thanking her for the “provisions and fortification.” Loc. 8532/2, fol. 33r. 116. Peucer to Anna of Saxony, 8532/2, fol. 56r. 117. Johann Neefe to Anna of Saxony, December 4, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8534/2, fol. 53r. Patrician “honored women” frequently oversaw childbirth in Germany. See Wiesner, “Early Modern Midwifery.” 118. Johann Neefe to Anna of Saxony, December 4, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8534/2, fol. 53r. “Wir hoffen m. Gnedigste fraw / dha sie nhur jre weybliche reynunge widerumb bequeme / ßs solde es besser werden / Wir tragen all mit Jhr / mit Jhrem Jungkern vnd kleynen vyr kindern / hertzlichs mithleyden / vnd bitten E Chuf G vmb getrauen radt / was E Churf G gmedigklichen meynen / was hulfnen sein solde / das nhun der weybliche reynunge furdern möge. Man hat jhr rotte kyrschen prue gegeben / sye hat aber dzeselbige / vber zwey mal nicht nhemen wollen / derhalben wir Jhr Jtzo nichts eyngegeben sunder man lest sie thuhen.” 119. Assion and Telle, “Der Nürnberger Stadtarzt Johannes Magenbuch,” 384.

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120. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 11, 1561, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8528/1, fol. 328r. 121. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, May 14, 1561, Kop. 509, fol. 174r. “Dan wir wolten selbst gern das Jr noch fur seinem abreisen mit Jme sprach halten vnd kunstiren möchte.” 122. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 283, fols. 113v–116v, 141r–v. 123. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. K 350, fol. 27r–v. “Alß Jch in meiner Vocation / so lange Jch Practicieret / Jnn obgenantter kranckheit vnd beschwerlichkeitten des Magens / viel menschen . . . glucklichen Curiret habe.” 124. Ibid., fols. 26r–33r. 125. Simon Simonius to Anna of Saxony, April 27, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8535/4, fol. 1v (italics in original). “Vnser seindt vier Medici / beratschlagung halber / zusamen kommen zwene Key Mt vnd zwene Eurer Churf G diene jst auch von yeden vill vorgebracht worden / wolte Gott aber / das ein yeglicher das villmehr proponieret hett / was da / diß edle ehrliche matron gesindt zu machen / gedienet hatt / alß einem anderen zuwidersprechen.” 126. Crisciani, “Fatti, teorie, ‘narratio’”; Park, “Natural Particulars.” 127. McVaugh, “Experimenta of Arnald of Villanova,” 111. 128. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 283, fol. 113v. 129. Simon Simonius to Anna of Saxony, June 4, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8535/4, fol. 17r (italics in original). “Kan ohne Euer Churf F beuelth / jch mit gutten gewissen nicht / will auch nicht / ob ich schon wusste / das ich was grossen Nutzes solte dauon tragen / die Academiam verlassen / vnnd zu Anderen dieselbe zu curiern / wegk reisen.” 130. Anna of Saxony to Hans Jenitz, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 521, fol. 370r–v. “Ob gleich die doctores nicht viel daruon halten wollen, dan wir was es thut auß erfahrung haben.” 131. Crisciani, “Fatti, teorie, ‘narratio,’ ” 695. 132. E.g., Smith, Body of the Artisan; Smith and Findlen, Merchants and Marvels; P. O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship; P. O. Long, “Patronage, Power, and the Authorship of Ars.” 133. Smith, Body of the Artisan, 147. 134. Ben-Chaim, Experimental Philosophy, 1–16. 135. Smith, “What Is a Secret?,” 54. Chapter Two 1. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 227, fols. 4ar–5ar. 2. This first volume of Zangmeister’s recipe collection exists in three iterations: Cod. Pal. germ. 227, 237, and 251. Versions 237 and 251 seem to predate the fair copy 227, as they contain several recipes left out of 227; however, only 227 contains the prefacing letter. Version 251 is dated both with Zangmeister’s original 1567 and with 1576, presumably the date when it was copied. The second and third volume from Zangmeister can be found at Cod. Pal. germ. 248 and 277. 3. A few scholars emphasized their importance long ago, particularly Gerhard Eis, Jerry Stannard, and William Eamon. See Eis, “Auszüge”; Eis, Medizinische Fachprosa; Stannard, “Rezeptliteratur as Fachliteratur”; and Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature. 4. Cf. introduction, n. 69. 5. Green, “Possibilities of Literacy,” 42. 6. Elaine Leong has also found this to be the case in seventeenth- century England. Leong, “Medical Recipe Collections,” 6–15. 7. The circumstances of Hildegard’s theoretical medical texts are unknown, and it is still

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not entirely clear whether Sabuco or her father, apothecary Miguel Sabuco, wrote the work published under her name. Hildegard of Bingen, Causae et curae; Sabuco de Nantes Barrera, True Medicine. 8. An Italian book of secrets (or recipes), I secreti della signora Isabella Cortese (1561), is the only sixteenth- century printed recipe book that professes to be written by a woman. Because no details about Cortese’s life have emerged, however, many scholars suspect that the work was written by a male humanist and published under Cortese’s name. Nevertheless, the fact that the work, like Sabuco’s, was intentionally attributed to a women is significant. 9. The proclivity toward collecting has been examined by a number of historians, most notably Findlen, Possessing Nature; Pomian, Collectors and Curiosities; and Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 149–70. 10. For an English comparison, see Pennell, “Perfecting Practice?,” 238. 11. Cod. Pal. germ. 227, fol. 6r. 12. Stannard, “Rezeptliteratur as Fachliteratur,” 70. 13. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 28r. 14. Mäkinen, “Herbal Recipes,” 144–73. 15. Cod. Pal. germ. 227, fol. 3r. 16. Hunt, Popular Medicine, 5–6. 17. Goltz, Mittelalterliche Pharmazie; and Roberg, “Studien zum ‘Antidotarium Nicolai.’ ” 18. Cabré, “Categories of Health Care,” 37. 19. Keil et al., Die Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,. vol. 7, cols. 67–82, and vol. 8, col. 148; Keil, “Der Hausvater als Arzt,” 221; and Keil, “Ein teutsch puech machen.” 20. Assion, Altdeutsche Fachliteratur, 136; and Sigerist, Studien und Texte, 5–7. 21. Sigerist, Studien und Texte, 5. 22. McVaugh, “Experimenta”; Cabré, “Categories of Health Care,” 36–50. 23. These included works from the princely and university library (Bibliotheca Palatina) as well as various unbound manuscripts from castle and city that were subsequently bound and assigned numbers in Rome. In many cases, unrelated manuscripts were bound together, making the following numerical analysis inherently imperfect. See Bartsch, introduction to Die altdeutschen Handschriften, vol. 1; Wille, Die deutschen Pfälzer Handschriften, 2: vii–xii. 24. Recently, all 848 Codices Palatini germanici have been digitized in a project run by the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg: http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/helios/digi/codpalgerm .html. Indices and analyses of the manuscripts continue to be added in an ongoing fashion. Some of the indices have also been printed: K. Zimmerman, Die Codices Palatini germanici; and Miller and K. Zimmerman, Die Codices Palatini germanici. See also Stoudt, “Medical Manuscripts.” 25. Keil, “Der Hausvater als Arzt,” 231–43. 26. Miller and Zimmerman. “Vor das Jucken an haimlichen ortenn”; and Stoudt, “Medical Manuscripts,” 159–70. 27. Assion, “Der Hof Herzog Siegmunds von Tirol,” 53; and Eis, “Auszüge,” 13– 14. A sixteenth- century copy of Klaus von Matrei’s Arzneibuch can be found in the Bibliotheca Palatina, Cod. Pal. germ. 214. 28. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 261–72. Stoudt, “Medieval German Women.” 29. Hohberg, Georgica curiosa, book 3. 30. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 261–72. 31. E.g., Cod. Pal. germ. 187, fols. 16ff., and Cod. Pal. germ. 283, fols. 42ff.

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32. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 214, fol. 1va. 33. Green, “Books as a Source”; and Green, “Possibilities of Literacy,” 42–69. 34. Whitaker, “Reading the Paston Letters”; Cabré, “Categories of Health Care,” 36–50. 35. The book inventories can be found at SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. IB vol. 24a; SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. K 342, fol. 1r. 36. It is impossible to determine the exact number of Anna’s manuscripts, because the scribe frequently uses the terms allerley (all kinds of) and ettlich (numerous) to decribe the different volumes, rather than giving precise numbers. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. K 342, fols. 1–9. 37. Green, “Possibilities of Literacy,” 42; Cabré, “Categories of Health Care,” 39. 38. Leong, “Medical Recipe Collections,” 23–27. 39. Schloss Ambras, Mscr. PA 1474; Welser, Das Kochbuch, vol. 2; and Größing, Kaufmannstochter im Kaiserhaus, 83–158. 40. Brigitta Trautson to Anna of Saxony, August 20, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8534/4, fol. 164r. 41. Hunter, “Sisters of the Royal Society,” 182. 42. Leong, “Making Medicines,” 161–62. 43. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62 (1558), fols. 104r–131v, and Nr. 77 (1553), fols. 302r–307v; Rankin, “Duchess Heal Thyself,” 117. 44. Moran, Distilling Knowledge, 53. 45. Jansen-Sieben, “Mittelniederländische Kochbücher,” 193–99. 46. Weckerin, Ein köstlich new Kochbuch, preface. Anna died before the book had been printed, and the printing process was seen through by her daughter Catharina. See also Classen, Power of a Woman’s Voice, 354–66. 47. Ryff, Confect Büchlin. 48. Anna of Saxony to Friedrich, May 15, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 234r. 49. Pomata, Contracting a Cure, 120–39. 50. HStA Marburg, Best. 340, Samptarchiv A, 4 (after 1533), fols. 22ff. 51. Hunter, “Women and Domestic Medicine,” 95–98. 52. Caterina Sforza’s recipe collection survives only in a rare nineteenth- century transcription. See Fiumi and Tempesta, “Gli ‘experimenti.’ ” 53. SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8032/2. 54. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 310, fol. 217r–v. 55. Arznei also referred to the practice of medicine as a whole. Baufeld, Kleines frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 14. With no standardized spelling, it frequently appeared as artzney, erznei, ertzney, or artzeney. 56. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 177, fol. 33r. Schmitt, “Experience and Experiment,” 86–87. 57. On Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s collection, see HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 1r. “Ein browierty Kinst uir die barmuoter.” For Sophia of Miltitz, see UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 188, fol. 50r. 58. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 182, 187. 59. Baufeld, Kleines frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 154. 60. Anna of Saxony to the administrator of Halle’s wife, June 4, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 518, fol. 66v: “vnd allerley kunste mit dienen vnd vberspringen kann.” 61. Dryander, Ein New Artzney vnd Practicyrbuchlein, fol. A5v. 62. O’Boyle, Art of Medicine, chap. 3.

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63. Smith, Body of the Artisan, 72; Baufeld, Kleines frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 154. 64. Pennell, “Perfecting Practice?,” 251. 65. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 113. 66. The genre of printed medical works aimed at the “common man” mentioned in the introduction popularized medical remedies in the same way that the Kunstbüchlein demystified the mechanical arts. Telle, Pharmazie und der gemeine Mann. 67. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C3d; SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. P 169. Both manuscripts are from the mid- sixteenth century. 68. Anna of Saxony to Hans Jenitz, December 11, 1579, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 521, fol. 370r. 69. Anna of Saxony to Katharina of Brandenburg, September 8, 1561, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 186r–v. “Wiewol aber diß ein schlechter kunst wir auch achten das EL die Zuuorn vnd vielleicht besser dann wir konnen machen.” 70. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Goje, September 18, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 515, fol. 98r. “do Jr eine andere kunst wustest dauon die haar schön vnnd bestendig blieben auch wachsen vnd zunehmen machten / jr wollet vns diesselbig . . . jn schrifften mitteilen.” 71. Pennell, “Perfecting Practice?,” 239. 72. Specifically, Anna ordered her apothecary, Johann unter den Linden, to allow another servant, Appolonia Neefe, to copy the Künste. SHStA Dresden, Kop. 519, fol. 149r. 73. Margaret von Neffenstein to Magdalena von Bünau, n.d. (probably 1556/57), HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 78, fol. 112r–v. 74. Green, “Possibilities of Literacy,” 5 and 45. 75. As Brian Stock has argued, literacy (the ability to read) and textuality (the use of texts) did not always overlap. Stock, Listening for the Text, 144. Eamon argues that the recipe’s most salient feature was its status as a written document. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 100. 76. Smith, “What Is a Secret?,” 31. 77. Anna of Saxony to Cornelius van der Hansfort, January 5, 1562, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fols. 2v–3r. 78. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C 331. 79. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C 317. 80. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 188. 81. In his seminal work on literacy and orality, Ong argues that the shift from orality to literacy restructures thought. Ong, Orality and Literacy. 82. On the gradual transfer from an oral to a literate society, see especially Thomas, “Meaning of Literacy.” 83. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, March 26, 1564, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/3, fol. 26r. 84. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, May 3, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 516, fol. 49v: “das Jr alle Ewer kunste so Jr nach Jr gedechtnus und nicht beschrieben hattet aufzeichnen lassen und uns mitteilen.” 85. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, November 6, 1574, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, fol. 241v. “Nach dem Jr vns aber zugesagett / ewre kunst so jr fur gewiß halttet vnd jm teglichen brauch / daß nicht beschriben habtt / jnn ein büchlein zusammen zu schreiben vnd vortzeichnen lassen.” 86. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 224–26 and 294–327. 87. Cf. the interaction between memory and writing Jack Goody observed among the Benga, which focused on rote memorization of texts; Dorothea seems to have had the memorized ideas

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in her head, much as Clanchy describes. Goody, Interface, chap. 8; and Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 224–26. 88. Anna Maria of Württemberg to Johann Kielmann, April 28, 1568, HStA Stuttgart, G43.3.9. 89. Elisabeth Lymarin to Anna of Saxony, March 1, 1576, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8534/2, fols. 220r–221r. 90. HZA Neuenstein, U5. 91. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, June 1, 1561, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8528/1, fol. 329r. 92. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Brandenburg, August 10, 1559, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 105v. SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8032/2, fols. 23r–28v. Although it certainly was not as skilled as Dorothea of Mansfeld’s, Anna’s hand was more legible than that of many nobles. 93. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, December 23, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 131v. “Ewer alt buchlein jst vnß sehr lieb furnemblich von deß wegen weill jr dasselbige mit aigen handen so vleissig geschrieben.” 94. The manuscript is dated 1561. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. B 201, fol. 1v: “vnd vmbgates willen meinen Fleliches piten / ECFG wolle mich arme Vorlassenes altes weib / mit einer genedigenn Stuer . . . genedigist versehen lassen.” 95. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. P 167, fol. 1r. “Ettliche hierinen hoch nutzliche vnnd an villen Menschen hoch vnd niederstandts Mit Gottes hilff Offtbewertte Recept vnd Ertzneyen so mit vleis beschriben ist worden.” 96. Ibid., fols. 5v–6r. 97. Ibid., fols. 8r–10r. 98. Hans Ungenad to Anna of Saxony, March 4, 1561, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 264v. 99. Ibid., fol. 265r: “also hab jchs jn Bamen gottes gewagett / dj Salm lenden am pauch vmb den Nauell drey Mall auß wentx / des andern Morgens vnd vmb Mittag geprauchtt . . . vnd Suma / der liebe got gnad geben / das sy wider pald zu jr vornunfft vnd zw kreftten khumen / vnd Ob es sich gleich vber ein tag zwey wider wollen spern / So hat man dj salm wider geprauchtt / So jst es wider zum pisten gsunft Erfolgt.” 100. The beginning of Ungenad’s letter indicated that he did expect the salve to be made, and he also sent a number of ingredients required in the recipe. Ibid., fol. 264r–v. 101. Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 137– 49; Campbell, Wonder and Science; Céard, La nature et les prodiges; and Findlen, “Jokes of Nature.” 102. On collecting natural knowledge, see Findlen, Possessing Nature; Pomian, Collectors and Curiosities; and Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature. 103. For example, a number of aquae vitae for stroke (Schlagwasser) overlap almost exactly with recipes from Cod. Pal. germ. 250, with a few changes, additions, and alterations. See Cod. Pal. germ. 256, fols. 86r–118r; and Cod. Pal. germ. 250, fols. 1–33r. 104. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 132. 105. Leong and Rankin, Secrets and Knowledge, 7–11. 106. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 139–47. 107. Wecker, Kunstbuch (1616); Wecker, Artzney Buch. 108. Wecker, Kunstbuch (1616), fol. )(5v. 109. Anna of Saxony to the duchess of Mecklenburg, June 1, 1583, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 525, fol. 124r.

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110. Anna Maria of Württemberg to Anna of Saxony, March 22, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/2, fol. 41v: “was ider man hat ist es kan kunst mer.” 111. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C294, fol. 1r: “dan was gemein ist das gwont die natur vnd tuet kain werckung mer.” 112. Gäbelkover, Artzneybuch, preface. 113. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Bavaria, January 5, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 68v. “Weil wir EL auch fast alle vnsere geheimbste kunste vortraulich mittgetheilt So bitten wir hinwider wo EL etwas gewisses vnd sonderliches hetten / sie woltenn vns dasselbige auch Schwesterlich nicht vorhalten / Solchs wollenn wir jnn gutter gehaimb bi vnnß bewaren / Jnnmassen wir vnß wunschen EL das jrige so sie von vnnß bekommen / auch nicht gemein machen werden.” 114. Eamon, “How to Read a Book of Secrets,” 31. 115. Anna of Saxony to Margareta Leuschnerin, December 22, 1577, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 521, fol. 138 r–v. 116. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 131. 117. Ambraser Liederbuch, [1582], quoted in Telle, “Das Rezept als literarische Form: Zum multifunktionalen Gebrauch des Rezepts,” 254. 118. Katharina of Brandenburg to Anna of Saxony, October 1559, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/1, fol. 212r–v. 119. In the future, Ungenad reported, August could obtain elephant fat through “the sea merchants in the Netherlands” (jm Niderhandtt peyden khaufleitz die vbe Mer handeln). Ungenad to Anna of Saxony, March 4, 1561, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 264r. Chapter Three 1. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, July 13, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 6r: “alhie ist vntter den leutten ein bosse krangkheitt es komptt in die augen irst dar nach in alle gleder etlichen in ein arm aber hentt mitt groser schwolst vnd schwirtt in etlichen vorgatt es das nichtt schwirtt vnd komptt in in die lingke seitten vnd stigktt sie ser hartt vnd drie teglich feber miett vbern andern tagk . . . euer k f g glauben mir das ich der selben leutt nun einen tagk habe hondertt vnd xj gehaptt diese krangkeitt lest gott seihe gelobett numer nach.” 2. Ibid. “so mach ich in ein drangk der sie porgertt so wirtt es bessen.” 3. Ibid., fol. 7r. 4. Novenianus, Von den bösen vmbflechtenden Bauchflüssen, fol. A2v. 5. Sturmhoefel, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 287. This statement is quoted subsequently in Schönfeld, Frauen in der abendländischen Heilkunde, 90; and Wendland, “Die Gräfin von Mansfeld,” 544. 6. Mencelius, Zwo Predigten von der Thabea, fol. A3r. Dorothea was also eulogized in Nicolai, Eine Predigt. 7. E.g., Niemann, Geschichte der Grafen von Mansfeld, 140. 8. Mencelius, Zwo Predigten von der Thabea, C2v. 9. Nicolai, Eine Predigt, B3v. 10. Niemann, Geschichte der Grafen von Mansfeld, 140. 11. Mencelius, Zwo Predigten von der Thabea, A3v: “sonderlich geliebet / vnd . . . viel gutes vnd liebes erzeigt.”

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12. Volker Wendland only briefly mentions Dorothea’s drive to administer medical care to the poor, while Peter Assion and Walter Schönfeld do not refer to it at all. Assion, “Die Gräfin von Mansfeld”; Schönfeld, Frauen in der abendländischen Heilkunde; and Wendland, “Die Gräfin von Mansfeld.” 13. A number of historical works in the past three decades have debated the relevance of the Reformation to charity and poor relief. Natalie Zemon Davis’s finding that religious affiliation did not figure into charity has been challenged recently by authors such as Ole Peter Grell and Timothy Fehler. In Dorothea’s case, confessionalism does not appear to play any great role. Davis, Society and Culture, chap. 2; Fehler, Poor Relief; Grell, “Protestant Imperative.” 14. Bennett, “Conviviality and Charity,” 23. 15. Spangenberg, “Mansfeldische Chronica,” 56. 16. This misunderstanding likely derives from Mencelius’s eulogy, which stated that the countess died in 1578 at the age of 96, or, if one was to trust common opinion, 101. Subsequent chroniclers of Mansfeld, likely using Mencelius’s calculations, also reported her age of death as 96, leading nearly all historians to assume she was born in 1482. Most genealogy tables, on the other hand, list her birth year as 1493, a more sensible calculation given that her parents were not married until 1489. See Mencelius, Zwo Predigten von der Thabea, fol. H2v. 17. Uhlhorn, Reinhard Graf zu Solms, 16; SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C 317, fol. 26r. 18. Wendland, “Die Gräfin von Mansfeld,” 544. 19. Most general works on the Reformation cite Mansfeld as an unproblematically Protestant territory and include Mansfeld in the Schmalkaldic League. However, this was not true of Mansfeld-Vorderort, at least until the death of Ernst II (d. 1531). On the fight between the Mansfeld cousins, see Seidel, Die Grafen von Mansfeld, 5–12. See also Spangenberg, Sächssische Chronica, 625. 20. SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8528/2, fol. 149r: “aber er wirtt von keinen menschen geklagett sintt alle frohe das er hinwegk ist gott woltt sin sele trosten.” 21. Spangenberg, Sächssische Chronica, 633. On Ernst II’s service in the Peasants’ War, see Niemann, Geschichte der Grafen von Mansfeld, 139; and Seidel, Die Grafen von Mansfeld, 234. 22. Luther, Werke, 10: 373–74. 23. Assion, “Die Gräfin von Mansfeld,” 160. Assion did not have access to Dorothea’s letters in Dresden and thus attaches special importance to this one. 24. Luther, Werke, 10: 373. 25. Ibid., 10: 374. 26. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Martin Luther, September 14, 1543, in ibid., 10: 396. 27. Galen’s On the Natural Faculties treats this issue, although it was disseminated to medical students chiefly through the tenth- century Arabic physician Avicenna’s Canon, which summarizes and explains the lengthy and often obtuse works of Galen. Avicenna, Canon Medicinae, doctrine IV, chap. 2. 28. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 104r. 29. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 104r. Her protestations failed. Letters written by Moritz’s wife Agnes to her mother, Christine of Hesse, indicate that Moritz led his army to war even though “he was truly still ill and weak” (er war warlich noch krank and mat). According to another physician named Blausius, he quickly improved. Agnes of Saxony to Christine of Hesse, September 21 and October 17, 1545, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 19, fol. 79r. 30. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 103v: “wirtt ir wonder sehen was thutt dan ich hab vielle leutt mitt gottes holff also erhaltten die entzontt und in pistelentzen febern auch in der pistelentz gelegen.”

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31. Ibid., fol. 104r: “habe ich trefleich erfarung.” 32. Ibid., fol. 103v: “ich habe seit diesen Sommer in der Sonnen an feuer gemacht der mich tuchtt Soptiel ist.” 33. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fols. 103v–104r. 34. See Agrimi and Crisciani, Les Consilia médicaux. 35. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 103v: “ich habs vorsuchtt und nichtt vielle gemachtt mitt dem heuptt hoft ich wan die leber zu recht wer es wortt sich nich schiegken.” 36. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fols. 6r–7v. 37. SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fols. 13r, 21r. 38. Novenianus, Von den bösen vnbflechtenden Bauchflüssen, fol. A2r. 39. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, July 10, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 293r (italics mine): “wie wole ich weis das min genedigister korforst leutt gnock haben die sein k f g ratten vnd helfen konnen iedoch habe ich es gar nichtt lasen konnen euern k f g meine buern konstt auch anceigen.” 40. Spangenberg, “Mansfeldische Chronica,” 56 41. Hohberg, Georgica curiosa, 335. 42. The use of distillates as medicinal remedies in Europe is far older: thirteenth- century Florentine physician Taddeo Aldorotti called aqua vitae “the mother and mistress of all medicine.” Siraisi, Taddeo Aldorotti and His Pupils, 301. 43. Forbes, Short History, 102–3. 44. Ibid., 99–107. 45. Michael Puff von Schrick, Von den Ausgebrannten Wassern. 46. Wecker, Ein nutzliches Büchlein, fols. A2v–A3r. 47. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fol. 55r and 121r–v. 48. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 3 and May 30, 1557, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 20r, 24r–v. 49. Dorothea of Mansfeld to August of Saxony, November 25, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 13r. 50. For a careful overview of brandywine distillation at Castle Weikersheim in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, see Weyer, Graf Wolfgang II., 320–28. 51. “Der Churfürstin vonn Sachssenn Aqua Vitæ.” UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 256, fols. 24–33. 52. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 11, [1561], SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/1, fol. 328r. 53. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, December 10, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 331r: “ich habe in minem gemach ein zugk lasen machen daruff ich sitt michahelis gebrentt habe.” 54. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 30, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fols. 78r–v. 55. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 103v. 56. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, July 13, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 7r. 57. Pomata, Contracting a Cure, 131. 58. SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fols. 15r and 78v. 59. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, March 20, 1570, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat

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(Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 200r; Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, December 9, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 14r. 60. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, March 21, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 14r: “gestossen vnd nichtt dorch ein klein siep geretten.” 61. Rankin, “Duchess Heal Thyself,” 119–21. 62. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. K 317, fol. 230r–v. “Ein blut vorstille. Vorstantt rottes blutt dorch cristus blut das du blutt mussest stille schon als critus hatt gethan da er am stam des heiligen cruces ist gestanden mitt hertten banden als war das ist also warre verlei mir der vatter iesu erst die blutt niecht die wonden schwer niechtt schwel auch niechtt also mus diese wonden thun im names des vatters + des Sonnes + des heiligen geistes amen vnd deweil du diese wortt sprichts lege din zwen fynger in die wonden.” 63. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 140r. Saint Valentine was the patron saint of epilepsy. 64. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 20v (my italics): “mich betucht es sei weder die natuer.” 65. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 30, 1557, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 24v: “dan es machtt ein gutten magen vnd stirgktt das hercz so sintt sie inczontt am aller besten einczumachen dewil sie noch frisch sintt si nemen ville zogker also einczumachen vnd mus auch gutter zogker.” 66. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, February 11, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 6r (italics mine): “ist ein vber trefleich surgk dem hauptt wie die erfaronge wirtt mitt brengen.” 67. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, June 1, 1561, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/1, fol. 329r: “ich schiegk euer k f g auch hiemiett die blumen in salz eingemachtt als gutt ich es kan dan ich habe vor keine eingemachtt auch nicht wisen wies solle eingemachtt werden.” 68. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, January 6, 1569, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 30r. 69. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, July 22, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 295r: “so hatt es min sonne g hans iorge incontt far heftigk gehaptt dem wile ich es geben dan das holler blutt wasser bekomtt im sere wole . . . gerett mirs wole so wille ich euer k f g auch schiegken.” 70. Agnes of Solms to Anna of Saxony, April 11, 1559, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/1, fol. 177r– v: “ich hab auch gar keinen zweybel ewr churfurstlich gnaden haben an disem aqua vitte beweist das ewr churfurstlich gn den wol fur ein meister nemen fraw mutter von mansfelt gerumet werden.” 71. SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 262r. 72. Anna of Saxony to Agnes of Solms, November 7, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 516, fol. 86r. 73. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Hohenlohe, October 23, 1562, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 60v: “damit wir vnsere bekantnus vermehren vnd . . . allerlej kurzweilig gesprachen mit euch haben mogen.” 74. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, May 14, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 88r: “wann sie bey wuch ankomptt Jr wollet sie von vnsertwegenn vormögenn daß sie vollent zw vns vorreisen / vn jo nicht widerumb auß diesen Landen ziehen wölle sie habe vns dann zuuorn besuchet.” 75. Agnes of Solms to Anna of Saxony, January 22, 1559, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Ge-

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heimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/1, fol. 176r: “ich bitt auch ewr churfurstlich gnaden ganz vnderthenig vmb ein wenig gelen aqua vitte deweill fraw mutter von mansfeldt itz nit deheim ist so kan ich in selbst noch nit machen.” 76. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, January 31, 1582, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 525, fol. 7r. 77. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, February 15, 1585, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 527, fol. 17v. “Was dan das Aqua vitae belanget wißen d.l. selbst das wir so wol die greffin von Hohenloe deßelbe von der Altten Greffin zu Mansfeldt erlernet.” 78. Schofer, “Pharmazie und Medizin,” 123. 79. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, January 15, 1557, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 10r: “so konnen e k g niechtt glauben was ich anfordern habe von reichen vnd armen mins eisen aquafetten halben habe in drien wochen ij stobgen vorgeben vnd mus in korczen tagen an neune ortt ane rein schiegken mein freunden wertt also getrongen in meiner kamern ein zeugk su machen dar vff ich arbeitt dan vorin iar hatt ich nichtt zeitt in auß zu machen.” 80. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, January 6, 1569, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 30r. 81. Jütte, Poverty and Deviance, 9. 82. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, August 26, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 26r. 83. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, December 23, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 15r. 84. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, February 12, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 7r. 85. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 3, 1557, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 20v: “e k g konnen nichtt glauben was mir die armen leutt hie zu schiegken machen kein fertel ston habe ich ruwe das weuz gott ich iß dan aber schlaff gott sei alle zeitt gelobett.” 86. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 150r: “ich bin alle tage in stetter arbeit.” 87. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 5r: “ist incontt ein krangkeitt vnttern armen leutten oft vij mer vnd winger in einem hause sie werden ilett schwach klagen die kopff sollen die flos in die lingken sitten vnd suchtt sie sere der selben komptt den tagk xx auch wole xxx mer dan winiger den gebe ich diesen trangk.” 88. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 5, 1564, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/3, fol. 5r: “alle hiee werden viele leutt gancz lame von grosen wettagen die sie in gledern haben die weder vff komen die leigen gemeinlich ij monet vnd man sichtt in nichtt an den habe ich ein waser zu dringken geben not iij lofelfolle vff ein male das hilft viele das selbe krutt wegst im meihen so wil ich euer k f g das krutt auch schiegken das euer kor f g ken lern vnd brennen lasen.” 89. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, March 5, 1564, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/3, fol. 5r: “warhaftig sintt allhie etleich perschonen gestorben wirs gottes wille gewesen das ich min buchlein hett gehaptt so woltt ich mitt gotleicher helff sie errettet haben habe weder incontt etleich ligen vnd kan in nichtt zu holff komen.” 90. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, n.d. (likely 1561), SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/3, fol. 272r.

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91. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, February 25, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/3, fol. 217r: “der negst vorgangen montt hat mir nichtt wolle in meinem gartten haus gehaltten.” 92. Anna Maria of Württemberg to Anna of Saxony, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/2, fol. 41v. 93. Lawless, “ ‘Widowhood,’ ” 20–22. 94. Ibid., 22. See also Bilinkoff, “Elite Widows,” 189; Cavallo, Charity and Power, 171– 72; Todd, “Virtuous Widow,” 82; and Chojnacka, “Women, Charity, and Community,” 68–91 95. Wirsung, Ein neuwes Artzney Buch, fol. A4v. 96. Ibid., fol. A5v. 97. Telle, “Petrus Hispanus,” 242–47. 98. Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi de compositis, fol. 283 r–v. 99. Ibid., fol. 2r. 100. Telle, “Petrus Hispanus,” 247. 101. Engelsing, Analphabetentum, 33–41; Schenda, “Der ‘gemeine Mann,’ ” 15. 102. Telle, “Petrus Hispanus,” 234–37; and B. Zimmerman, “Das Hausarzneibuch,” 60–63. 103. Telle, “Petrus Hispanus,” 24. 104. B. Zimmerman, “Das Hausarzneibuch,” 56–58. 105. Wecker, Artzney Buch, fol. 3r. 106. Wittich, Artzneybuch, fol. 3r. Margareta, born a duchess of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, married a son of Dorothea’s husband’s cousin and nemesis, Albrecht VII. It is likely that her tenure at Mansfeld Castle overlapped with Dorothea’s from 1559 to 1578. 107. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 102; and B. Zimmerman, “Das Hausarzneibuch,” 63. 108. Ozment, Age of Reform, 31–37 and 374–79. 109. Nicolai, Eine Predigt, fol. B4v. 110. For the story of Tabitha, see Acts 9: 36–43. Mencelius, Zwo Predigten von der Thabea, fol. C2r. 111. Luther, Werke, 10: 373. “Achtbarn vnd Hochgelarten . . . Martino Luther, der heiligen [Schrift] Doktor zu Wittenbergk etc.” 112. Ibid., 11: 286–87. 113. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, October 10, 1562, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/3, fol. 173r. 114. Niemann, Geschichte der Grafen von Mansfeld, 173–75. Peter Ernst is still well known in Luxembourg popular history today. See, e.g., Trausch, Le comte Pierre-Ernest de Mansfeld. 115. Niemann, Geschichte der Grafen von Mansfeld, 141. See also Franz-Reiner Erkens, Der Erzbischof von Köln, 112–13. 116. See the letter written by Luther to Philipp and Johann Georg on October 7, 1545, in Luther, Werke, 12: 189. 117. SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 23v and postscript. 118. SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/3, fol. 155r. 119. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, December 10, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 331r: “wils gott das ich so lange lebe so wille ich mitt gottes holff dies iare ein gutten aquafetta machen.” 120. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, December 29, 1565, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/3, fol. 347r.

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121. Lindberg, Beyond Charity, 71. 122. Seidel, Die Grafen von Mansfeld, 5– 12. See also Niemann, Geschichte der Grafen von Mansfeld, 1–23. 123. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, February 5 (likely 1557), SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8528/2, fol. 12r: “ich soltt min genedigiscten hern bietten das er woltt sein vnd siner bruder genedigister her sein vnd sie in schotz nemen.” 124. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, April 13, 1564, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/3, fol. 29r: “ich biett euer k f g woltten mir min grobes schriben nichtt in vngenade vff nemen der narre hatt mich so sere gebetten das ich es habe thun musen.” 125. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, August 26, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 26r: “er hatt noch nitt fiele fleis gehaptt vff den haushalt numer wiltt er from werden vnd nom also sich an trongk haltten ich kan in zum teile mitt euer k f g zwingen wan ich sage ich woltt es euer k f g klagen.” 126. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, November 10, 1566, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/4, fol. 199r: “es wer von im ein gros buben stogk wan er behiltt.” 127. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, February 17, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 9r. 128. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 31, 1565, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/3, fol. 314r: “dan ich vor mein tage niehe erfarn habe das man vngeschnett solle ein krebs heilen der iij jare ist vfgewesen.” 129. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, August 15, 1566, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8529/2, fol. 130r: “aber allen den ich die latwergen gebe den vorgett es wonderbarlich.” 130. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, October 5, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 88r: “stirbett mir vntter x nichtt einer wan sie nor die kopff nitt enczwei fellt so komen sie weder vff.” 131. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, July 22 (likely 1571), SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 295v: “dar auff sintt schiefer vnd holcz gefallen das man die gleser nichtt wolle vor holcz vnd schefer hatt konnen sein ich getachtt nichtt das ein glas noch gancz were wie ich dar zu lies rumen warn min gleser noch gancz ich habs in der son da sten ist oben offen das kein schier hatt doch sintt min gleser noch gancz gott seihe gelobett.” 132. Dorothea of Mansfeld to August of Saxony, n.d. (likely 1574), SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 100r: “es ist diesen wintter ein jar gewesen dae fiele ein man vntter das eis vnd ersoff kontten in nitt weder erretten das war einer komen der hatt gesaget die altte grefin zu mansfeltt hatt mir lebendigk waser geben nemptt vnd tutt es im montt sie hatten im ein winigk eingossen albaltt hatt er ersoczett vnd die augen vfgetan vnd gar weder lebendigk worden vnd lebett noch gott seihe gelobett.” 133. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, June 7, 1565, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 25v. “Auch die new versuchte vnnd bewerth erfundene kunst fur den kreps darein vorleiben.” 134. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, February 12, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 7r. 135. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, May 29, 1569, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 149r: “die wiber alle die altt warn rotte rogk drugen von diesenn duch das mitt schlach darben geferbett warra fragett ich warum sie die trugen da erfore

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ich von innen das es also sere soltt die gleder stirgken lies ich auch eins machen hatt ich es mitt einen monatt anne dar noch tett mir mein bein nom wehe vnd habe seitt bis hieher niehe keinen wettagen bekomen.” 136. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, n.d. (likely 1568), SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 28r: “gerett mirs so wil ich es euer k f g auch lernen.” 137. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, January 6, 1569, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8531/2, fol. 30r: “dan warliche er ist albereitt ein rechtt lebindigk waser aber vmb euer beider willen als korefost vnd korforstin wile ich was moglich ein menschen zu finden ist wil ich mich mitt gottes holff vorsuchen.” 138. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, April 20, 1569, Loc. 8532/1, fol. 142r. 139. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, November 1, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8534/4, fol. 185r: “ich ghe noch in minem alter aus gottes sonderlich genaden wans gutt wetter ist in min gartten vnd wil wils min lieber gott den aquafetta weder an heben zu machen vnd hoff ich wil in wils gott vmber besser machen.” 140. Mencelius, Zwo Predigten von der Thabea, fols. C3v and B1r. 141. Novenianus, Von den bösen vmbflechtenden Bauchflüssen, A2v. Chapter Four 1. Anna of Saxony to Maria of Spain, July 23, 1570, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 154v. 2. Maria of Spain to Anna of Saxony, August 15, 1570, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8538/9, fols. 38r–39v. 3. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Trautson, July 23, 1570, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 157r–v. “Jrer Mt solch vnser schreiben neben berurter stucken von vnserntwegen mit vnterthenigster geburender reuerentz zuuberantworten.” Keller has shown the close relationship between Anna and Trautson. K. Keller, “Zwischen zwei Residenzen.” 4. Rankin, “Becoming an Expert Practitioner,” 36–39. 5. Two different book inventories were taken, one of manuscript medical works and one of all printed books. “Registratum vber g frawen anne churfurstin zu sachssen bücher,” 1588, SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. IB vol. 24a (1588); and “Vorzeichnus ettlicher geschriebener Artzney Bücher in ein besondern Schranken in der Churfurstlichen Librarey stehend,” SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. K 342 (1585). Her estate inventory can be found in SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8032/2, fols. 3r– 19v. Inventories of the estates of Lichtenburg (fols. 30r– 35v) and Augustusburg (fols. 36r–37v) also contain possible indications of medical activity. 6. For an overview of Anna’s medicine, see K. Keller, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 149–71; on the quarters in Augustusburg, see Hoppe, “Bauliche Gestalt,” 163. 7. K. Keller, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 26–46; Sturmhoefel, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen; and Weber, Anna, Churfürstin zu Sachsen. It was customary for landed nobles to keep completely separate quarters, including separate bedrooms, which were usually connected. Anna and August’s palace at Augustusburg, in contrast, was built with a single, shared bedroom during August’s reign. See Hoppe, “Bauliche Gestalt,” 163. 8. Kötzchke and Kretschmar, Sächsische Geschichte (1965), 220. See also Amburger, “August, Kurfürst von Sachsen,” 448–50. 9. K. Keller, “Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen,” 274–76. 10. On funeral orations for Anna, see, e.g., Schilterus, Oratio, D2v; and Selneccerus, Eine Christliche kurtze Leichpredigt, 12–13.

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11. Sturmhoefel, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 279. See also Naumann, “Anna, Kurfürstin von Sachsen,” 302. 12. Weber, Anna, Churfürstin zu Sachsen, 119–20. 13. Oettinger, Geschichte des dänischen Hofes, 1: 145–47; Lausten, Religion og Politik, 343–48. 14. Oettinger, Geschichte des dänischen Hofes, 157. See also Sturmhoefel, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 26–27. 15. Oettinger, Geschichte des dänischen Hofes, 149–50. 16. Schlegel, Geschichte der Könige von Dänemark; and Oettinger, Geschichte des dänischen Hofes, 169. 17. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. IB vol. 24a. Monica Green’s studies of women and book ownership indicate that women generally owned almost exclusively religious works. Green, “Books as a Source,” 331–69; and Green, “Possibilities of Literacy.” 18. Oettinger, Geschichte des dänischen Hofes, 170. 19. See especially SLUB IB vol. 24a, fols. 1–2. 20. K. Keller, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 15. 21. Sturmhoefel, Illustrierte Geschichte, 79– 81; and Amburger, “August, Kurfürst von Sachsen,” 448–50. 22. August negotiated a secret treaty with King Ferdinand that led to the Peace of Augsburg. Amburger, “August, Kurfürst von Sachsen,” 448–50. 23. Ibid. See also Kötzchke and Kretschmar, Sächsische Geschichte (1965), 220–25. 24. Schlude, “Anna von Sachsen,” 44–48. 25. Sturmhoefel, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 276. 26. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Court Culture in Dresden, 5–29. This interpretation of Moritz’s deeds might be viewed with some irony, as Moritz won the electorship by turning against the Lutherans in the Schmalkaldic War. 27. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Court Culture in Dresden, 9 and 37–45. The Kapellmeister Scandello’s successor was also an Italian, Giovanni Battista Pinello di Ghirardi (c. 1544–87). On the renovations at Annaburg, see Jagdschloß Annaburg, 36–47. On Augustusburg, see Hoppe, “Bauliche Gestalt,” 154–63. 28. Moran, “German Prince Practitioners”; and Moran, “Prince-Practitioning.” 29. Rankin, “Empirics, Physicians, and Wonder Drugs,” 699. 30. Moran, “Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel,” 85–87. 31. Moran, “German Prince Practitioners,” 254–63. Rather than conquering additional lands during war, like his brother Moritz, August chose instead to expand Saxony’s border through the acquisition of bankrupt territories. Kötzchke and Kretschmar, Sächsische Geschichte (1965), 220–25. 32. Moran, “German Prince Practitioners,” 261. 33. August I of Saxony, Künstlich Obst- und Gartenbüchlein. 34. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Court Culture in Dresden, 80. August frequently presented befriended princes with gifts of turned ivory, and Anna sent turner’s lathes to Duke Johann of Holstein and Joachim Friedrich, administrator of Brandenburg. Weber, Anna, Churfürstin zu Sachsen, 351–52. 35. Watanabe-O’Kelly borrows the term from Ludolf von Mackerson, who used it in reference to the Kunstkammer belonging to the landgraves of Hesse-Kassel. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Court Culture in Dresden, 79. See also Mackerson, “Die Kassler Wissenschaftskammer.” 36. An exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Gilbert Museum

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in London in 2004–5 displayed a number of items formerly kept in the Kunstkammer. See Syndram and Scherner, Princely Splendor, esp. Syndram, “Princely Diversion.” 37. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Court Culture in Dresden, 84–88. 38. Dupré and Korey, “Optical Objects,” 66. 39. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Court Culture in Dresden, 100–120. A number of recent works have examined alchemical practice at the German courts, demonstrating the avid participation by ruling monarchs. See especially Weyer, Graf Wolfgang II., 274. See also Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority, 137–39. 40. Jagdschloß Annaburg, 36–47. 41. Kunckel von Löwenstern, Collegium Physico-Chemicum, 592. 42. Moran, Alchemical World, 48 and chaps. 4–5. 43. Schlude, “ ‘Ratlich und genieslich bestellen,’ ” 167. 44. Brigitta Trautson to Anna of Saxony, September 5, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8534/4, fol. 90r. “einen guetten faullen mist.” 45. See, e.g., Anna of Saxony to Barbara of Lignitz, May 12, 1560, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 133r; and Anna of Saxony to the wife of Adolf of Holstein, May 31, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 59r. 46. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 256, fols. 32r–33v. 47. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, January 24, 1557, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 27r–v. “Das wir alle stuck so jhn das Aqua Vide gehöhren hienein gethan haben / Vnd das das aquavide jn den stenden von denselben stucken quilt vnd Auffgehett wie er dan zu then pflegt / Nun wissen wir vns wohl zuerinnern wie Jhr vns vor einem Jahr gelernet das wir thun sollen und welcher gestaldt wir die stender auff die helffte lehr gemacht vnd mit andrem Aqua vide nachgeuolgett haben / Weil wir aber jzunt desselbigen aquavide damit wir nachvolgen solten nicht mehr haben / Vnd auch nicht wissen ob es gutt sej das wir mit schlechtem gebrantten wein nach volgen / Vnd wiederumb auff die stuke gissen.” 48. Elisabeth of Saxony to Anna of Saxony, November 4, 1584, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8535/4, fol. 258r. “Wen man den weißen aquauit brendt / so soll man achtung geben wen daß weiser wasser an fecht zugehen welches gar biter ist / so sol man den abgedistelirtten aquauit abnemen / vnd sol vor hin ein branden wein distiliren laßen der dreymal distilirt ist / vnd sol den branten wein in ein stender thun / vnd sol dar nach den aquauit nemen / der in dem kolben ist / den sol man nemen / vnd sollen so heiß aus dem kolben so heiß als er aus dem offen kompt / vnd sollen in den stander gießen / do der brandtwein innen ist / vnd alle mall wen man ettwas drein gist so sol man den stender fein wol zudecken biß der broden vergeht / solches soll man stehen laßen 8 tage so wird es fein gelb.” 49. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Hohenlohe, February 3, 1559, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 90r. “Gnedig begerend Jr wollet dasselbig versuchen vnnd probieren ob wir auch vnser schulrecht wohl doran gelernet haben vnd ob es so guth sej als ewer frawmutter weiß aqua vite.” 50. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, April 16, 1564, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 155r. “Wir schicken auch als vnseren lehrmeister zwej gleser mit weissen vnd gelben Aqua Vite zur prob mit gnedigsten bigern vnß zuuorstendigenn wies es euch gefellet vnd ob wir es recht getroffen.” 51. E.g., Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, February 9, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 76r: “nicht vorgessen ewer kunstbuch mitzubringen.” 52. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, March 14, 1564, Kop. 511, fol. 150r, marginal note: “Jr auch angezeigt worden wie sich die wohlrichend salb geschieden vnd gesonden.”

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53. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, March 26, 1564, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/3, fol. 26r: “euer k f g schriben das die salben sich scheitt vnd vntten diegk bleibe oben don haltt ich das si nitt gnogk gerieben seihe dan albaltt sie vom feuer komptt so solle man sie reiben in einem missen balwer begken mitt einer holzcern reibe kalben wie man safram reibett zwohe stontt aneinander wirtt sie in zweien stonden nichtt rechtt kaltt vnd glatt so mus man sie noch ij stontt an vfhern reiben dar nach nichtt lasen sten in einer warmen stoben sondern in einer kammern.” 54. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, April 16, 1564, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 155r. “Vnd wiewohl wir das Recept von euch bekommen haben wie man solche salbe machen soll weil vnß aber dieselbige erstmals nicht allending gerathen jst vnd es villeicht an dem mangelt das wir mit der handt arbeit nicht mehr wissen vmb zugehen / jr auch numehr zu reisen vordrossen macht das jr vnß solchs nicht allemahl selbst weisen konnet / Als begerenn weir gnedigst jr wollet vnß das Recept sampt dem gantzen proceß der handt arbeit wir man allenthalben damit vmbgehen soll / nachmals aigentluch vond ausfurlich auffgezeichnet zuschicken / Damit wir die salben jm fall der noth selbst rechtschaffen machen könnten.” 55. Brunschwig, Das Buch zu distillieren, 1r. “So ich von vilen Auctoribus / vnd Emberici / Auch also durch mein teglich vbung / bruch / vnd practica der hantwirckung getriben vnd gelernt hab.” 56. Smith, Body of the Artisan, 156–57. 57. Agnes of Solms to Anna of Saxony, April 11, 1559, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8528/1, fol. 177r. “Ein meister nemen fraw mutter von mansfelt.” 58. Sabine of Hesse to Anna of Saxony, December 12, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/2, fol. 33r: “vnd den quiten saft den mir e.l. geschickht haben der ist in der warheyt schon man muß e.l. meister sein laßen e.l. habens nun beßer gelernt als ichs selber khan.” 59. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Bavaria, November 11, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 124r. 60. Anna of Saxony to Margareta Watzdorf, 1561, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fols. 164r–165r. 61. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, March 26, 1564, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/3, fol. 26r: “so woltt ich nichtt ratten das min genegister herre sie vor siner k f g liep gebrauchtt es wer dan das mans an einem andern menschen vorsuchtt dan es ist ein stargke salben vnd zertten leuden vnforsuchtt nitt zu ratten tett sie dan rechtt so wer es an sorge vnd noczlich zu gebrauchen.” 62. Anna of Saxony to Amalia of the Palatinate, August 1571, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fols. 279v–280r. 63. Anna of Saxony to Anna Maria of Württemberg, September 22, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 254r. 64. Anna of Saxony to the wife of Johann Friedrich of Saxony, July 16, 1585, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 527, fol. 131v. 65. Anna of Saxony to multiple recipients, April 17, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 513, fol. 38r: “allerlei schone vnd frembde gewüchße herliche kreutter vnd blumen setzen vnd zeugen.” 66. Margareta of Watzdorf to Anna of Saxony, April 8, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/1, fol. 142r. Anna also owned the herbals of Adam Lonicer (1557) and Eucharius Rösslin (1550) and the natural histories of Pliny and Albertus Magnus. SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. IB vol. 24a, 1–23. 67. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, August 1573, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, fol. 87r. 68. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Trautson, March 17, 1570, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 123v:

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“ob auch das krauth zu gewisser zeit gegraben vnd gebrennet werden musse, vnd wie es zu Lattein heisse. / damit ob die krauth hier zu lande einen andern Nahmenn hette, wÿr doch erfragen konnten, was es vor ein krauth were.” 69. When Anna of Bavaria sent her a recipe with a number of unfamiliar ingredients, she made the same request. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Bavaria, June 15, 1565, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 30r. 70. SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8032/2, fols. 7v–9r. “Jtem sechs buchlein do man nicht weis was es ist.” 71. All but one of Ryff ’s books are listed in the inventory under his pseudonym Quintus Apollinaris. See the inventories of Anna’s printed and manuscript books under SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. IB vol. 24a (1588) and K 342 (1585). 72. Anna of Saxony to Barbara of Lignitz, April 5, 1565, SHStA Dresden, Kop 512, fol. 11v: “ob es etwo aus versehung aussen gelassen worden.” 73. Plague struck most of Europe in 1565–67. 74. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Mecklenburg, March 6, 1565, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fols. 9v–10r. “Die stein wurtzel aber die jn bewert Puluer kompt / doran EL einen zweifel haben / die heist man sonst Engelsusse oder Steinläkritz / wechst gern an steinichten orten / ligt nicht tieff jn der erden gemeinlich die zwerch / jst gar knorricht jn wendig gelb am geschmack süss vnd nicht fast dicke hat bletter oder kraut wie junger farren / jst eine wohlbekante wurtzell / das EL vnsers achtens nuhmer keiner gerner nachrichtung bedorffen.” 75. E.g., SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 121v; and a letter from Anna of Saxony to Barbara of Lignitz, May 12, 1560, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 132v. 76. See SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 133r; and a letter from Anna of Saxony to the wife of Adolf of Holstein, May 31, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 59r. 77. Anna of Saxony to Wilhelm the Younger of Oppersdorf, January 16, 1582, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 524, fols. 5v–6v. 78. Hunter, “Women and Domestic Medicine,” 89–90. 79. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Hesse, April 5, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 513, fol. 32v. 80. Sabine of Hesse to Anna of Saxony, April 26, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/2, fol. 29r. 81. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Hesse, May 5, 1568, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 513, fols. 48v–49r. “Gefallen vns dieselbigen an jrer grösse vnd proportion sonderlich das sie so stargk vnd gleich vom glaße sein sich auch fein gehabe vner einander fuegen vnd schliessen / . . . allein das die helse an helmen etwas zu enge seindt / dann wann wir zwischen den helmen vnd kolben mitt leinwandt pappier vnd kleyster bawn vnd verschmieren soltenn So wurde die kelbe vber den halß an helmen nichts fur gehen / vnd die dunst nicht recht jn helmen steigen konnen.” 82. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Hesse, November 28, 1569, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 83v: “dadurch vns offtmals grosser schade zugefuget.” 83. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Hesse, February 7, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fols. 204v–205r. 84. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Hesse, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, fol. 23r: “vnd den Glasern berichten lassen / das sie dieselben am bauch so dick vnd starck machen sollen / wie sie oben am hales sein / damit man die desto lenger brauchen könne / vnd wir EL nicht so offt damit vordreißlich sein dorffen.” 85. Soukup and Mayer, Alchemistisches Gold, 121–22. 86. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Hohenlohe, July 18, 1579, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 520, fol. 240v.

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87. Anna of Saxony to Anna Trautson, June 3, 1585, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 527, fol. 114v: “des krautichs so man Tabaco nennet.” 88. Anna of Saxony to Brigitta Trautson, March 20, 1570, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 123v. “Jn einem glasel zu einer Prob mittheillen Ob wir vns danach richten vnd daran lernen köntten.” 89. Anna of Saxony to Katharina Klein, December 8, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 519, fol. 107r. “Wie aber Citronen vnter quittenlatwerge Zubringen haben wir hiebeuor kein muster. Du magst aber den sachen nachdencken / wie den dingen zu thun / vnd solchs mit einem wenigen versuchen.” 90. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Hohenlohe, July 18, 1579, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 520, fol. 240v. “Wir wollen aber nicht desto weniger dieselben ann anderen leuten versuchen vnd Probieren lassen/ vnd Euch alßdan was es thun wirdet wiederumb zuerkennen geben.” 91. Anna of Saxony to Barbara of Schönberg, October 1, 1584, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 526, fol. 105v. “Vnd wollen dieselbigen an andern leutten Probiren vnd hernach auch an vns selbst versuchen.” 92. Anna of Saxony to Anna of Seebach, May 21, 1582, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 525, fol. 40r. “Solche kunste die du an deinem leibe oder andern selbst versucht vnd gerecht befunden.” 93. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, August 7, 1560, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 141v. “So wollen wir mit einander kunstiliren vnd das beste auslesen.” 94. Ibid. “Es soll euch gar nicht verkerlich gedeutet werden / Sondern jr werden v f l h Gemahl gar einen gutten gefallen daran thun.” 95. A recipe collection in Dorothea’s own hand can be found in SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. C 317. A copy of the recipe collection she gave to her son, Count Hans Georg, is included in the back of a recipe collection belonging to the Hohenlohe Zentralarchiv Neuenstein, U5. That collection contains mostly “manly” recipes for wounds of war. 96. See Anna’s exchanges with Anna of Hohenlohe over the summer of 1558, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8528/1, fols. 152r–153v, 161r; and Kop. 509, fols. 64r, 76r. In 1564, she asked Anna to procure the clockmaker once again, when the clock stopped working properly. Kop. 511, 168r. 97. Adam Ries to Anna of Saxony, December 22, 1556, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/1, fol. 96r. “Was fur haimlickeiten darinnin strecken vnd verborgen / vnd was fur große kunste hierauß erbauet / vnd wie nutz vnd notwendig den Mathemattischen kunsten.” 98. See Weber, Anna, Churfürstin zu Sachsen, 273–307; Sturmhoefel, Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen, 290–93; and Weyer, Graf Wolfgang II., 274. On the Rhenish gold, see Kunckel von Löwenstern, Collegium Physico-Chemicum, 592. 99. Anna of Saxony to Ulrich of Mecklenburg, September 22, 1580, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 522, fol. 68v. “Vnd hatt vnser herzliebsten herr vnd gemahl solchen Schweffel vermoge das Recept auch zuzurichten furgenommen / Es hat aber derselbig ein sehr bösen geruch von sich gegeben. Bitten derwegen freundlich vns zuberichten ob es des Schweffels art sej.” 100. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Mecklenburg, June 24, 1580, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 523, fol. 44r. “Schwefell vnd ein Roth wasser so aus demselben gezogen.” 101. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Mecklenburg, June 24, 1580, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 523, fol. 44r. “Wie man beide stucke gebrauchen vnd wieviel man vf ein mal einer mannes oder weibes Person nach gelegenheit derselben alters eingeben solle.” 102. Müller’s manuscript, a “Compendium, in which is summarized the main points of the Theophrastus Paracelsian source of Disease and its Cures,” was the only one of the Paracelsian books likely to have contained some of Paracelsus’s more alchemically inspired works. Anna

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owned two copies of Paracelsus’s surgery (Wundt und leib artznei des Theophrastus Paracelsus, 1561, and Opus chirurgicum, 1565); a printed compilation of several treatises (Ettlicher tractaten Theophrasti, 1564); an unnamed, undated “German medicine book by Theophrasti Paracelsi” in manuscript; and Müller’s manuscript. The printed books are listed in SLUB Dresden IB vol. 24a and the manuscript books in SLUB Dresden K 342. 103. Compare HStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 4419– 3 and Loc. 8032–1. 104. Kunckel von Löwenstern, Collegium Physico-Chemicum, 592. 105. On the overlap between alchemy and medicine, see Moran, Distilling Knowledge, 2–116. 106. Nummedal, “Adepts and Artisans,” 6–7; and Nummedal, “Alchemical Reproduction.” 107. Biagioli, “Knowledge, Freedom, and Brotherly Love.” 108. Bullard, “Heroes and Their Workshops,” 192–8. 109. Jagdschloß Annaburg, esp. 36–54. 110. Anna of Saxony to Andreas Weber, September 16, 1576, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 518, fol. 189v. 111. Anna of Saxony to Ursula Strang, August 1575, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 519, fol. 75r. 112. Anna of Saxony to Ordulana Etzdorffin, April 5, 1566, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 110r. 113. Joseph Neefe to Anna of Saxony, July 4, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/1, fol. 157r. 114. Anna of Saxony to Johann unter der Linden, July 7, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 235r. 115. Anna of Saxony to Appolonia Neefe, July 7, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fols. 234v–235r. 116. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Auerswald, August 8, 1576, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 519, fol. 187v. “Was den Johan Apothekers Weib belangt haben wir nicht bewilligt noch verordnet das sie vnseren hof gertner oder jn vnsern Gerten Jchtwas zu schaffen vnd zubeuehlen macht haben solle / Wan wir auch von Bluthen oder Jchtwas anders daraus bedurffen wollen wir dir oder vnserenn hofgertner solches Wol beuehlen / Was sie aber vor die Apothek bedarf seindt wir zufrieden das jhr dasselb bis aus vnseren gerten gefolget werden moge.” 117. Anna of Saxony to Katharina Klein, September 30, 1577, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 521, fol. 101r. 118. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, October 15, 1566, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 148v. “Was es fur ein halßstarrig hartneckiger mensch er sich auch numehr vorheiratet.” 119. When she had difficulty finding an unmarried gardener in 1572, however, Anna wrote that she might be willing to take a married man, as long as he did not have too many children. SHStA Dresden, Kop. 513, 110v. 120. Anna of Saxony to Sabine of Hesse, March 3, 1574, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, fol. 156v. Anna, like many of her fellow noblewomen, was fascinated by dwarves. This particular dwarf, she told Sabine, could write and do arithmetic. 121. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, February 22, 1583, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 524, fol. 106r. “DL wolle auch dienerin als dienerin haltten.” 122. Anna of Saxony to Wilhelm of Hesse, September 14, 1585, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 527, fol. 208v. “Wiewol wir nuhn solcher Zeuberej auß vielen vhrsachen die zu erzehlen zu lang / keinem glauben geben / Weil aber solche bösen thatten wieder Gottes gebott / ehr vnd Erbarkeitt / So hatt man was Rechts / ergehen lassen.” 123. On remedies intended for Dorothea’s daughter, see, e.g., SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fols. 39r–40v; and Kop. 514, fols. 50r, 60r, 218v.

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124. Anna of Saxony to Friedrich (of Dresden?), May 15, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 234v. 125. Anna of Saxony to Ursula Strang, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 519, fol. 75r. 126. Mother Dorothea to Anna of Saxony, n.d. (probably July 1572), SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8534/2, fol. 49r. “Weil vilbemelte kinder nu so ferne ertogen / da sie nu etwas lernen möchten / Vnd sunderlich der eien Knab / so bisher in die Schule gangen / Vnd nicht böse hoffnung / das / do er ferner zum Studieren solte gehalten werden / die wolthat an ihn gewendet / nicht vmb sonst vnd vorloren sein möchte.” 127. SHStA Dresden, Kop. 519, fol. 75r; and Kop. 519, fol. 106r. 128. Anna of Saxony to Katharina Klein, August 24, 1582, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 525, fol. 56r. “Waß dein vnd andere erbare erfarner weiber bedencken.” 129. Anna of Saxony to Appolonia Neefe, December 11, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 515, fol. 71v. 130. Anna of Saxony to Appolonia Neefe, July 7, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fol. 235r. 131. A quotation in a 1574 letter by Caspar Peucer, now lost, referred to Anna as “Mutter Annen.” Sturmhoefel, Illustrierte Geschichte, 101. 132. SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8528/1, contains a long series of letters from Heinrich to Anna from 1556–63. See esp. fols. 232–56. 133. Anna of Saxony to Heinrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, October 14, 1563, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 511, fol. 114r (emphasis mine). “Dann ob wir wohl als ein weibliche person EL nicht Jder Zeit mit notigen schrifften zuersuchen haben.” 134. On customs of childbirth in early modern Germany, see Wiesner, “Early Modern Midwifery.” 135. This number includes only full- term pregnancies. How much difficulty Anna had with miscarriages is difficult to assess, although there are indications that she experienced a few. A recipe collection given to Anna by Katharina Wernerin ended with the lament that she had had no time to “write Your Electoral Grace more / about what women should do in all miscarriages [miss gepurtt] / and especially / what to do for the pains . . . I worry that Your Electoral Grace might have a difficulty with this.” Katharina Wernerin, “ein kleinen Puchlein / darinnen Vil schoner bewerter kunst ist” (1563), SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. B 201, fol. 37r–v. 136. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, April 1, 1578, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 521, fol. 205r. “Die Pillen Salb vnd Öhle wie wir die selbst pflegen zugebrauchen.” 137. Anna of Saxony to Frederick of Denmark, September 28, 1570, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 523, fol. 176v. 138. Frank, “Trunkene Männer.” 139. Anna of Saxony to Paul Vogel, June 24, 1581, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 523, fols. 148v–149r. “Vnd sich wieder denen von Anhalt noch jemand anders . . . zu einem vbermessigen truncke bewegen lassen.” 140. Like many high church figures, Johann Jacob was a nobleman, a baron from the province of Kuen-Belasy (archbishop from 1561 to 1586). It is possible that he and August became acquainted during August’s tenure at the Viennese court, as the men were of a similar age. In any case, he continued to have friendly relations with Anna and August until his death in 1586. 141. Anna of Saxony to the archbishop of Salzburg, January 3, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fols. 174v–175r. “Ob wohl dieselbig gegen der Biblien so E. L. haben in etzlichen wortten geendert sein mag das wir doch der Rechte Biblia vnd rechten verstand derselben habenn.” The archbishop’s reply, now lost, appears to have been brief.

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142. Anna of Saxony to the archbishop of Salzburg, October 9, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, fols. 265v–266r. “Dan E. L. wissen das gleichwol die weiber auch des Reich Gottes teilhaftig sein.” In his reply, Hans Jacob merely thanked Anna for the aqua vitae. Archbishop Johann Jacob of Salzburg to Anna of Saxony, November 3, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8529/2, fol. 170r. 143. Catholic theology emphasized women’s place in heaven, and women’s part in justification was a commonly discussed theme among humanists, most notably Juan Luis Vives. See Noble, World Without Women, 174. 144. As further evidence of Anna’s Lutheran outlook the two books of female etiquette and education she owned were written by Lutherans: Andreas Musculus, Jungfrauschule (1564); and Johann Jacob Wecker, Weiberziemung verdeutscht (1575). Musculus (Meusel) was a theologian and Reformer and Wecker a prominent physician in Colmar and author of numerous medical, alchemical, and musical texts. 145. Anna to Sabina of Brandenburg, December 16, 1567, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 512, 290r. “Vnd wiewol vermuttlich wan der Allmechitge Gott / vns einen jungen herren vnnd landeßErbenn bescherrt / Es mochte vnser freundlicher herzliebster herr vnd Gemahl grossere erfreung darob entpfangen haben / Weil es aber dem lieben Gott anders gefallen So mussen wir gedengken das weibliche geschlecht sei gleich so wol teilhafftig des Reich Gottes / alß das Manliche.” 146. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, August 21, 1571, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fols. 276v–278r. “Waß SL darauff thun mochtenn / das wurden DL hernach mit schaden erfaren.” 147. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, April 16, 1574, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, fol. 170v. 148. Adolf died at the age of one. It was later murmured that his premature death was a result of God’s wrath at Peucer. 149. Although the letters from Peucer, Craco, and the other members of the crypto-Calvinist circle have been lost, they are recounted in a number of places. Böttinger, Geschichte des Kurstaates und Königreiches Sachse, 2: 44–55; Brandes, Der Kanzler Krell, 18–31; K. Keller, “Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen,” 280– 85; Wunder, He Is the Sun, 159; and Zwischen Katheder, Thron, und Kerker, 130–36. 150. K. Keller, “Kurfürstin Anna von Sachsen,” 280. 151. Hans Sachs’s Der gantz Haussrat (1553),which contains copious woodcut illustrations, is the most famous example of this. 152. Wunder, He is the Sun, 153–62. 153. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, April 16, 1574, Kop. 517, fol. 170v. “Das man Goth mehr als den mentschen volgen musse.” 154. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, June 12, 1574, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, fol. 197r. “Bej dem rechten brauch der hochwürdigen Sacrament bestendig vnd seligkeit erhalten vnd ausserhalb glaubens sachen sich gegen jren geliebten herren vnd Gemahls alles schuldigen gehorsambs vnd freuntlichkeit verhalten vnd S. L. sonst mit nichte zu Zorn vnd abgunst einige ursach geben.” 155. Hirn, Erzherzog Ferdinand II., 2: 512–13. 156. Ibid., 421–41; Seipel, Alle Wunder. 157. Schloss Ambras Inv. No. PA 1474. On Philippine’s medicine, see Sigrid-Maria Größing, “Das Arzneimittelbuch,” 84–85; Glaser, “Die Kochbücher.” 158. Hirn, Erzherzog Ferdinand II, 2: 327–28. 159. Ibid., 151–52 and 313–69. Hirn remains the best source for biographical information on Philippine Welser.

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160. It can only be assumed that the manuscript recipe collection she owned was used for this purpose. The manuscript contains mainly simple remedies that easily could have been made for the poor. Schloss Ambras Inv. No. PA 1474. 161. Winkler Apothecary Museum, Innsbruck. The manuscript is uncatalogued and unpaginated. 162. Wunder, Dynastie und Herrschaftssicherung, 21. 163. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea of Mansfeld, January 25, 1557, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 509, fol. 28v. “Das jr dann viell anlauffens habt ewers aqua vite halben / das konnen wir leichtlich glauben vnd bej vnß selbst abnehmen / dann wir haben alhier gleichgestalt trefflich viell anlauffens darumb haben auch das aqua vite viell mehr hinweggegeben Dan vielleiucht jr / Jdoch muß man gutten freunden vnd armen leutauch aushelffen.” 164. Verlassenschaft Annas (1585), SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8032/2, fol. 9r. “weißer schrank vor der fraulein großen stubenn Darrjnnen allerley Arzney vor die Arme krankleute haben wir versiegelt.” 165. Anna of Saxony to Johann unter der Linden, August 5, 1578, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 520, fol. 116v. 166. See especially Schilterus, Oratio, 13. Other orations simply mentioned that Anna was a good Hausmutter. See, e.g., Leisern, Zwo Predigten. 167. Anna of Saxony to Katharina Klein, August 6, 1575, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 518, fol. 75r. 168. Anna of Saxony to Katharina Klein, January 8, 1573, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 517, 9v. “Johan unter der Linden oder sein weib zurichten lassen.” See also SHStA Dresden, Kop. 521, fol. 326r. 169. In 1576, for example, Anna of Saxony asked Andreas Weber to find her a new woman for her distillery. Anna of Saxony to Andreas Weber, September 16, 1576, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 518, fol. 189v. 170. Cooper, “Home and Household.” Chapter Five 1. Dorothea of Mansfeld to Anna of Saxony, April 4 and April 18, 1572, SHStA Dresden, Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), 8534/4, fols. 2r–4r. 2. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 68 and 72. 3. Jütte, “Die Leiden,” 345ff. 4. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, August 26, 1540, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 2846, fol. 140r. 5. Birgit Zimmerman calls the latter “a new concept of illness,” in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but it is unlikely that the idea was particularly novel. See B. Zimmerman, “Das Hausarzneibuch,” 55. 6. Stolberg, Homo patiens, 49–51. 7. Steiger, Medizinische Theologie, esp. 3–10; Fritz Krafft, “Die Pharmazie”; and D. Harley, “Spiritual Physic,” 109–11 8. Werl, “Elisabeth, Herzogin zu Sachsen”; and Werl, “Herzogin Elisabeth von Sachsen.” 9. Nolte, “Der kranke Furst”; and Midelfort, Mad Princes, 43–44. 10. Scheepers, Regentin per Staatsstreich?; Werl, “Elisabeth, Herzogin zu Sachsen,” 1–17. 11. Werl, “Herzogin Elisabeth von Sachsen,” 200. 12. Elisabeth’s marriage contract is at HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 39. See also Werl, “Herzogin Elisabeth von Sachsen,” 212.

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13. See Georg’s letters of protest, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 2842, fols. 144r–147v. See also Wartenberg, “Herzogin Elizabeth von Sachsen,” 193–7. 14. Werl, “Herzogin Elisabeth von Sachsen,” 214. 15. Although Elisabeth consistently asked Philip to burn her more politically sensitive letters, a few of the letters in code survive. See, e.g., HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 2845. 16. Letters regarding the children’s welfare between an anxious Christine, her ladyin-waiting Sybille Lutzelberg, and Elisabeth can be found at HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 26. 17. The geomantic tables are scribbled on the front and back of her recipe collection. The horoscope can be found at HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 74. 18. Werl, “Herzogin Elisabeth von Sachsen,” 211. 19. Werl, “Elisabeth, Herzogin zu Sachsen,” 22. 20. Matthäus Ratzenberger to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1550, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 343r. 21. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, June 6, 1553, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 67, fol. 160r–v. 22. During a brief illness in 1540, Philip warned her that her illness would be worsened by “heavy melancholy” (schwere Melancholj). Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz (draft), September 16, 1540, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 2846, fol. 148v. 23. Instructions from Philip of Hesse to his council (draft), 1552, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 67, fol. 7v: “das jre g also etliche die jn der kranckheit hie gibt, wan sie so vngeduldig ist / vnd melanckolirt.” 24. The loose recipes can be found at HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fols. 1–117. 25. The Bamberger Antidotarium, a monastic recipe book from the ninth or tenth century, contains a collection of loose recipes. See Sigerist, Studien und Texte, 21. 26. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fols. 8v, 15v, 19r, 26v, and 113r; 46v and 111r; 103v. 27. See, e.g., HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 92r. 28. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 85r. 29. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 303v. 30. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, September 9, 1553, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 68, fol. 58v. 31. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fols. 10r, 113r. 32. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 47r and 103r–104v. 33. See the inventories of her estate, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, 303r–304v (1553), and Nr. 62, fols. 104r–131v (1557) and 49v–60r (1558). 34. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Simon Bing, June 2 ,1549, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 65, fol. 72r (postscript). “Wier begerenn auch genedigklich du wollest Michael Rupprechenn wundarzt ansprechen daß ehr daß wasser oder oel fur daß podagra machen vnd vnns wie ehr vnns zuegesagt anher schigkenn wolle.” 35. Ibid., margin. “Ehr hat vns auch zue gesagt selber zu vnns zukhummen vnd wolle vns solchs lernenn machenn / dorumb wollest bej jhm auch anhalten daß ehr selb khumenn wolle.” 36. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 88r. 37. Peter Beinberg, steward of Friedewald, to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, September 6, 1552, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 73, fol. 106r. 38. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fols. 53r–55r. 39. Leong, “Making Medicines,” 145–46; and Leong, “Medical Recipe Collections,” 277–78.

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40. Caspar Lyman to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, January 13, 1544, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fol. 23r. 41. On Philip’s quince confect, see HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 69, fol. 174r; on Hermann von der Malmsberg, see HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 73, fol. 79r. 42. Margaret von Neffenstein to Magdalena von Bünau, June 9, 1552, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 78, fol. 112r–v. 43. As indicated by a letter from Peter Beinberg, steward of Friedewald, written on June 17, 1552. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 73, fol. 90r. However, Beinberg reported that Elisabeth’s substantial stock of medicines had been stolen by a maidservant. 44. Ibid., fol. 8v. 45. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 80, fol. 98v. 46. Ralla was the brother- in-law of famous naturalist Valerius Cordus. Ogilvie, Science of Describing, 35. Jütte points out in his article on Elisabeth of Rochlitz that an apothecary may have been set up in Schmalkalden specifically to care for Elisabeth’s illnesses. Jütte, “Die Leiden,” 340. 47. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 80. 48. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fols. 114r–115r. 49. Ibid., fol. 115r: “dan ich bin auch ein gut arm geselle, vnd bin das gelts benotiget dan ich sonst kein ander Narung habe.” 50. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fols. 306r– 307r. Elisabeth’s annual widow’s allowance from August of Saxony was 7,000 gulden. 51. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, September 9, 1553, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 68, fol. 58r. “Die weill eß vnß einn jhar einn mercklichs gestehet waß wir auß der Apotegkenn brauchenn mussen auch khönnenn wir solche Materia nicht allwegenn Zuglichenn vndt rechtschaffenn bekhomenn.” 52. Ibid., fol. 92v. “dist solt du mir deustßen und mir scheycken dist auch wider scheycken scheck mir auch ein wynik bleiweist und ein winck wyssen nichtt.” 53. Rösslin der Jüngere, Kreutterbuch, 40v. 54. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Simon Bing, June 13, 1549, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 65, fol. 78r. “Dann vnns ein hefftiger fluß auff die brust gefallen douonn vnns der hals baldt aller ding wundt worden.” 55. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, December 7, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 134r. 56. Mattheus Razenberger to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 265r. 57. He received the game. See ibid., fols. 267r, 356r. 58. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 80 (multiple listings), and Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 137r. 59. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, November 11, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 124v. “waß sie vns doreinn vonn aster bucien vnd anderen staunch.” 60. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fol. 387r: “das ich hiebeuor / vfft vnd langwierig / der herzogin seliger loblicher gedechtnis / zh dhinst gestanden / jn jrer cranckheit / als mit plaster vnd ander helff.” 61. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fol. 409r–410v. “ist wahr daß er vff jr f.g. mit dem plaster stichen vnd vorbinden ittlich wochenn gewartett.” 62. On the important role of surgeons as caregivers in premodern Europe, see Sander, Handwerkschirurgen, introduction. 63. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fols. 314v–316r. 64. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fol. 19r. “Vnd nachdem vnsere schwester seliger

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gedechtnuß disse supplicantin von kindt auf erzogen / vnd sie jrer liebten jn jrer schwacheit gewartet so sollet jr von vnsernt wegen / ermelter Auröchssin von dem gelde / so vnser schwester selige hinterlassen / vier vnd zwantzigk gulden geben.” 65. Razenberger to Elisabeth, June 11, 1552, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 267v. 66. Auerbach to Elisabeth, n.d. (probably 1553), HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 352r. 67. Poppe to Elisabeth, May 17 and June 5, 1552, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fols. 277r and 365r. 68. Caspar Aquilla to Elisabeth, March 12, 1552, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 317b. “Wie wunderberlich bin Ich Erfreut: das dise veterliche gottes Zuchtigung: An E f G so vil ( als ein himlische Purgatio) gewirkt hat. . . . Darto Dancke ich meinen fromen lieben Gott: das der lieb Jhesüs Christus hat mein gebett gnediglich erhört: Und E. f. g. so gnediglich mit Seinen Sacrament:: Vnd seligmachend lebendige Wort gottes hat hoch getrost vnd Erfrewet. Zur besserung an leib vnd seel amen.” 69. Kocher, “Idea of God,” 3–9. 70. See Krafft, “Die Pharmazie,” 164–65. 71. Steiger, Medizinische Theologie, 5– 18; Wear, “Religious Beliefs and Medicine,” 147– 51; D. Harley, “Spiritual Physic,” 109–12. 72. Krafft, “Die Pharmazie.” 73. UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 801, fol. 7r. 74. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 80, fols. 13r–23r. 75. Ibid., fol. 78r; HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 430v. 76. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fol. 29v (1557) and fol. 40r (1558); and Nr. 77, fol. 494r. 77. Davis, Society and Culture. On the Protestant Reformation and poor relief, see Grell and Cunningham, Health Care and Poor Relief; Jütte, Poverty and Deviance; Lindberg, Beyond Charity. 78. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, October 6, 1553, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 68, fol. 84r. “Wier bittenn aber gantz freundtlich e.l. wollen fur vns almusen gebenn / auch Gott den allmechtigenn vleissig bittenn deßgleichenn ßolches e.l. predicantenn zu thenn berichthenn daß wier vnser gesichte widerumb wie zuuorn bekhomen mugenn etc.” 79. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, April 10, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 52r. “E. L. wollen vnsen auch jnn dem gemeinen gebeth gedenckenn lassen ob man vns glaich nicht beim Nahmenn nennet Dann wir vom gebeth vndt Allmusenn gebenn viell haltenn.” 80. Wear, “Religious Beliefs and Medicine,” 148–49. 81. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, April 10, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 51r: “damit ehr daß loch so wir Jnn vnsernn arm habenn besehen möcht.” 82. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 55r. “Gott ver magk alle dinck. Ach gott helff mir das hin hal der geit.” 83. Ecclesiasticus (Douay-Rheims Bible) 38: 1–7. 84. Gart der Gesundheit, preface; Heinrichs, “Plague Cure,” 64–65. 85. Koch, “Die ‘Himmlische Philosophia’ ”; Krafft, “Die Pharmazie,” 159; Kocher, “Idea of God,” 7. 86. Dryander, Ein New Artzney vnd Practicierbuechlin, 5v; Brunschwig, Haußapoteck. 87. Heinrichs notes that in practice, it is very difficult to nail down a specifically “Lutheran” medicine. Heinrichs, “Plague Cure,” 201–5. 88. Dryander, Ein New Artzney vnd Practicierbuechlin, 5r–6r. 89. Stolberg, Homo patiens, 50–51.

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90. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, September 9, 1553, Best. 3, Nr. 68, fol. 58r. “Dann wir kheine Ertznej vonn jme brauchenn wollenn sondernn vnser her Got wirdet eß vnß ohne das woll wiederumb zue gesuntheit vorhelffen.” 91. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, December 27, 1539, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 2844, fol. 86r. “Vnd wer vnser rath . . . Das E.l. / heftiger ertznej zunemen vnd nochmals zugeprauchen sich entthaltenn hetten in hofnunge Das e.l. solchs alles auch mit der Zeit abgenommen / vnd von Goet dem Almechtigen bestendige gesuntheit verleihen worde.” 92. Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1554, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 77, fol. 113r. “Vnser bedenckenn / vnd trewer Rath jst auch / das E. L. sich ganz vnnd gar mit nichts jnn jrer kranckeit bekommen Sondernn alle sachenn bis Gott der Almechtige E. L. zu jrer gesundheit widder verhilffen (welchs wie wir zu Got hoffen) balde geschen wird / hindan sezenn.” 93. Ibid., fol. 58v. “E. L. wolle vnß auch denn doctor vonn Marpurgk eher yhe besser zueschickenn vndt vns darnebenn allerlej wasser mittbringenn lassenn dann wir diß jars nichts vonn gebrantenn wassernn gebrant habenn.” 94. Anna of Saxony to Dorothea Susanna of Saxony-Weimar, May 3, 1570, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 514, fol. 142v. “Aber EL wissen selbst das jn solchen fellen, do man die gelegenheit aller ding nicht weiß, vber Landt schwer vnd geferlich zurathen / der Barmhertzig Gott der vnser einiger rechter Arzt ist, Wolle E. L. wiederumb zu vermöglicher gutter gesundtheit helffen.” 95. Anna of Saxony to Elisabeth of Saxony, May 28, 1576, SHStA Dresden, Kop. 518, fol. 178v. “So jst doch gantz gefehrlich in solchen fellen jchtwas jnnerlich oder auch aussers leibes zugebrauchen. Wie wir dan EL auch nicht zu dem wacholderöhle rathen konnen / Vnd wirdet vnsers bedenckens kein besser rath sein / dan das DL sich Gottes ordnung vnd des gemeinen creutzes damit der liebe Goth alle schwangere weibs personen belaget christlich errinere vnd demselben vleissig bitte / Jr gnad vermogen zuuorleihen solche beschworungen durch sein hulff vnd beistand mit gedult zutragen vnd zuueberwinden.” 96. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 68, fol. 84v. 97. Elisabeth to the councilmen of Kassel, September 15, 1552, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 66, fol. 79v. “Wier wussten vorhienn woll daß wier nach dem willen deß allmechtigenn vnd vonn vnns solches zur selenn seligkeitt nuzlich vnd gott ist sterbenn mussen / ehe der Zeitt aber geschicht ßolches nicht.” 98. Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, 11: 169. In a study of Paracelsianism in Augsburg, Mitchell Hammond has proposed that it was this “fundamental attack on the legitimacy of medical authority,” rather than Paracelsus’s theories of chemical medicine, that most upset medical and civic authorities. Hammond, “Paracelsus and the Boundaries of Medicine,” 23. 99. Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, 11: 194. 100. Anna of Waldeck to Anna of Saxony, n.d., SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8534/4, fol. 152r. “vnd yr kein doctor helffen konnen sondern noch gott Durch euer churfurstlichen gnaden artznei.” 101. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, 46. 102. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, April 16, 1553, postscript (her hand), in HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 67, fol. 130v. “Auch yst mir sein kranthet trewlich leyt yetz wert Er wissen wey Einn krantckenn auff dem tod ym hertzsk yst ich wil got for yn bytten.” 103. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fols. 79r, 85r. “der dem Jungen hermann zue Spangenbergk ahn dem auge geholffenn.” Jütte has also described this episode in his article “Die Leiden der Elisabeth von Rochlitz,” 347– 350. Hirsch apparently was well known for his skills at the courts of Saxony and Brandenburg. See Weber, Anna, Churfürstin zu Sachsen, 425.

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104. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, July 2, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 86v. “Wiewoll wir E. L. nicht vmb diesenn Judenn sondernn vmb einenn Vrius Leupolt genant geschreibenn habenn so werdenn wir doch vom diesen berichtet daß derselbe thot seinn soll so ist doch dieser viell geschicker dann jhener gewessenn.” 105. Hirsch to Philip of Hesse, July 2, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 83r: “vnd wy Ich dy selbst Befunden habe / Ire gnaden habn eynem Breytte schaden an dem rechten Arm / Irem wenig vmbe den ellnbogen dar von dan der krum vnd ohne zlenngk / Auch dy Buelle Ann dem lingkn Backen hintten An dem kibell Auff gebrichen / vnd jst eyn ebn loch geworden.” 106. Ibid. “mitt linderunge des schmertzn / vnd Reinigunge der schednn.” On healing during the dog days of summer, see Jütte, “Die Leiden,” 349. 107. Hirsch to Philip of Hesse, July 7, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 94r: “dy weyll Ire furstelich genaden dy Ertzney so ich irrn gnaden geurdnitten / gefolgtten vnd gebraucht habnn gutte Besserungen vnd lindigungen Enthpfunnden habnn / Es schickenn sich gotten der Almechtigen gebe ferrnner sein genade.” 108. Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz (draft), September 17, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 110r. 109. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 120r. 110. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, September 20, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 113r: “dorauff muegen wir E. L. jm wahrheit schreibenn daß wir vonn vnsern jtzigenn hebendenn deputat Einn thausent guldenn darummb geben woltenn daß hirsch juda nymals zue vnß wehre khommenn.” 111. Jütte, “Die Leiden,” 348–50. On Jewish physicians in medieval and early modern Europe, see Schatzmiller, Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society. 112. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, September 9, 1553, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 68, fol. 58r: “so ist der Apotegker allhie gantz nachlessigk vndt vorseumblich.” 113. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 77r. “Werner Ganssenn E. L. Balbirenen daß fieber angestossen hatt.” 114. Ibid., fol. 86v. “Verhoffenn vnser herr Got hab vnß diesenn Zuegeschickt dann vnß die Balbirer schendtlich Vorterbt habenn.” 115. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, October 5, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 119r: “wir deß mals etwaß schwach gewessen aber jtzo Got lob hats sichs mit vnß wiedervmb gebessert dann vnß die Muter nicht mehr auffsteuget zudeme ist vnß der fluß so vnß auf dj brust gefallenn auch wiederumb Vergangen Daß wir vnß nuehmer auch nicht so sehr daruonn wurgenn. Der Arm aber vndt die hand thuent vnß noch sehr wehe / daß aber auff der brust selbst vnß einn lassenn eß allso sehen vnd thuenn nichts darzue dann vnß solchs ydermann Rathenn thuet.” 116. U. Rublack, “Fluxes,” 1–2; and Duden, Woman beneath the Skin, esp. 106–10. 117. Duden, Woman beneath the Skin, 107. 118. Ibid., 106–10. 119. Pomata, Contracting a Cure, 35–42. 120. HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 18r. 121. Stolberg, Homo patiens, 130. 122. Sebastian Roth von Auerbach to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, n.d., HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 6r. “Auch eines guten Regimens wie folgt / dan Erzenneÿ one daß Regimenh kan kein bestendige gesuntheit bringen.” 123. Ibid., fol. 93r. “Wir Volgen auch demselbenn Jtzo vndt haltenn vnß seines Regimens durffenn auch Jtzunder gar kheinenn Weinn trinckenn.”

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124. Ibid., fol. 120r. 125. Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz (draft), August 19, 1557, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 72, fol. 23r. “Vnsern doctoren Voquinum seindt wir willig zu e.l. tzuschicken seien das e.l. . . . auch volgen wollen / dann daß e.l. jme doctori Volquinus nicht zugefolgen gedachten were besser er pleibe bej vns denn wir / vnsers sohne / vnnd dochter seiner auch bedurffen.” 126. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, August 25, 1557, ibid., fol. 24v (postscript). 127. Pomata, Contracting a Cure, 129–37; Duden, Woman beneath the Skin, 74–76. 128. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, October 5, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 119v. 129. A recipe that seems to be this plaster can be found in Elisabeth’s recipe collection: HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 81, fol. 94v. Elisabeth’s declaration of support of the plaster was voiced in her letter to Philip on January 1, 1557, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 72, fol. 1r. Her servant, Michael Haidenheim, wrote Philip on April 11, 1557, requesting more of the plaster on Elisabeth’s behalf. Ibid., fol. 6r–v. 130. Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, September 17, 1556 (letter 1), HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 108r–v. “Es nun wol E. L. das Ungent / daruon E. L. schrieben / bekommen / So ist eß aber vnsers ermessens / damit nicht gering / Besonders E. L. muß Jemandis haben / der sich darauf verstehe / Dan das E. L. die dinge vor sich allein selbst prauchen wolte / das habenn wir allerley bedenckens / Wissens auch jn keinen Wege zurathen.” 131. Anna of Waldeck to Anna of Saxony, n.d., SHStA Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8534/4, fol. 152r. 132. Nolte, “ ‘Der leib der hochst schatz,’ ” 61. 133. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, July 7, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fols. 51v, 86r. 134. Arrizabalaga, Henderson, and French, Great Pox, 25–27; Stein, Behandlung der Franzosenkrankheit, 14. 135. Ruggiero, “Strange Death,” 1142. On signs of the French Disease, see also Stein, Behandlung der Franzosenkrankheit, 52–94. 136. Like his older brother, Wilhelm II was declared mad and locked up by his councilors. See Midelfort, Mad Princes, 43–46. 137. Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 89r. “Das E. L. jnn keinenn wege sich schemenn / ytzigen was E.L. vor ein kranckheit habenn / vnnd ihr helffenn lassenn / dann offtmals sichs begibt / das auch Junge kinder solche kranckheit haben / [margin] vnd manchen menschen solliche kranckheit kommen / nicht darummb das einer etwas boses oder vnkeusches treibe.” 138. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Christine of Hesse, May 30, 1539, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 17, fol. 5v. 139. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, July 7, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 86r. “So muegenn vns E. L. jmm warheitt glaubenn vndt wissens fur gewiß daß wir denn schadenn ahm Arm vom einen stoß habenn. Daß aber am Halse ist eine heydrusse welche vnß von einenn bösen Zann herkhomenn / [margin] vnd uns offt mals ist Vorgangen vndt darrauf wieder werdenn / Wir habenn auch sonst niemals Zann Whthumb gehaptt dann alleinn allhie zue Schmalkalden.” 140. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, July 7, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 90r. “Vormerckenn dorauß souill daß es E. L. dafur achtenn als woltenn wir vnsere schwacheyt deckenn vndt vorhelenn. Nun muegenn Vns E. L. jm warheyt glaubenn daß eß nicht die frant-

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zosenn seindt sondernn daß vnß daß ahm Arm vonn einem Stoß herkömpt vndt daß ahm hals vonn einer heydrusse wie wir dann solchs E. L. neulicher tage auch berichtet. Dann wann eß die frantzosenn wehrenn wurdenn vnß die schedenn nicht heylenn wie, Got lob, itzo beschihtt. Vndt sollens E. L. gewißlich dafur haltenn daß wir E. L. solchs Vertrawenn vndt anzeigenn wiltenn wo wir mit der kranckheyt beladenn Wann wir auch gleich einn kind mit einen paffen gehapt hetenn woltenn wir solchs E. L. auch nicht vorschweigen.” 141. Stein, Behandlung der Franzosenkrankheit, 14. 142. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, May 9, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 53r. “Dieweil aber wir an vnsernn schade hafften arm / dieweil wir Maister wernern so vns e.l. zu geschickt haben besserung befinden / So wollen wir es vff diesmal also beruen lassen / vnd ferner Nicht arznei zu vns nemen / Sonder vns wolle mit meister werners arznei versuchen wie es thun wil.” 143. Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, August 8, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 104r. “das E. L. eine Curam annemen / die nicht alleine stunde auff denn scheden / eusserlich zuheylen / sondern grundtlich der schwacheit abzuhelffen.” 144. Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, September 17, 1556 (letter 2), HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 110v. “E. L. wolle vmb jrer gesundtheit willen / die Artzte vnd remedia / die E. L. helffen khonnen / brauchen vnds nicht lenger vertziehenn.” 145. Stein, Behandlung der Franzosenkrankheit, introduction. 146. Arrizabalaga, Henderson, and French, Great Pox, 139–42. 147. Hutten, De morbo gallico, 7v. 148. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, July 7, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 90v. 149. Hutten, De morbo gallico, 8r–9v. 150. Philip of Hesse to Elisabeth of Rochlitz (draft), August 8, 1556, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 104v: “das es E. L. jn keinen weg schadlich nach jns Maull kommen soll.” Von Hutten also expressed concern about the mercury cure, calling it “most bitter and peinful.” Hutten, De morbo gallico, 6. 151. Elisabeth of Rochlitz to Philip of Hesse, December 7, 1556, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 71, fol. 134r–v. “Bitenn derhalbenn E. L. freundtlichen vmb Gots willenn E. L. wollenn demselbigenn schreibenn vndt jnenn mit E. L. Balbirenn Meyster Pauelnn zum furderlichstenn zue vnß anhero khomenn lassenn dann vnß der Arm vndt die Handt sehr dick geschwollenn hitzet vnß auch sehr daß zue besorgenn eß möchte vnß etwann daß feuer darzue schlagen vndt da vnß hierann nicht geholffenn möchtenn wir woll vonn sinnenn khomenn / derwegenn vnß hierann einn Armen so jme Got genade Vorliehe ebenn so woll als einn Reicher helffenn kunthe.” 152. Johann Meckbach to Philip of Hesse, December 7, 1557, HStA Marburg, Best. 3, Nr. 62, fol. 3r. “Jr g habenn ein treflichs schons Christlich ende genomen / on einich schreien vnnd ruffen / gleich ob sie sonnst entschlaffen were.” Conclusion 1. The epitaph can be found inside the Darmstadt Stadtkirche, Kiesstrasse 17– 19, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany. Italics mine. See also Assion, “Das Arzneibuch der Landgräfin Eleonore,” 325. The original German reads as follows: “Sie pflegt des Herrn vnd that vil gut / In Creutz vnd Schwacheit macht sie mut / Die iungen Hernn vnd Frevwlein zartt / Liebtt sie zvmahl nach Mvtter Art / . . . Den Krancken war sie Hulff vnd Trost / Durg Apoteck sie viell erlost / Gott wirdt ihr geben reichen Lohn / Die Seligkeit und ewig Wohn.”

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2. HStA Stuttgart, G52, docs. 3– 7. Most striking among these documents is a beautifully handwritten booklet of Old Testament stories dedicated to Duke Christoph (Illustrisimo principi et Domino, Domino Christoffero Duci Würtembergensi et Teggæ . . . meo charisimo Domino patri). The work was likely intended to show of her skills in Latin and her penmanship. 3. WLB Stuttgart, Cod. med. 2°2. On Ratz’s tenure in Darmstadt, see Rausch, Das Medizinalund Apothekenwesen, 49. 4. Eleonora kept in contact with her stepsons, and her letters suggest that she acted as nursemaid to some of her step- grandchildren. HStA Darmstadt, Best. D5, 50–59. 5. Assion, “Das Arzneibuch der Landgräfin Eleonore,” 336. 6. Christianson, On Tycho’s Island, 85–86; and Westman, “Astronomer’s Role,” 122–25. 7. Gäbelkover, Artzneybuch, preface. 8. Assion was the first to identify Ratz as the organizer of the volume. Assion, “Das Arzneibuch der Landgräfin Eleonore,” 322. 9. Eleonora of Württemberg, Sechs Bücher. I have retained the heroic couplets in my translation in order to give a feel for the original poem. “Wer nun allhie zur guten stunden / Was hat heilsam vnd nutz befunden / Der geb die Ehr zu förderst Gott / Der solch mittel gegeben hat. Darnach wöll er auch dancken than / Frawen ELEONORÆ Lobesan / Auß Fürstlichem Stamm erkorn / Vom hauß Württenbergk geborn. Welche diß Buch bey ihren tagenn / Mit fleiß hat lassen zusammentragen / Hat auch das mehrtheil dieser Stuck / Selbst practicirt mit grossem glück / Wie deß Exempel viel vorhanden / Bey Anhaldt vnd in Hessen Landenn / Hat ihr damit solch Lob bereit / Welchs bleibenn wird viel lange zeit / Vnd wird daher gerühmet frey / Daß sie ein recht Landß Mutter sey.” 10. Rosenberg, “Medical Text and Social Context,” 33. 11. Cook, Matters of Exchange, chap. 4. See also Cook, “Cutting Edge”; and Smith and Findlen, Merchants and Marvels, 17. 12. [Eleonora of Württemberg], Weymarisches Artzney-Buch, title page. 13. Ibid., b2v. 14. Sachs, “Das sogenannte Arzneibuch,” 46– 49; Eleonora Maria Rosalia, Freiwillig aufgesprungener Granatapfel. 15. Schloss Ambras Inv. No. PA 1474. 16. HZA Neuenstein, GA 75, Bd. U 1. Dorothea Elisabetha of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg was the daughter of one of Dorothea Walpurga’s sons, Count Philip Gottfried. It is unclear whether Dorothea Walpurga passed the book on to Philip Gottfried rather than to one of her daughters, or whether she gave it to his wife, Anna Christina; however, given that the book otherwise remained in the female line and ended up with Dorothea Elisabetha, it seems likely that Dorothea Walpurga passed it on to her daughter- in-law.

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s ä c h s i s c h e l a n d e s - u n d u n i v e r s i tät s b i b l i o t h e k d r e s d e n , mscr. dresden B 178 B 201 C 3b C 3d C 3e C 281 C 282

C 285 C 286 C 287

Andreas Langer, “Ordnung vnd Arzeny vor die Schwangern Weiber,” 1571 Katharina Wernerin, “ein kleinen Puchlein / darinnen Vil schoner bewerter kunst ist,” 1563 Recipes, mid- to late 16th century “Wund und anderer ertznei Kunstbuch,” 16th century, August and Anna of Saxony’s coat of arms Recipe Collection, 16th century, various hands Caspar Peucer, Tabula medicae, 1570s, coat of arms of Anna and August of Saxony Caspar Peucer, “Ettliche tabulen von dem vnterschiedt der fieber vnd ihrer richtiger Cur oder heilung so aus der selben eigentlicher Artt vnd natur angezeigett vnd genommen wirdtt,” German version of C281 “EPITOME oder Summarischer Begrief des grunds der Chirugien,” coat of arms of Anna and August of Saxony, 16th century “Das Erste Arznei Buch,” 1570s–1580s, August of Saxony’s coat of arms, probably his recipes “Das andere Arznei Buch,” Anna of Saxony’s coat of arms, continuation of C286

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C 289

August, Duci Saxoniae Electori, Caspar Peucerus D. faciebat. De tumoribus et vlceribus epitome.—Regulae de compositione medicamentorum, late 1560s or early 1570s C 294 “Etlich guet ertzeney den Frauen,” 1548, initials of Anna of Saxony C 295 “Heilung der Krankheiten nach dem Beispiele Jesu und der Apostel,” 1580s, August of Saxony’s hand, prayer for Anna C 300 Recipes in the collection of the widowed Electress Sophie of Saxony, after 1618 (some recipes from Anna of Saxony, 1570–85) C 315 Recipe collection, 16th century, coat of arms of Anna and August of Saxony C 317 Recipe collection of Dorothea of Mansfeld, mid- 16th century C 317c Recipe collection, 1570s, August of Saxony’s coat of arms C 322 “Ein Gut Artzney Buchlein fur Mancherley gebrechen etc.,” 1576 C 323 “Ein sehr köstlich Ertzneybuchlein,” c. 1566 C 324 Albrecht Freydenstein zu Newenstein, “Arznei zu rossen vnd auch zunn denn menschenn,” c. 1560 C 330 Margaretha, Stadthalterin von Ponickau, “Erzneibuch,” 1560, coat of arms of Anna and August of Saxony C 331 Dorothea of Brandenburg, “Recept fur allerley Kranckheitenn,” 1551 C 439 Multiplication table, coat of arms of August and Anna of Saxony, 16th century IB vol. 24a “Registratum vber g frawen anne churfurstin zu sachssen bücher,” inventory of Anna of Saxony’s printed books, 1588 J 59d Assorted recipes, 16th–18th century K 69m Paulus Kauffherr, alias Leo, recipe book, 1561. Other owners named: Georgius Heerphardus, Johann Jacob Wecker, Susanna Judith geb. Herrfarstinn, Christoff von Seidlitz, Elisas Ferber (1567) K 342 “Vorzeichnus ettlicher geschriebener Artzney Bücher in ein besondern Schranken in der Churfurstlichen Librarey stehend,” inventory of Anna of Saxony’s medical manuscripts, c. 1585 K 350 Consilia for August of Saxony, 1584–85 P 155 Recipe collection, 16th century P 167 Hans Ungenad, baron of Sonnegg, and Magdelena Ungenad, “Ettliche hierinen hoch nutzliche vnnd an villen Menschen hoch vnd niederstandts Mit Gottes hilff Offtbewertte Recept vnd Ertzneyen so mit vleis beschriben ist worden,” 1561 P 169 Hans Albrecht of Mansfeld and Graf Valerien Kracou, “Kunstbuch,” 16th century App. 129 Recipe book, various hands, mid- 16th century

h e s s i s c h e s ta at s a r c h i v m a r b u r g Politisches Archiv Landgrafs Philipp des Grossmütigen (Bestand 3) Papers of Landgravine Christine of Hesse (1505–49) 16–25 Letter exchanges, 1539–49 Papers of Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse (1504–67) 62 Documents pertaining to the death of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1557– 58: inventories, accounts, last letters 63 Documents of Hedrich von Kalenberg and Heinrich Lersner, 1557

256 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

bibliography Letters from Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1547–51 Letter exchange with Elisabeth of Rochlitz, Simon Bing, and the Council of Hesse, 1547–48 Letter exchange with Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1550–52 Letter exchange with Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1552 Letter exchange with Elisabeth of Rochlitz and Simon Bing, 1553 Letter exchange with Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1554 Letter exchange with Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1555–56 Letter exchange with Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1556 Letter exchange with Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 1557

Papers of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, Duchess of Saxony (1502–57) 73 Letter exchange with Philip of Hesse, 1540–57 74 Horoscope of Philip of Hesse 75 Letter exchange, 1540–55 76 Assorted documents, letters, and market purchases, 1544–53 77 Accounts of Heinrich von Bünau, 1541–56 78 Adam Schumeister’s account book, 1543–49 79 Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s account book, 1549–54 80 Collection of medical recipes, c. 1537–57 h e s s i s c h e s ta at s a r c h i v da r m s ta d t Abt IV D4 33/3 D5 10/1–3 D5 50/9

Papers of Eleonora of Württemberg (1552–1618) Letters between Landgrave Georg I of Hesse-Darmstadt and Electress Elisabeth of the Palatinate, 1580–82 Letters to and from Eleonora of Württemberg

u n i v e r s i tät s b i b l i o t h e k h e i d e l b e r g Codices Palatini germanici (Cod. Pal. germ.) 177 182 187 188 189 192 195 197 200 204 214

Medical recipe collection, c. 1570–86 Recipe collection of Dorothea Susanna of Saxony-Weimar, 1573 Recipe collection of Ludwig VI of the Palatinate, 1566 Recipe collection of Sophia von Miltitz, among others, 1573–75 Recipe collection, mid- to late 16th century Recipe collection of Ludwig VI of the Palatinate, 1570–72; additions after 1579 Recipe collections from Richard of Pfalz-Simmern, Katharina of Pfalz-Simmern, Endres Fuchs, and Ludwig VI of the Palatinate, c. 1570 Recipe collections from Helene of Hanau-Münzenberg and Ludwig VI of the Palatinate, c. 1565 Recipe collection of Katharina of Schwarzburg-Blankenburg, c. 1565 Recipe collection, late 16th century Recipe collection of Klaus von Matrei, 1488

bibliography 218 223 227 237 238 243 248 250 251 253 256 257 261–72 277 278 282 283 807

257

Recipe collections from Dorothea Susanna of Saxony-Weimar, among others, c. 1570 Recipe collections from Dorothea of Mansfeld and Elisabeth of Pfalz-Lautern, among others; pregnancy regimen of Elisabeth of Henneberg-Schleusingen, late 16th century Regina Zangmeister’s recipe collection, after 1580 Regina Zangmeister’s recipe collection, after 1570 Recipe collections from Hans Beuttel, Wilhelm Rascalon, Anna of Hohenlohe, and Hans Ungenad, among others, late 16th century Recipe collections from Wilhelm Rascalon, Ursula of Falkenstein, Anna of Hohenlohe, among others, c. 1570–90 Regina Zangmeister’s recipe collection, after 1580 Recipe collection, compiled on the orders of Elisabeth of Pfalz-Lautern, c. 1575–90 Regina Zangmeister’s recipe collection, 1576 Recipe collection of Ludwig VI of the Palatinate and Elisabeth of the Palatinate, after 1576 Collection of recipes for distilled waters, compiled on the orders of Elisabeth of PfalzLautern, c. 1580 Collection of recipes for electuaries and syrups, compiled on the orders of Elisabeth of Pfalz-Lautern, probably after 1581 “Buch der Medizin” of Ludwig V of the Palatinate, c. 1520–44 Regina Zangmeister’s recipe collection, after 1580 List of medications, owned by Count Palatine Johann Casimir and Elisabeth of PfalzLautern, late 1580s Recipe collection of Elisabeth of Henneberg-Schleusingen and others, 1580s Recipe collection, likely owned by Elisabeth of Pfalz-Lautern, 1570s or 1580s Recipe collection of Elisabeth of Pfalz-Lautern, among others, 1570s or 1580s

hohenlohe zentralarchiv neuenstein Bestand GA 75 U1 U2 U5

Collection of medical recipes, 1619 Collection of medical recipes, 1565 Collection of medical recipes, 16th or early 17th century w ü rt t e m b e r g i s c h e s h au p t s ta at s a r c h i v s t u t t g a rt

G 48 Papers of Anna Maria of Württemberg (1526–89) G 54 Papers of Eleonora of Württemberg (1552–1618) G 60 Papers of Sybille of Württemberg (1564–1614) würt tembergische l andesbibliothek stu t tgart Cod. med. 2° 2 Cod. med. 4° 7 Cod. med. 4° 22 Cod. med. 8° 5

Eleonora of Württemberg, Sechs Bücher Auserlesener Artzney, 1596 Medical recipe collection, late 16th century Medical recipe collection, mid- 16th century Medical recipe collection, various hands, 16th century

258 HB XI 10 HB XI 11 HB XI 13 HB XI 14 HB XI 15

bibliography Medical recipe collection, southwestern Germany, mid- to late 15th century Medical recipe collection, Bavaria, 15th century Medical recipe collection, southwestern Germany, late 15th century Medical recipe collection, southern Germany, early to mid- 15th century Medical recipe collection, Swabia, late 15th century s c h l o s s a m b r a s , i n n s b ru c k , au s t r i a

PA 1474

Recipe collection of Philippine Welser, 16th century Primary Sources

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Index

Italicized page numbers refer to figures. account books, 8, 65; of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 169, 170, 181, 182, 184, 187 Adam, Jörg, 184 Adolf, infant son of Anna of Saxony, 162, 243n148 Adriana, Countess of Hanau-Münzenberg, 97 agarico cake, 178 agaricum, 103 agate, 145 Agnes, Countess of Solms, 41, 111, 112, 113, 142 Agnes, Electress of Saxony, 28, 29 agriculture, experimental, 138–39 agriculture et maison rustique, L’ (Liebault, 1564), 12 Agrimi, Jole, 45 Albertus Magnus, 238n66 Albrecht, Margrave of Brandenburg, 78 Albrecht VII, Count of Mansfeld-Hinterort, 97, 98, 233n106 alchemical texts, 15, 66 alchemists: associated with experimentalism, 21– 22; female, 18, 152–53 alchemy, 4, 76; facilities for, 136, 152, 163; practice of, among men and women, 18, 151–52, 152–53 alcohol: distilled, 105; in medicines, 73. See also brandywine; distilled waters; drinking Aldorotti, Taddeo, 230n42 Alexander, son of Anna of Saxony, 121 alkermes, confection of, 103 almonds, 182 almsgiving, 21, 112, 171, 178, 187–88 Amalia, Electress of the Palatine, 144 amulets, 109 anatomy, 142, 145 Andreä, Johann Valentin, 14 Andreä, Maria, 14

angelica root, 30 Anhalt, 21, 31, 160, 204, 207 animal husbandry, 75. See also veterinary remedies anise, 178 Anna (queen of Hungary), 15 Anna, caregiver to Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 185 Anna, Countess of Hohenlohe, 9; Anna of Saxony and, 32, 41–42, 149, 153; Dorothea of Mansfeld and, 111, 112, 113; recipe collection of, 209–10; recipe for aqua vitae of, 140 Anna, Countess of Mansfeld, 8 Anna, Countess of Waldeck, 192, 198 Anna, Duchess of Bavaria, 32, 87, 239n69; sets up distilling house, 10, 142–43 Anna, Duchess of Braunschweig, 15 Anna, Duchess of Mecklenburg and Landgravine of Hesse, 172 Anna, Electress of Saxony, 20, 128–67; accused of sorcery, 45–46; accuses woman of charlatanism, 87–88; as administrator, 130, 133–34, 153–58; advises patients, 10, 25, 36–37, 44, 55, 58, 146, 190, 198; and alchemy, 151–52; childbearing years of, 158–59, 242n135; compared with Dorothea of Mansfeld, 129, 130–31, 142; compares herself to physicians, 25, 26, 27, 37, 58–59; contrasted with Philippine Welser, 20, 163–65, 165–66; correspondence of, 9, 30–32, 98; and Dorothea of Mansfeld, 38, 79–80, 94, 95, 109, 111–13, 125, 139–41, 150; early life of, 130–32; eulogized, 130, 166, 244n166; experimentalism of, 138–39, 149–53, 167; fame of, 112, 139, 166; gardening, 138–39, 144–45; on gender roles, 158–61, 162–63, 166–67; “handiwork” of, 129,

282 Anna, Electress of Saxony (continued) 141–43, 150, 167; as Hausmutter, 167, 244n166; knowledge and skills of, 35–37, 60, 142–47; Kunst of, 75, 76; laboratory of, 138; Lutheranism of, 9, 119, 131, 160–61, 163; marriage to August of Saxony, 31, 130, 130–31, 165–66, 167, 209, 235n7; medical education of, 36, 131, 140– 41; as “Mother Anna,” 20, 130, 153, 158, 242n131; networks of, 153, 175; nicknames of, 132; “our doctor,” 54; Paracelsian medicine and, 145, 152, 240n102; participates in recipe exchange, 16, 43–44, 79, 80, 82, 84, 87, 112, 125; physicians and, 29, 54–56, 58; portraits of, 134, 166; recipes of, 16, 78, 89, 107, 112; self-representation of, 130, 133, 166; servants and, 28–29, 43–44, 44–45, 154–57; vouches for remedies, 39, 41, 42, 220n57. See also Annaburg; Trautson, Brigitta; see also under apothecaries (places); aqua vitae; distilleries; gift exchange; ingredients; libraries; penmanship Anna, Princess of Orange, 44, 221n77 Anna Alexandria, Countess of Fürstenberg, 85, 217n61 Annaburg, 137, 138; Anna of Saxony’s administration of, 153–58; construction of, 133, 136; distillery at, 29, 129; garden at, 129, 149; pharmacy at, 13, 29, 166; workroom at, 145 Anna Maria, Duchess of Württemberg, 9, 13, 32, 33, 79; mother of Eleonora of Württemberg, 205; on secrecy, 86; on “women’s arts,” 26, 115 Anna of Seebach, 149 antidota, 65 antidotaria, 65 Antidotarium Nicolai (1471), 65 Antidotarum generale (Wecker, 1576), 47 Antidotarum speciale (Wecker, 1574), 47 anti-Semitism, 119; of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 193–94 Apollinaris, Quintus, 239n71. See also Ryff, Walter Hermann apothecaries (persons), 5, 6, 11, 21, 194; at Annaburg, 155; bills submitted by, 182–83; competition with other practitioners, 53, 170; duties of, 181–83; manuals for, 15, 116; spouses of, 29; suppliers of ingredients, 182–83 apothecaries (places), 14; of Anna of Saxony, 13, 136, 181; contrasted with kitchen, 73; of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 96, 103; of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 190, 194, 246n46; ideal, 103; as noblewoman’s workplace, 12–13; of Philippine Welser, 164; women banned from working in, 14. See also pharmacies apprenticeship, Anna of Saxony describes her training as, 140 aqua vitae, 8; administration of, 1, 146; Anna of Saxony distills, 33, 34, 54, 107, 129, 139, 140, 142, 149, 158; Dorothea of Mansfeld distills, 1–2, 101;

index Dorothea sends to Martin Luther, 99; Dorothea’s recipes for, 107, 112, 125, 139; Elisabeth of Rochlitz distills, 168; for erysipelas, 111; for heart palpitations, 128; for stroke prevention, 100; metaphor for salvation, 160; praised, 54, 230n42; transportation of, 147–48; white versus yellow, 107, 146 Aquilla, Caspar, 186, 189 archival sources, 7, 8, 18, 35, 65. See also account books; correspondence; inventories; manuscripts; recipe collections Aristotelian philosophy, 4, 38 Arnald of Villanova, on empirics, 45, 46, 48, 57, 66 ars (art), 75 art, 75–77. See also Kunst arthritis, 108, 125. See also joint pain artisanal knowledge, 48–49, 75, 76, 78; medical “handiwork” as, 141 artisans: experiential knowledge and, 48, 59; experimentalism and, 21–22; recipes used by, 62; source of metaphors for medical writers, 49, 52 Artznei-. See also terms beginning with ArzneiArtzneibuch (Wittich, 1596), 117 Artzneybuch (Gäbelkover, 1594), 86–87, 206 Artzney Buch (Wecker, 1575), 16, 117 Artzney Buch (Wirsung, 1568), 15, 116 artzneybuch, 72 arum (herb), 47 Arznei-. See also terms beginning with ArtzneiArznei, term for medicine, 74, 225n55; term for recipe, 75, 77 Arzneibuch (Baierland, manuscript), 66 Arzneibuch (Ludwig V, manuscript), 8, 68, 69 Arzneibuch (Matrei, manuscript), 224n27 Arzneibücher, as genre, 74 Arzneyspiegel (Fries, 1518), 117 Asclepius, 2 Assion, Peter, 18, 66, 99 astrology, 48, 67, 173, 245n17 astronomy, 4, 32, 75, 133, 151 Auerbach, Heinrich Stromer von, 15 Auerbach, Sebastian Roth von: advised by Dorothea of Mansfeld, 100, 101, 102, 179; consulted by Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 184, 185, 195, 198, 246n62; on the importance of regimens, 195 Auerochssin, Margareta, 185 Augsburg, 61, 69; study of medical practitioners in, 53; women healers in, 6–7 August, Elector of Saxony, 9, 20, 58, 112, 135; ailments of, 56, 108, 111; alchemical pursuits of, 136, 151–52, 237n39; assists Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 183, 193, 246n50; builds Annaburg for his wife, 136; compared to Ferdinand II, Archduke of Tyrol, 163–64; Dorothea of Mansfeld and, 95, 102–3; education of, 132; hobbies of, 136, 151, 236n34; Kunstkammer of, 136, 137;

index Lutheranism of, 122, 132, 133; medical interests of, 68, 150–51; role in the Peace of Augsburg, 132, 236n22; Saxony under rule of, 129–30, 131, 132–33, 236n31; scientific and technological interests of, 135–36; target of sorcery, 156 Augustusburg, 129, 133, 235n5, 235n7 Avicenna, 48, 51, 99–100, 229n27 Baierland, Ortolf von, 66, 67 balsams, 103 balsam water, 146 Barbara, Countess of Waldeck, 105, 106, 217n61 Barbara of Lignitz, 145 Barbara of Schönberg, 149 barbers, 5, 6, 53, 178, 184, 200, 202 barber-surgeons, 41–42, 169, 184–85 Bartholomew, Dr., 56 Basel, 47, 52 basil seeds, 35 Bastl, Beatrix, 9 baths, 177, 178, 197, 201; herbs for, 185–86; manuals on, 15, 67 “Battle over the Pants,” 162, 243n151. See also gender roles beans, 195 beaver’s tail, smoked, 35 beer, 47, 55, 74 Beinberg, Peter, 180 Ben-Chaim, Michael, 60 Bennett, Judith M., 96 Berlin, 13, 160 Bernschneider-Reif, Sabine, 13, 18 betony, 178, 182 bezoar stone, 103 Bible, 160; verses on healing, 186–87, 189 bile: in Galenic medicine, 195; of a steer, 64 bitter orange, 182 bleeding, 178; recipe for stopping, 109–10. See also bloodletting blindness, of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 175, 179, 191 bloodletting, 67, 99, 100, 178, 184 Bock, Hieronymus, 53 bog bean flowers, 108 bone marrow, 145 bone setters, 6 Boocke of Physicke, The (Gäbelkover, 1599), 87. See also Artzneybuch (Gäbelkover, 1594) book learning, as a complement to empiricism, 47–48, 52–53 books: blank, for copying recipes, 81; of remedies, 11–12. See also apothecaries (persons): manuals for; Arzneibücher; baths: manuals on; cookbooks; devotional manuals; distillation manuals; herbals; housefather books; household medical guides; Kunstbuch; Kunstbüchlein; libraries; manuscripts; medical literature;

283 pharmacopoeias; printed medical texts; recipe collections; secrets: books of; women: instruction manuals for “Books of Arts,” 74 “Books of Medicine,” 74 books of secrets. See secrets: books of Bora, Katharina von, 8 borage root, 178 Brahe, Tycho, 32, 133, 206 brandywine, 104, 106, 139, 179, 230n50 Brauch (practical skill), 76 bread, in remedies, 178, 220n57 breast, cancer in, 123, 125. See also cancer breast, flux in, 194, 195 breast pain, remedy for, 44 Broomhall, Susan, 7, 17 Brunschwig, Hieronymus, 11; distillation manuals of, 116, 117, 148, 208; experiential emphasis of, 38, 49, 142; “Home Apothecary” manual of, 116; on medicine and craftsmanship, 48–50 Buch der Chirurgia (Brunschwig, 1497), 48 bugloss flowers, 178 Bullard, Melissa, 153 Bünau, Magdalena von, 77 Bünau, Rudolf von, 187 Burstellen, Stephan, 155 Cabré, Montserrat, 65, 66, 70, 71 cakes: agarico, 178; medicinal use of, 73, 103, 177 calf kidneys, 178; fat of, 83 Calvinism, 161–63 canary sugar, 35 cancer, 123, 193; remedy for, 125 candied foods, 73–74, 109, 110–11, 157 capons, 178; used in a plaster, 100–101 cardamom, 109, 145, 195 cartography, 136 Casimir, Margrave of Brandenburg, 41 Caspar, a tailor, 69 cassia, 182 Castle Neideck, 13 Castle Weikersheim, 14 castoreum of beaver, 145 Catholic noblewomen, 4, 9–10 cauls, in recipes, 143 ceruse (white lead powder), 183 charity: Anna of Saxony and, 166–67; class and, 115–18; divine aid secured by, 187; Dorothea of Mansfeld and, 1, 93–94, 94–95, 95–96, 121; in Lutheran and Catholic thought, 118, 187, 188, 229n13; noblewomen healers and, 4, 116–18, 205; publication of medical texts motivated by, 116, 117; Philippine Welser and, 165; women’s medical practice and, 95–96, 115, 126–27. See also “poor” charlatans, 6, 62, 88

284 Charles V (Holy Roman emperor), 173 charms, 109 cherries, 73; broth of, 55 chest congestion, 175; remedies for, 139, 177. See also flux chicken broth, 73 chicory leaves, 178 childbirth: care after, 55; confinement after, 158– 59; recipe for pain after, 83; seen as punishment, 159. See also pregnancy Christ: as apothecary, 171, 187; as divine physician, 186–87. See also God Christian, Crown Prince of Saxony, 160 Christian I, Elector of the Palatine, 136 Christian III (king of Denmark), 9, 129, 131, 136 Christina, Countess Palatinate, 12–13, 74 Christine, Duchess of Saxony, 173, 245n16 Christoph, Duke of Württemberg, 31, 33, 205, 252n2 cinnamon, 64, 109, 195; water, 34, 77, 128, 181 Clanchy, M. T., 79 class: charity and, 115–18; of patients, 56; treatment of servants and, 156; women healers and, 6. See also status Claudia, Countess of Oettingen, 61–62, 68 Clement V (pope), 46, 66 clocks and clockmaking, 125, 136, 151, 169, 240n96 cloths, for sieving/wrapping herbs, 72, 180 cloves, 109, 182 Codices Palatini germanici, 66–68, 69, 224nn23–24 colds. See flux collecting: of materia medica, 33, 35, 144; of recipes, 63, 76, 85; of wonders, 84, 85 “common man,” as audience of vernacular medical literature, 5, 15, 16, 17, 116–17, 226n66 communication networks, 25. See also epistolary exchange; local networks complexions. See under Galenic medicine Confectbüchlin und Haußapothek (Ryff, 1544), 73 confectioners, 6, 104 confections, 103 congestion, remedy for, 180. See also flux conserves, 96, 103 consilia, 67; defined, 102 Constantine the Great (emperor), 40 constipation, remedies for, 83, 139 Cook, Harold J., 208 cookbooks, 72, 73 cooking equipment, 72 cooking techniques, 179–80 copper vessels, 72 Cordus, Valerius, naturalist, 246n46 coriander, 64 Cornelius of Ruxleben, 45 Cörner, Lorenz, 208 correspondence, 9, 30–32. See also epistolary exchange

index Cortese, Isabella, 224n8 cosmetics, recipes for, 176 cosmology, 133–36 courtly networks, 19 courts, princely, 3, 7, 12, 15, 19, 87, 132, 163–64; alchemy at, 152, 163; empirical inquiry at, 4, 5, 9, 20, 27, 28, 39, 59, 133, 138, 145, 150–51, 153, 166– 67; distillation at, 106, 112, 153; gift-giving at, 25, household organization of, 28, 29; intrigue at, 161–62; Jewish physicians at, 194; medical practitioners at, 3, 16, 29, 30, 34, 41–42, 43, 46, 55–56, 57, 58, 131, 155, 169, 194, 205; pharmacies at, 12, 13–14, 14, 17, 18, 30, 35, 72, 116, 205; popularity of Paracelsianism at, 52, 152, 222n107; Protestantism at, 9–10, 130, 131, 133, 161–62, 172; scientific practice at, 4, 19, 20, 22, 43, 150–51, 153; as sites of recipe production, 43, 66, 68, 209; as venue for exchange of information, 5, 19, 43, 59, 68, 69, 208; women’s roles at, 3–4, 5, 12–13, 17, 28–29, 164–65, 166–67. See also gift exchange; patronage courts of law, 7 “crab eyes,” 178 crabs, 178 Craco, Georg, 162 craft knowledge, 78. See also artisanal knowledge craft manuals. See Kunstbüchlein Cragk, Caspar, 185 credibility. See trustworthiness Crisciani, Chiara, 45, 46, 57, 59 crypto-Calvinism, 161–63 cryptography, 173, 245n15 curationes, 46, 56 Darmstadt, 204 Daston, Lorraine, 84 Davis, Natalie Zemon, 187 De humani corporis fabrica (Vesalius, 1543), 142 De institutione foeminae christinae (Vives, 1524), 11 dentistry. See teeth depression. See melancholy devotional manuals, 96, 187 dew, medicinal use of, 154 diagnosis, 99, 100, 200; self-, 198–202 diet, 67, the purview of physicians, 72, 102, 185–86, 195–96; restrictions on, 201. See also regimens Dioscorides, 65 disease. See illness; plague distillation, 103–7, 104, 105; of aqua vitae, 139–40; equipment for, 29, 50, 51, 138, 148, 179; glass vessels for, 33, 147–49; in preparation of recipes, 64, 83, 179; women and, 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, 139–40, 142–43, 153, 154; women banned from, 104–5. See also aqua vitae; distillation manuals; distilled waters; distilleries distillation manuals, 15, 66, 105, 217n61; by

index Hieronymus Brunschwig, 38, 48, 49, 49–50, 50, 51, 116, 208 distilled waters, 103–4, 179–80, 230n42; Anna of Saxony’s supply of, 129; for dizziness, 128; for a drowned man, 124; of elderflowers, 111; for the head, 93; popular among nobles, 105–6; recipes for, 85, 176; of violets, 30 distilleries, 29; of Anna of Saxony, 13, 129, 136, 138, 147–49, 152, 244n169; of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 96, 103–4, 104, 106–7, 111–12; of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 106, 179; managed by noblewomen, 29, 106–7, 179; staff of, 6, 13, 29, 153, 154, 155. See also distillation; distilled waters dizziness, remedies for, 83, 99, 128, 139, 146 doctors. See physicians Dorothea, Countess of Mansfeld, 1–3, 93–127; advises Luther, 94, 99, 119; advises Moritz, Duke of Saxony, 100–102; advises patients, 100–102, 123–24, 125, 179; and Anna of Saxony, 32, 110, 112, 139–41, 142–43, 144, 150, 153, 155; Anna of Saxony contrasted with, 20, 129, 130– 31; and August of Saxony, 102–3, 108, 122; on bedside manner, 192–93; center of network of noblewomen healers, 111–13; charitable work of, 1–2, 4, 94–95, 113–15, 121, 126–27; children of, 97, 98, 112, 120, 122; compared to Panaceia, 2; compared to Tabitha, 95, 118; early life of, 97, 227n16; in epidemic of 1572, 1–2, 93–94; eulogized, 94, 95, 118, 126; and experiential knowledge, 38, 42, 101, 102; experiments of, 111; fame of, 1–2, 94–95, 98, 126–27; garden of, 96, 109, 115; as heillustig, 94; humanist values of, 121; medical education of, 97, 99–100, 102; medical establishment of, 96; as “meister,” 2; as model noblewoman healer, 126; as “my mother of Mansfeld,” 111, 112; patronage relationship with August and Anna of Saxony, 95–96, 122–26; and physicians, 2–3, 56, 98, 99, 101, 102, 102–3, 168; piety of, 93, 94–95, 113, 121; praise for, 2, 10, 29, 94, 102; productivity of, 94, 113–14, 126; “protector of the Jews,” 119; recipe collection of, 78, 79–80, 81, 88, 97, 98, 112, 114–15, 209, 240n95; recipes of, 2, 79, 81, 94, 114, 150–51; religious sympathies of, 9, 96, 97, 98, 118–21, 172, 229n13; self-representation of, 111–15, 123–24, 126; servants of, 28, 29; skeptical of occult remedies, 110, 111; sources for her life, 9, 98, 112; stock of medicines, 108, 124, 181; as widow, 94, 97, 118; “wonderbarlich” cures of, 113, 124, 125. See also Mansfeld family; see also under apothecaries (places); aqua vitae; distilleries; gift exchange; ingredients; libraries; penmanship Dorothea, Countess of Schönberg, 154; advised by Anna of Saxony, 41, 44, 156; in Dorothea of Mansfeld’s network, 111, 112, 113

285 Dorothea, Duchess of Saxony-Lauenburg, 131 Dorothea, Margravine of Brandenburg, 78 Dorothea Elisabetha, Countess of HohenloheWaldenburg, 210, 252n16 Dorothea Susanna, Duchess of Saxony-Weimer, 31, 69, 190; her collection of remedies, 40, 75 Dorothea Walpurga, Countess of HohenloheWeikersheim, 210, 252n16 drafts: for purging, 93; for flux, 114. See also drinks (medicinal) Dresden, 9, 55, 56, 129–30, 182; Anna of Saxony’s facilities at, 129, 144; Calvinism in, 161–62; center of experimentalism, 133; mixture of Italian and Lutheran culture in, 133 drinking, 100; advice against excessive, 159–60; remedy for, 47 drinks (medicinal), 177; for epidemic of 1572, 107; for fever, 108; for flux, 114; heated, 1, 93, 178; not suitable for nobles, 105–6; for purging, 93; for stomach and head, 100, 101. See also distilled waters; drafts dropsy, aqua vitae a remedy for, 139 dross of silver, 65 drunkenness: remedy for, 47; tolerated and expected of men, 159 Dryander, Johannes, 59, 75, 183; on experience, 52–53; on physicians as God’s agents, 189–90, 191, 192 Duden, Barbara, 195, 197 Dupré, Sven, 136 Dürer, Albrecht, 76 dwarves, 155, 241n120 dysentery, recipes for, 42, 61 Eamon, William, 76, 85, 87 Ecclesiasticus, 189 efficacy: of ancient recipes, 52–53; criteria for determining, 39– 44; examples of, 53, 61, 84, 101; experiential approaches to medicine based on, 19, 52–53, 59–60, 194; patients as judges of, 170, 194, 196–97, 203; phrases indicating, 39–40, 46, 74– 75; repetition and, 48, 52, 63; skepticism about claims of, 88–89, 110; value of recipes based on their, 63, 170, 196–97, 198, 201, 203 Egenolff, Christoph, 116 egg oil, 144 eggs, 44, 73, 197 Eichmann, Johannes. See Dryander, Johannes Eisleben, 1, 8, 97 elder: berries of, 111; flowers of, 111, 145 electuaries, 73, 103, 108; Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s collection of, 180, 181; for a difficult pregnancy, 146; for dysentery, 42; for pestilential fever, 114; quince and lemon, 149; for stomach flux, 93, 108, 124; as unfit for aristocrats, 106

286 Eleonora, Duchess of Württemberg, 204–8, 210; collaborates with Johann Conrad Ratz, 29, 205, 206–7; dedicatory poem in her book, 21, 206–7; education of, 205; epitaph of, 204, 251n1; fame of, 207; a Lutheran, 9; marriage of, 31; oversees women pharmacists, 14; penmanship of, 205, 252n2; pharmacy founded by, 13; publishes her recipe collection, 21, 205 Eleonora Maria Rosalia, Duchess of Jägerndorf and Troppau, 209 elephant, fat of, 83, 89, 228n119 Elisabeth, Countess of Mansfeld, 98, 119 Elisabeth, Countess of Palatine-Zweibrücken, 179 Elisabeth, Duchess of Brandenburg, 15 Elisabeth, Duchess of Mecklenburg, 145, 152 Elisabeth, Duchess of Saxony. See Elisabeth of Rochlitz Elisabeth, Duchess of Saxony (daughter of Anna of Saxony): annotations of, in recipe collection, 70; apothecary founded by, 13; aqua vitae recipe sought by, 112, 140; charity work of, 116; compiles recipe collection, 107; contents of her library, 187; copy of recipe collection commissioned by, 85; difficult pregnancy of, 190; Latin-to-German translations made for, 56, 57, 58; a Lutheran, 9; marriage of, 31, 161; praised by Tabernaemontanus, 3, 16, 116; religion of, 9, 161, 162–63 Elisabeth, Electress of the Palatinate, 41, 44 Elisabeth, Margravine of Brandenberg-Ansbach, 30–31, 106 Elisabeth of Auerswald, 155 Elisabeth of Hohenzollern (later Duchess of Liegnitz), 13 Elisabeth of Hungary, Saint, 4, 10 Elisabeth of Lymarin, Lady of Warnsdorf, 80, 87 Elisabeth of Rochlitz, Duchess of Saxony, 182–217; account books of, 169, 170, 181, 182, 184, 187; almsgiving by, 187–88; and apothecaries, 182– 83, 194; compared with Dorothea of Mansfeld and Anna of Saxony, 168–69, 170, 180, 181; consults astrologists and geomancers, 173; consults Dorothea of Mansfeld, 100, 179; consults medical practitioners, 21, 169, 178, 181–86; distilled waters used by, 77, 179, 185, 190; education of, 172; engages with powerful princes, 175; experience of illness, 21, 169, 170, 170–71, 175; forced to relocate to Schmalkalden, 173, 175; on God as the source of all healing, 170–71, 190, 191, 192, 202, 203; “good Christian” death of, 202; life of, 172–75; medical practice of, 21, 168–69; medicines manufactured by, 179–80; penmanship of, 183; physicians’ regimens prescribed for, 102, 195–96; prefers remedies over regimens, 171, 197, 200–201, 203; recipe collection of, 64, 65, 78, 176–78, 184; recovers

index from allegedly fatal illness, 169, 191, 192; rejects diagnosis of the French Disease, 171, 199–202; and physicians, 171, 185–86, 191, 192–94, 196, 197, 198; religion of, 172, 173; self-care of, 171, 178, 180, 183, 185–86, 194–95, 203; servants of, 28, 29, 180; sources of ingredients, 30; stash of medicines, 180–81, 246n43; supported by her brother Philip the Magnanimous, 169–70, 172; surviving papers of, 8, 13, 72, 102, 169–70, 175; symptoms of, 169, 175, 188, 193, 200; titles of, 173; widow’s estate at Rochlitz, 169, 172–73, 246n50. See also under apothecaries (places); aqua vitae; distilleries; gift exchange Elizabeth I (queen of England), 162 emeralds, 178 empiricism: of Anna of Saxony, 20; associated with experience, 39; of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 102; learned, 27, 45–48; noblewomen healers and, 4, 5, 27–28, 37, 60, 146–47; rise in status of, 4, 19, 27; varieties of, 59. See also experientialism; experiential knowledge England: noblewomen healers in, 147; recipes in, 74. See also Freke, Elizabeth epidemic, of 1572, 1, 93, 108; remedies for, 108, 139 epilepsy, remedies for, 139, 152, 177 epistolary exchange, 32; formulaic nature of much, 30; fosters growth of experiential knowledge, 19; networks of, 30–32, 34–35; and noblewomen healers, 25, 26, 208. See also local networks Erasmus, Desiderius, 121 erfahrenheit, 50, 222n103 Erfahrung (experience), 36, 37, 47; linked by Paracelsus to travel and discovery, 38; overlapping meanings of, 38–39 Ernst II, Count of Mansfeld-Vorderort, 9, 97, 98, 119 erysipelas, remedies for, 105, 150 Erzdorf, Ordulana, 154 Esselingen, Guteline von, 69, 70 Estienne, Charles, 3, 12 experience: book learning versus, 4; coupled with reason, 37, 48, 53, 59; criterion for selecting a practitioner, 41–42; firsthand versus secondhand, 38, 40–41; overlapping meanings of the term, 38–39; synonymous with “experiment,” 38–39. See also efficacy; Erfahrung; experientialism; experiential knowledge experientia, 38 experientialism: collaboration fostered by, 19, 53; “good” and “bad,” 53; varieties of, in the sixteenth century, 208. See also experience; experiential knowledge experiential knowledge: of Anna of Saxony, 37; of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 102, 103; Kunst as, 76; Paracelsus advocates, 50–52; of physicians, 37,

index 48, 53, 59; recipes as, 63, 78; a source of medical authority, 59; a supplement to book learning, 47–48, 52–53; valued among artisans, 27; women identified with, 26. See also artisanal knowledge; efficacy; empiricism; experientialism Experiment (recipe), 75 experiment: coupled with reason, 48, 53; as “recipe,” 39 Experimenta (Arnald of Villanova, 14th c.), 46 experimentalism: in Anna of Saxony’s medical practice, 139, 149–50; at court of August and Anna of Saxony, 138–39, 151–53; unsystematic in nature, 149–50 Experimenta von Zwenzig Pestilenz Wurtzeln (Schnellenberg, 1546), 39, 47 experimentum, 39, 60, 65; term for recipes, 75 eyeglasses, 169 eyes: aqua vitae for pain in, 139; remedies for, 41, 44, 61, 64, 65, 178, 220n57; waters for, 83, 145. See also blindness Fachliteratur, 18 fainting, remedy for, 139 family, role of, in medical care, 170 fat, human, 145 fats, animal, 24, 83 “feminine cleansing,” attempts to induce, 55 fennel, 64, 182; water, 192, 220n57 Ferdinand I (Holy Roman emperor), 132, 163 Ferdinand II, Archduke of Tyrol, 10, 20, 72, 163–65 fertility, remedy to increase, 146 fertilizers, Anna of Saxony’s experiments with, 138–39 fever, 54, 160, 175; remedies for, 42, 93; salve for, 156–57 Field, Catherine, 18 Findlen, Paula, 18, 33 Fioravanti, Leonardo, 221–22n95 flour, in a plaster, 197 flowers, preserved, 110 flux: in the chest, 198; Elisabeth of Rochlitz afflicted with, 175, 183, 194; “golden vein” and, 36, 37; in the head, 100, 198; key concept in lay and learned medicine, 194–95; remedies for, 177, 185; in the stomach, 124 food: medicine and, 72–74; as medicine, 103; prohibited, 195–96. See also diet; regimens Forman, Simon, 18 Franzosen. See French Disease Franzosenhaus (infirmary), 187 Frauenzimmer, 28–29 Frederick (king of Denmark), 159 Freke, Elizabeth, 72, 180, 181 French Disease, 169, 172, 187, 190, 199–201

287 Freywillig-auffgesprungener Granat-Apffel des Christlichen Samaritans (Eleonora Maria Rosalia, Duchess of Jägerndorf and Troppau, 1695), 209 Friedrich, Duke of Saxony, 98, 119, 172 Friedrich, servant of August of Saxony, 156–57 Friedrich I, Duke of Württemberg, 13 Friedrich II, Elector of the Palatinate, 40, 68 Friedrich III (Holy Roman emperor), 68 Friedrich III, Elector of the Palatinate, 15, 68, 69, 161 Friedrich Wilhelm I, Duke of Saxony-Weimar, 206 Fries, Lorenz, 117 fruits, candied, 73 Fuchs, Leonhard, 15 Fugger, Anton, 69 Gäbelkover, Oswald, 86–87, 94, 206 galangal, 109 Galenic medicine: complexions in, 37, 45, 67, 61, 72, 73; Dorothea of Mansfeld’s knowledge of, 99–100, 102, 229n27; Dryander defends, 52; experiential knowledge and, 48, 59; food and, 72; humors in, 45, 63, 65, 67, 72, 99, 195; in medieval education, 4; Paracelsus rejects, 38, 50–52; qualities in, 73; recipes invoking, 65; regimens of health and, 195–96, 202; women discouraged from studying, 11, 69–70 Gans, Werner, 194 gantz Haussrat, Der (Sachs, 1553), 243n151 gardeners, expected to remain unmarried, 155, 241n119 gardens, 12, 109; of Anna of Saxony, 129, 136, 155; of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 1, 96 garlic, 145, 195; recipe for deodorizing, 74 Gart der Gesuntheit (1485), 189 Gebhard VII, Count of Mansfeld-Mittelort, 97 gemstones, 178, 182, 183 gender: of alchemists, 152–53; alcohol consumption and, 159–60; Anna of Saxony’s ideas about, 158–60, 161, 167; composition and collection of recipes and, 18, 62, 69, 71, 74; early modern science and, 153; a factor in prescribing remedies, 143; of medical practitioners, 10, 26; trustworthiness and, 45. See also gender roles; women gender roles, 11, 158–61, 162–63, 166–67; subject of the “Battle over the Pants,” 162, 243n151 geomancy, 173, 245n17 Georg I, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, 13, 14, 204, 206; eye remedy for, 41, 44 Georgica curiosa (Hohberg, 1682), 68, 74, 103 Georg the Bearded, Duke of Saxony, 97, 98, 123, 172, 173 Ghirardi, Giovanni Battista Pinello di, 236n27

288 gift exchange, courtly, 25–26, 136, 236n34; by Anna of Saxony, 33–34, 35, 128–29, 142–43, 160; by Caspar Peucer, 54; by Dorothea of Mansfeld, 122–23, 125–26; by Eleonora of Württemberg, 206; by Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 180; patronage and, 33–35; of personnel, 106; recipes and, 5, 61, 63, 66, 80, 94, 180; secrecy and, 87 Giftpulver, 145, 146. See also poison, antidotes for ginger, 109, 178 glass, for distillation vessels, 33–34, 104, 147–48 glassworks: of Archduke Ferdinand II, 163; Hessian, 33 Glein, Otto, 184, 185 God: as almighty physician, 21, 170, 191, 203; as healer, 186. See also Christ Goebels, Dr., 56 gold, 64, 151, 178; potable, 182 “golden vein,” 25; remedy for, 36–37, 144. See also hemorrhoids Goldhaus, 136, 151 Gottfried von Strassburg, 3 Götz, Leonhardt, 41 gout, remedies for, 43, 61, 75, 128, 179, 180 Grauswitz, Frau, 185 gray cress, 108 Green, Monica, 17, 18, 45, 62, 69, 71, 77 Gregory XIII (pope), 164 Gremsin, Anna, 69 gromwell, 104 guaiac tree, 201 guinea pigs, 169 gunshot wounds, remedies for, 150, 240n95 “gyneceum,” 162 “gynecocracy,” 162 gynecological texts, 15, 86 Haidenheim, Michael, 197 “handiwork,” 141–42, 143; Anna of Saxony’s term for making medicines, 129, 167 hands-on experience, 4–5, 48–49, 141–42. See also empiricism; experientialism; “handiwork” handt arbeit, 142 Handwerk, 142 Hans Albrecht of Mansfeld. See Johann (Hans) Albrecht, Count of Mansfeld Hansfort, Cornelius van den, 16, 131 Hans Georg of Mansfeld. See Johann (Hans) Georg, Count of Mansfeld Hantwirckung, 142 Harkness, Deborah, 18, 30, 33 hart’s heart bone, 36, 64, 219n36 hart’s-tongue, ingredient in drink (Tranck), 108 Hausapothek (Brunschwig, 1538), 189 Hausarmenschatz (Brunschwig, 1557), 116 Hausmutter, 130, 166, 167; Anna of Saxony as, 163, 244n166

index Haußapoteck (Brunschwig, 1537), 116 Hausvater, 13, 74, 130 head, a water for the, 93 headaches, remedies for, 99, 178 healing, natural and supernatural intertwined, 186–92 heart, water for strengthening the, 40 heart palpitations, remedy for, 128, 139 heillustig (driven to heal), used of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 94 Heinrichs, Erik, 189 Heinrich the Pious, Duke of Saxony, 132 Heinrich the Younger, Duke of BraunschweigWolfenbüttel, 54, 158, 197, 198, 202–3 hemorrhoids, 25; remedy for, 36–37, 144. See also “golden vein” hens, 178 herbals: addressed to the “common man,” 15; in Anna of Saxony’s library, 71; of Bock, 53; of Fuchs, 15; Gart der Gesuntheit (1485), 189; of Lonicer, 49; of Matrei, 40; recipes in, 66; of Rösslin, 38, 49; of Schnellenberg, 39, 47; of Sebisch, 53 herbs, 178; collection of, 103, 107, 114; gatherers of, 6, 30; preparation of, 143; religious women skilled in use of, 10 herb women, 6 Hermann of Spangenberg, 193 Hesse, glassworks in, 147–48 hiccup, 198 Hildegard of Bingen, 10–11, 63, 223–24n7 Hippocratic corpus, 65 Hippocratic Oath, 215n4 Hirsch, a Jewish doctor, 193–94, 196, 197, 198, 248n103 historia, 46 Hofmeister, 28 Hofmeisterin, 28, 29 Hohberg, Wolfgang Helmhard von, 68, 73, 103 Holy Roman Empire: prominence of noblewomen healers in, 7; provenance of recipes in the, 66 honey, 73; in drinks, 93, 108; in a plaster, 197 “honored women,” as midwives, 55, 222n117 horseradish, 195 hospitals, in Schmalkalden, 187 housefather books, 13, 74 household medical guides, 116–17. See also “common man”; medical literature: for a lay audience “how-to” literature, 76 Huguenots, 119, 120–21 humanism, 121 humors, 45, 63, 65, 67, 72, 99, 195. See also Galenic medicine Hunter, Lynette, 18, 74, 147 hunting, 75, 150

index Hurleweg, Regina, 69 Hutten, Ulrich von, 201 hyacinthia, 103 Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius, 2, 215n4 hyssop, 108, 178 Iberia, recipe exchange in, 66 illness: as punishment for sin, 186, 189–90; as a trial to be endured piously, 170. See also dysentery; epidemic; fever; flux; French Disease; headaches; hemorrhoids; pestilence; plague; skin problems; stroke index, helpful addition to a medical text, 116 infant mortality, remedy for, 80 ingredients, 73; acquisition of, 30, 34–35, 89, 143, 144–45, 149, 154; Anna of Saxony’s supply of, 145; Dorothea of Mansfeld’s supply of, 30, 96, 109; exotic, 35, 109, 145, 178, 182, 183; ideal stock of, 103; suppliers of, 109, 182–83. See also materia medica Innsbruck, 10, 20, 164 insomnia, remedies for, 58, 76 invalids, foods for, 72–73 inventories: of Anna of Saxony’s estate, 71, 129, 145; of Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s estate, 179 Isolde (queen), depicted as healer, 3 Italy: medical versus culinary recipes in, 74; noblewomen healers in, 7 ivory turning, 136, 236n34 Jansen-Sieben, Ria, 72 jaundice, treatments for, 61 Jeckel, a distiller, 157 Jenitz, Hans, 76 Jesus Sirach, 189 Jews. See anti-Semitism; physicians: Jewish Johann (Hans), Duke of Saxony, husband of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 172 Johann (Hans) Albrecht, Count of Mansfeld, 76, 120, 122 Johann (Hans) Georg, Count of Mansfeld, 81, 111, 112, 120, 122, 150–51, 240n95 Johann (Hans) Jacob, Archbishop of Salzburg, 160, 242n140, 242n142 Johann, Duke of Spannheim, 40 Johann Casimir, Count Palatine, 161, 162 Johann Ernst, Count of Mansfeld, 120, 122 Johann Friedrich of Electoral Saxony, 172, 173, 175; wife of, 144 Johann Gebhard, Count of Mansfeld, 119 Johann Wilhelm, Duke of Saxony-Weimar, 31 joint pain, 169, 175. See also arthritis Jonas, Justus, 8 Joubert, Laurent, 2 Juana of Hapsburg (queen of Portugal), 25, 54, 58, 218n1

289 Jud, Leo, 189 Judith, court pharmacist at Hesse-Darmstadt, 14 juices, 103 juleps, 103 Juliane, Countess of Nassau-Dillenberg, 9 Julius, Duke of Braunschweig, 152 Jung, Ambrosius, 189 Jungfrauschule (1564), 243n144 juniper: berries of, 108; oil of, 190; wood, 181 Jütte, Robert, 170 Kapellmeister, at Dresden, 133 Kassel, 13, 182 Kassell, Lauren, 18 Katharina, Duchess of Braunschweig-Lüneberg, 15, 89 Katharina, Duchess of Mecklenburg, 132 Katharina, Margravine of Brandenburg, 13, 76 Katharina, wife of Meister Morchin the tailor, 69 Keil, Gundolf, 67 Keller, Anna, 72–73 Keller, Katrin, 9, 31, 130, 162 Khun, Hans, 69 Kielmann, Johann, 79 Kinderbalsam, 146 Kinzelbach, Annemarie, 6–7, 53 Kirchmeyer, Sigmund, 176 Kister, Johann, 182 kitchens, 13, 72, 73, 74, 179–80; of Anna of Saxony at Augustusburg, 129; of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 72 “kitchin-physick,” 72 Klein, Balthasar, 153, 167 Klein, Katharina, 149, 167, 153, 154, 155, 167; trusted servant of Anna of Saxony, 157 knowledge. See artisanal knowledge; Kunst; Wissenschaft kochbuch, 72. See also cookbooks Kochbuch von allerhand Speisen (Weckerin, 1597), 73 Korey, Michael, 136 Kosterer, Eobamus, 182–83 Krafft, Fritz, 171, 187 Kreutterbuch (Rösslin, 1533), 38 Kunigunde, Countess of Simmern, 16, 86, 217n61 Kunst (art, skill; pl. Künste): as practical knowledge, 75, 76, 78, 88, 144; as recipes, 63, 75–77, 149, 150; versus Rezept, 77. See also recipes; remedies Kunstbuch (Book of Art; pl. Kunstbücher), 74, 75; Anna of Saxony requests, 150, 151; as “how-to” literature, 76 Kunstbüchlein (Little Books of Art), 76, 226n66 kunstiliren (to practice skills), 150, 166 Kunstkammer: of Archduke Ferdinand II, 164; of August of Saxony, 136, 137

290 Kurtz Handbüchlin vnnd Experiment viler Artzneyen (Ryff, 1563), 145 Labsal, as both medicine and food, 73 ladies-in-waiting, roles of, 21, 28, 29, 178 Landesmutter, 130, 133, 163 Landesvater, 130, 133 Latin language: efficacy statements in, 39, 220n48; ingredients standardized in, 144–45, 239n69; prescriptions for apothecaries written in, 181– 82, 183; recipes written in, 56, 57, 65; used by physicians as language of authority, 47, 48, 58 laurel oil, 182 lavender water, 185 Lawless, Catherine, 115 layman, medical works addressed to the, 15, 16, 17, 52. See also “common man” learned empiricism, 27, 46, 47 learned empirics, 46–48 Legnica (Liegnitz), 13, 160 Lehrmeister, used of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 140 Leipzig, 182 lemon balm, 64 lemons, 73, 149 lentils, 195 Leonberg, inventory of pharmacy at, 13 Leong, Elaine, 18, 71, 72 Leopold, Urias, 193 Leuschner, Christoph, 87 Leuschnerin, Margareta, 87–88 Liber de arte distillandi de compositis (Brunschwig, 1512), 49, 50, 51, 116, 117 Liber de arte distillandi de simplicibus (Brunschwig, 1500), 38, 49 liberal arts, 75 libraries, 131; of Anna of Saxony, 36, 70–71, 72, 76, 129, 131, 144, 145, 152, 225n36, 235n5, 238n66, 240n102, 243n144; of Castle Breitenburg, 68; of Christian III of Denmark, 131; of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 70, 96; of Ferdinand II of Tyrol, 164; of Regina Zangmeister, 61; of women, 69–70 Lich, 97 Lichtenberg, inventory of pharmacy at, 13 licorice, 108; stone, 145–46 Liebault, Jean, 3, 7, 12 lily-of-the-valley water, for stroke, 192 lily root, 108 literacy: of noblewomen healers, 7, 210; orality versus, 78–79, 226n81; in sixteenth-century Germany, 66, 77, 117; textuality versus, 226n75; of women, 70, 82. See also penmanship local networks, 26, 28–30, 34–35, 184. See also epistolary exchange London: epistolary exchange in, 32; experimental science in, 18; medical networks in, 30; scientific exchange in, 33; women healers in, 6

index Long, Pamela O., 16 Lonicer, Adam, 49; herbal of, 238n66 Loserin, Agnes, 154, 167 Lotter, Albrecht, 35 Lotter, Hieronymus, 35 Louis VI, Elector of the Palatinate, 12 Löwenstern, Johann Kunckel von, 138 lozenges, 103 Ludwig, Duke of Württemberg, recipe collection compiled for, 87, 206 Ludwig II, Duke of Brieg-Legnica, 13 Ludwig V, Elector of the Palatine, 8, 68, 69 Ludwig VI, Elector of the Palatine, 31, 68, 209; recipe collection (Kunstbuch) of, 40, 41, 42, 45, 75 Lüneburg, Duchess of, 44 Luther, Martin: biblical translations of, 160, 189; born in Mansfeld, 97; on charity, 118; on Christ as physician, 186–87; Dorothea of Mansfeld and, 94, 99–100, 118, 119; treated by noblewomen in his final illness, 8–9 Lutheran values, 158, 160 Lutzelberg, Sybille, 245n16 Lyman, Caspar, 181, 184 madness, the French Disease and, 169, 172, 184 Maegraith, Janine Christina, 11 Magdalena, Countess of HohenloheWeikersheim, 14, 209–10 Magdalena, Countess of Mansfeld, 111 Magdalena, Landgravine of Hesse-Darmstadt, 14 Magdalena zur Lippe, 204 Magenbuch, Johannes, 30, 56; corresponds with Dorothea of Mansfeld, 2, 56, 98 magic, 109–10. See also sorcery Maillac, Maria de, 10 Malmsberg, Hermann von der, 181 Mansfeld, 1, 93–94, 114, 127; partition of, 122; the Reformation and, 97, 98, 229n19 Mansfeld family, quarrels within, 98, 119–20, 122 manuscripts, 40, 46, 76, 85, 116, 176; Anna of Saxony’s collection of, 71, 145 (see also libraries: of Anna of Saxony); attributions of authorship in, 69; compared with printed works, 5, 8, 16, 38, 56, 62, 63, 72, 76; of culinary recipes, 71–72; large or elaborately prepared, 54, 82, 85, 107, 209; as models for printed recipe collections, 16, 21, 205; produced by aristocrats, 68; publication of, 15, 16, 21, 65, 86–87, 116, 205–6; recipes ubiquitous in, 62, 66; rise in production of, in the sixteenth century, 5, 63, 66; as source of women’s medical writing, 17, 63, 71, 72, 205–6; use of, 85; valued over printed collections of recipes, 16, 61; women’s recipes preserved in, 2, 9, 16, 17, 19, 63, 69, 165. See also archival sources; Codices Palatini germanici; libraries; recipe collections

index Marburg, 52, 75, 179, 182, 190, 202 Margareta of Mansfeld-Hinterort, 117, 233n106 Margareta of Watzdorf, 34, 140, 143 Margaret of Austria, Governess of the Netherlands, 162 marginalia, 69, 70, 180, 188, 245n17; recipes added as, 65, 81 Maria of Austria (Holy Roman empress), 10, 40; consults Anna of Saxony, 25, 35, 128–29 marjoram, 35 Martha, wife of Merten the smith, 69 masterwort, 30 mastix, 145, 182 materia medica, 43, 65; circulated through gift exchange, 33, 34–35, 106; divine origin of, 189; sources of 13, 30, 109, 182, 183. See also ingredients mathematics, 4, 133, 136, 151, 164 Matrei, Klaus von, 40, 68, 224n27 Mattioli, Pietro, 144 Maximilian II (Holy Roman emperor), 32, 128–29, 132 Mazzotti, Massimo, 18 McVaugh, Michael, 46, 57 Meckbach, Johann, 191, 192, 194, 198, 202 medical education, 4, 6; medieval, 45, 46; of women, 11, 36, 97, 99–100, 102, 131, 140–41, 142–47, 205. See also medical theory medical literature, 5, 63; addressed to a lay audience, 15, 16, 17; ancient, 46, 48, 65, 66; charitable work and, 116–18; in Codices Palatini germanici, 67; dedications of, 9, 15–16, 117; genres of, 15, 46, 66, 74; gynecological, 15, 66, 86; illustrated, 49; by lay authors, 67–68; for a lay audience, 15, 16, 17, 52 (see also “common man”); medieval, 66, 67; oft-reprinted works of, 21, 47, 49, 73, 86–87, 105, 116–17, 208–9; printed, 14–17, 48, 70–71, 116–17, 205–6; on surgery, 48, 76; vernacular, 5, 47, 116–17; by women, 63. See also Arzneibücher; herbals; medical recipes; pharmacopoeias; recipes; remedies medical practitioners: competition among, 53–54; lay, 5; local networks of, 30; and the Scientific Revolution, 208; valued for their experience, 41–42; varieties of, 6. See also apothecaries; barbers; barber-surgeons; charlatans; medical education; midwives; noblewomen healers; physicians; surgeons medical recipes: in the Codices Palatini germanici, 66–68, 224n24; defined and illustrated, 63–65; as a genre of women’s writing, 18, 19–20, 62–63, 69–71, 76, 77; popularity of, in the sixteenth century, 66–67; segregated from culinary recipes, 72, 74; types of, 65. See also medical literature; recipes; remedies

291 medical theory: absent from vernacular recipe collections, 65; experiential knowledge and, 36, 39, 46–48, 52–53, 57–58, 60; layperson’s grasp of, 59, 195–96, 199; rarely studied by women, 69–70, 70–71; respected by nobles, 197–98. See also Galenic medicine; Paracelsian medicine Medici, Lorenzo de’, 153 Medici family, women healers in the, 7 medicine (the art): both an art and a science/ philosophy, 46, 75–76; chemical, 72, 138, 24n98 (see also Paracelsian medicine); feminine connotations of, 10; “Lutheran,” 189, 247n87; nobles interested in, 4–5; occult or supernatural, 109–10; practice of, as charity, 95–96, 113–15. See also Galenic medicine; medical education; medical literature; medical practitioners; medical recipes; medical theory; medicines; Paracelsian medicine medicines: administration of, 36–37, 64, 84, 146–47; distilled, 104–7, 230n42; foods as, 73–74, 103; God’s provision for treating illness, 170, 189, 191–92, 244n5; labeling of, 143, 182; manufacture of, 49, 103–8, 110–11, 139–42; metallic, 178; procurement of, 180–81; types of, 103, 177–78. See also apothecaries; aqua vitae; baths; cakes; candied foods; distilled waters; drafts; drinks (medicinal); electuaries; oils (medicinal); ointments; pills; plasters; poison, antidotes for; powders; recipes; remedies; salves; unguents; vinegars Meissen, 166 melancholy: of Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 175, 245n22; remedy for, 83 Melanchthon, Philipp, 8, 10, 54, 161 memory: remedies for strengthening, 79, 139; transmission of recipes and, 78–79; writing and, 226n87 Mencelius, Hieronymus, eulogizes Dorothea of Mansfeld, 94, 95, 118, 119, 126, 227n16 menstruation, irregular, 198 mercury, 65; cure for syphilis, 190; ointment, 201 metallurgy, 76, 152, 164 midwifery manuals, 66 midwives, 5, 6, 53, 157; “honored women” as, 55, 222n117 milium solis, 104, 104 milk, for insomnia, 58 mineral remedies, 73 mint, 108 miscarriages, 242n135 Mithobius, Burchard, 182, 184 mithradatium, 66, 103 Mithridates VI (king of Pontos), 66 Moran, Bruce, 4, 32, 72, 135, 138, 151, 153 Moritz, Elector of Saxony, 28, 132; as champion of Lutheranism, 133, 236n26; Dorothea of

292 Moritz, Elector of Saxony (continued) Mansfeld and, 100–101, 102, 107, 229n29; in the Schmalkaldic War, 120, 173, 175 Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, experimentalism at the court of, 138–39 mortar and pestle, 72, 180 Mosley, Adam, 32 moss, 34, 35; haircap, 144 Müller, Marcus, 152, 240n102 Müller, Nickel, 30 Musculus, Andreas, 243n144 mushrooms, 89; white, 34 myrrh, 145 natural sciences, as courtly fad, 135–36 Neefe, Apollonia, 157, 167, 226n72; oversees distilling house at Annaburg, 13, 29, 153, 154, 155 Neefe, Johann, 13, 167; Anna of Saxony and, 29, 55–56 Neefe, Joseph, 155 Neffenstein, Margaret von, 77, 181 Neuwes Artzney Buch (Tabernaemontanus, 1577), 116 New Arznei und Practicierbuechlin (Dryander, 1537), 52, 59 Nicolai, Cyriac, 95, 118, 119 Niemann, Friedrich, 95 networks. See communication networks; epistolary exchange; local networks “noble empirics,” 27–28, 45 noblemen, interested in scientific and medical pursuits, 4–5, 7, 68, 135–36 noblewomen: correspondence among, 30–32; German inheritance practices and the status of, 7; literacy rate high among, 7; medical texts dedicated to, 15–16. See also noblewomen healers noblewomen healers, 25–60, 205; caring for their extended households, 3, 17; charitable work of, 4, 95–96, 116–18, 205; as a class of practitioners, 207–8; clientele of, 5; compared to artisans, 27– 28, 45; compared to physicians, 203; compared to professors of secrets, 87; compared to surgeons, 45, 48; duties of, 10–14; in early modern Europe, 7–8; in the early modern family, 209; education of, 12, 142–47; empiricism of, 4, 5, 27–28, 37, 60, 146–47; in England, 147; gift exchange among, 33; increase in visibility of, 25–26; in literature, 3; medical texts owned by, 70–71 (see also libraries); modern study of, 7–9, 17–18, 21–22; networks of support of, 28– 32, 111–13, 153; and patronage relationships, 33– 35; pharmacy and, 3, 5, 27, 63, 204–5; positive reputation of, 3, 5, 207–8; privileges of, 28–30, 210; recipes as a source of their prominence, 71, 210; religion of, 4, 9–10; remedy makers rather

index than nurses, 10; secrecy valued among, 86, 87–88; self-care among, 178–79; status and its effect on, 164–65, 165–66; as trustworthy witnesses to cures, 43, 44–45. See also physicians: noblewomen healers and Nolte, Cordula, 199 nonnaturals, 195. See also Galenic medicine non probatum est, 44 Nördlingen, study of medical practitioners in, 53 Novenianus, Philip Michael: praises Dorothea of Mansfeld, 2–3, 4, 10, 15–16, 102; visits Mansfeld, 29 Nummedal, Tara, 18, 152–53 nuns, 11, 66, 70. See also Margareta of Watzdorf Nuremberg, prohibitions on women practitioners in, 11, 104 nursing, as feminine form of medical care, 10 nut electuary, 108 nutmeg, 109, 145, 182 observation, 38 observationes, 46 Ogilvie, Brian, 38, 46 oils (medicinal), 55, 105, 109, 124, 129; in Dorothea of Mansfeld’s stocks, 96, 103; egg, 144; scorpion, 144; St. Quirin’s, 89 ointments, 3, 201 orality: secrecy and, 80; transmission of recipes and, 77, 78–80 orange rinds, 110 Ottheinrich, Elector of the Palatine, 68 pain, remedies for, 40, 83, 177 Palatinate, religion and politics in the, 161–62 Palatine electors, recipe collections of, 66 panacea salve, 86, 89; elaborate recipe for, 82–83, 227n100 Panaceia, daughter of Asclepius, 2, 215n4 Paracelsian medicine, 65, 71; represented in Anna of Saxony’s library, 145, 152, 240n102. See also medicine: chemical Paracelsus: on Erfahrung, 51–52; experimenta denigrated by, 52; on God as healer, 191, 248n98; privileges experiential knowledge over medical theory, 38, 50–52, 208. See also Paracelsian medicine Park, Katharine, 17, 26, 46, 57, 84 parrot, 169 parsley root, 178 Paston family (England), 70 patients, 21, 56, 170, 171; directing their own care, 198–99, 202–3; letters of, 189–90; prefer effective remedies to physicians’ regimens, 49, 54, 196–97, 198; psychological relationship to physicians of, 192–93; religious faith of, 189– 90. See also efficacy: patients as judges of

index patronage, 5, 15, 33–35, 95–96, 122–23; professors of secrets and, 87; recipe exchange and, 63, 82– 85, 94; widows and, 206 Paul, Meister, a barber, 188, 197 Peace of Augsburg, 4, 132, 236n22 pearls, 64, 178; powdered, 182 Pelling, Margaret, 3, 6, 7, 10 penmanship: of Anna Maria of Württemberg, 79; of Anna of Saxony, 81–82, 227n92; of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 82, 83, 97, 104, 126; of Elisabeth, Duchess of Saxony, 70; of Ludwig V, Elector of the Palatine, 68 Pennell, Sara, 18, 76 peony root, 178 pepper: prohibited by physicians’ diets, 195; quentin long, 109 pestilence: electuary for, 108; herbs for, 39 Peter Ernst of Mansfeld-Vorderort, 102, 119, 120, 233n114 Peter of Birne, Meister, 43 Peter of Spain, 116, 117 Peucer, Caspar, 54–55, 161–62, 242n131, 243n148 pharmacies: founded or managed by noblewomen, 13, 14; ideal stock of, 103; inventories of, 13. See also apothecaries (places) pharmacopoeias, 15, 65 pharmacy (the profession): of Anna of Saxony, 29; compared with cooking, 72, 74; noblewomen and, 3, 5, 63, 204–5; part of household management, 11–12; the province of women, 10–14 Philip, Count of Mansfeld, 119–20 Philip, Count of Solms-Lich, 97 Philip II (king of Spain), 173 Philip Gottfried, Count of HohenloheWaldenburg, 252n16 Philip the Magnanimous, Landgrave of Hesse, 31, 185, 203; advises his sister Elisabeth of Rochlitz on course of treatment, 190, 193, 196, 197–98, 199–200, 201; on Elisabeth’s melancholy, 175– 76, 245n22; suffers from the French Disease, 190, 199; supports Elisabeth materially, 169–70, 173, 175, 181, 183–84 philosophy, medicine as a, 76 physicians: agents of God’s healing, 189, 191–92; astrology and, 48; clientele of, 5; competitors of, 11, 53; contrasted with noblewomen healers, 203; disputes among, mocked, 56–57; distillation allegedly invented by, 106; education of, 6; empiricism and, 26, 46, 56–58, 59; “experience and reason” emphasized by, 37, 48, 53, 59; Jewish, 183, 193–94, 196, 197; internal treatment their focus, 49, 200; Latin language used by, 58, 117; lay theories of the body used by, 195; medicines prepared for sale by, 181; noblewomen healers and, 6, 19, 26–27, 53–56, 58; Paracelsus on, 191–92; scornful of women healers, 11, 56,

293 115; spouses of, employed by noblewomen, 29, 157; status of, 202; unlicensed, 6. See also Christ; Galenic medicine; God; regimens; see also under Anna, Electress of Saxony; Dorothea, Countess of Mansfeld; Elisabeth of Rochlitz Piemontese, Alessio, 47, 85, 87, 217n61. See also Ruscelli, Girolamo piety: charity and, 115–16, 118, 203; of Dorothea of Mansfeld, 94–95, 121, 127; of widows, 115–16 pills, 177, 182 plague: of 1519 (Saxony), 47; of 1566–67, 145, 239n73; regimen for, 78; remedies for, 43, 93, 139, 181; texts on, 15, 66 plasters, 103, 109, 178; for difficulties in pregnancy, 146; Elizabeth of Rochlitz uses, 197, 201, 250n229; for hemorrhoids, 37 Pleitgin, an apothecary, 182 Pliny the Elder, 46, 65, 238n66 poison, antidotes for, 40, 66, 82–83, 128, 145, 146, 177 Pollock, Linda, 18 polypody, 30, 145–46, 178 Pomata, Gianna, 27, 46, 56, 108, 195, 197 pompholyx (zinc oxide power), 178, 183 Ponikau, Margareta von, 44, 58 “poor”: in early modern usage, 113, 117; recipes identified as used in healing the, 61, 63; specified by Elisabeth of Rochlitz as recipients of her charity, 187. See also charity Poppe, Heinz, 185–86 powders, 103, 109; for dental pain, 34; against poisons, 128; prepared by apothecaries, 181, 182, 183; recipes for, 40, 64; for sneezing, 99, 101 Practica medicinæ generalis (Wecker, 1589), 47 Practicierbuechlin (Dryander, 1537), 52, 59 Praedum rusticum (Estienne, 1554), 12 prayers: and healing, 178, 186, 187; in recipe manuscripts, 67 pregnancy: as punishment from God, 190; remedies for difficulties in, 42, 146, 159, 190. See also childbirth prescriptions, 13, 181–82. See also medicines prince-practitioners, 4, 9, 151 printed medical texts: Anna of Saxony’s collection of, 70–71 (see also libraries: of Anna of Saxony); attributed to women in the sixteenth century, 62–63, 223–24n7, 224n8; authored by women, 8, 21, 72–73, 205–6, 209, 225n46; of books of secrets, 15, 66, 85; compared with manuscripts, 5, 8, 16, 38, 56, 62, 63, 72, 76; of craft manuals, 76; disincentives to publish, 16, 206; Dorothea of Mansfeld’s recipe appears in, 94; Eleonora of Württemberg’s recipe collection as, 21, 205–6; English noblewomen’s recipe

294 printed medical texts (continued) collections as, 74; gender roles treated in, 11–12; genres of, 66; and loss of secrecy, 87; modeled on manuscripts, 16, 21, 205; not published by women, 5, 8, 16, 54, 205–6; recipe collections as, 15, 16–17, 63, 72, 176, 205, 209, 224n8; recipes in, 61, 62, 65, 66, 83, 84, 86–87; rise in production of, 5, 63; as vernacular medical literature, 5, 47, 116, 117, 226n66. See also libraries; medical literature: oft-reprinted works of; medical literature: printed probatum est, 39, 44, 74, 89. See also efficacy: phrases indicating Probierhaus (Dresden), 136, 152 purgatio, divine, 186, 188 purgatives, 93, 108, 177, 197 pustules, remedy for, 184 qualities, Galenic, 73. See also Galenic medicine quinces, 73; electuary of, 108, 181; juice of, 89; julep of, 167; pits of, 37, 145; tonic made from, 142, 139 Ralla, Johann, 182, 246n46 Rantzau, Heinrich von, 68 Rascalon, Wilhelm, 56, 57, 58 Ratz, Johann Conrad, 29, 205, 206–7 Rauscher, Hieronymus, 35 Razenberger, Matthias, 184, 185 receptae, 65 receptaria, 65 recipe collections (general): annotations within, 80–81; autographs of, 81; compilation of, by nobles, 63, 68, 205; contents of, 61, 65, 66–67, 71, 78, 82–83, 176–78; copying of, 61–62, 78, 223n2; of gynecological remedies, 86; in Latin and German versions, 54; men responsible for most, 62; organization of, 78, 176, 205, 206; oriented to needs of owner, 176, 178; panegyrics in, 205; physical aspects of, 78, 80–81, 81, 82, 85, 176; publication of, 15, 16–17, 63, 176, 205, 209, 224n8; rise in production of manuscripts containing, 9, 66–67; unbound, 78, 176, 245n25; use of, 85, 89, 114–15; women as compilers of, 69–71. See also manuscripts recipe collections (specific): of Anna of Saxony, 16, 78; of Anna of Saxony’s daughter Elisabeth, 107; of Claudia of Oettingen, 61–62; of Dorothea of Brandenburg, 78; of Anna Gremsin, 69; of Guteline von Esselingen, 69, 70; of Regina Hurleweg, 69; of Elector Ludwig V, 8, 68, 69; of Magdalena of Hohenlohe-Weikersheim, 209–10; of Richard, Duke of Pfalz-Simmern, 69; of Sigmund, Duke of Tyrol, 40; of Sophia of Miltitz, 29, 75, 78; of Philippine Welser, 72, 164, 165, 209, 243–44n160; of Katharina Wernerin,

index 242n135. See also Codices Palatini germanici; Dorothea, Countess of Mansfeld: recipe collection of; Elisabeth of Rochlitz: recipe collection of; manuscripts recipes, 57, 61–89; in ancient texts, 66; attribution of, 61, 68–69, 176; categories of, 65, 176–78; copying of, 80–82, 176, 226n72, 227n103; culinary, 18, 71, 72; elaborate, 82–83, 88–89, 107; essential features of, 63–65; etymology of, 77; examples of, 36–37, 64, 101, 108, 140; exchange of, 19–20, 33–34, 61–62, 66, 68–69, 70, 74, 82, 94, 112, 152; German terms for, 75–77, 179; for household use, 71–72, 74; as “how-to” literature, 76; as Künsten, 74–79; language of, 65; in letters, 176; loose/unbound, 78, 176, 245n25; materiality of, 62, 63, 76, 81, 88; medical, 18, 66, 84; preparation of, 179–80, 181–82; publication of, 16–17, 61, 65, 86–87; satirical, 88–89; secrecy and, 16, 19–20, 86, 157, 206; as secrets, 85–86; study of, 18, 62; testing of, 40–41, 111, 149, 176, 207, 208; titles of, 176; transmission of, 77–80, 209, 210, 252n16; transmission of techniques for making, 139–42, 143; ubiquity of, 62, 65, 66; untested, 89; warnings in, 44; as women’s medical writing, 18, 19–20, 62–63, 69–71, 76, 77. See also medical recipes; medicines; recipe collections; remedies red coral, 178 red skirt, as arthritis preventative, 108, 125 Reformation: Elisabeth of Rochlitz and the, 172–73; and ideas about charity, 4, 229n13; in Mansfeld, 97–98, 119–21 regimens: diet the usual focus of, 56, 72, 74; for digestive ailments, 56; in Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s collection of recipes, 182, 184, 195; in Galenic medicine, 195–96; patients’ resistance to, 196, 202; physicians’ authority symbolized by, 196; for plague, 78; remedies often preferred over, 171, 197, 200–201, 203 Reinhard I, Count of Solms-Lich, 97, 119 religion: healing and, 21, 170, 188; instruction in, 151. See also Bible; Calvinism; Christ; devotional manuals; God; Lutheran values; prayers; Reformation remedies: administration of, 36–37, 64, 84, 146– 47; books of, 11–12; in noblewomen’s education, 12–13; potentially harmful, 143–44; province of “ignorant women,” 2; sold by apothecaries, 182; testing of, 39–42, 44–45, 48, 53; transmission of, 5; types of, 176–77; veterinary, 12, 41, 67. See also efficacy; medicines; recipes restoratives, 2, 139, 146 Rezept (recipe), 75, 77 rhubarb, 103, 145, 178 Richard, Duke of Pfalz-Simmern, 69 Ries, Abraham, 151

index Rivius, Johann, 132 Röbell, Joachim von, 41, 43, 45 Rochlitz, 28, 173, 174, 175 Rodius, Johannes, 182 roots, 93, 103 rose hips, 192 rosemary, 35, 109, 154 roses, 73; honey of, 129, juleps of, 100, water of, 37, 220n57 Rösslin, Eucharius, the Younger, 15, 38, 49, 183, 238n66 Royal Society (London), 43, 59 rubies, 178, 183 Rublack, Ulinka, 195 Ruckher, Helena, 13–14, 29–30 Rudolf, Meister, a barber, 166 Ruggiero, Guido, 199 Rung, Caspar, 184 Ruprecht, Michael, 180 Ruscelli, Girolamo, 85. See also Piemontese, Alessio Ruxleben, Cornelius von, 34 Ryff, Walter Hermann, 15, 73, 145, 239n71 Sabine, Landgravine of Hesse-Kassel (née Sabine of Württemberg), 13, 35, 205; Anna of Saxony and, 31, 32, 33–34, 35, 142, 147, 155 Sabine, Margravine of Brandenburg, 41, 81 Sabine of Württemberg. See Sabine, Landgravine of Hesse-Kassel Sabuco, Miguel, 223–24n7 Sabuco, Oliva, 63, 223–24n7 Sachs, Hans, 243n151 saffron, 178, 197 sage leaves, 100, 108; as stroke preventative, 192 salt, 65; flowers preserved in, 110 salts (medicinal), 103 salves, 109, 124, 177; in Dorothea of Mansfeld’s stocks, 96, 103; in Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s treatment, 181, 197, 200–201; green, 141, 142, 157 sapphires, 178, 183 sauces (medicinal), 103 saxifrage, 181 Saxony, 98, 122; under August and Anna’s rule, 129–30, 131, 132–33 scales and weights, 72, 180 Scandello, Antonio, 133 Schaffer, Simon, 43 Scharlach, Veit, barber-surgeon, 184–85 Schenk zu Schweinsburg family, 74 Schick, Joachim, 69 Schiebinger, Londa, 18 Schlagwasser, 34. See also stroke Schloss Ambras, at Innsbruck, 164, 164–65 Schlude, Ursula, 132, 138 Schmalkalden, 28, 173; apothecary at, 13, 194,

295 246n46; Elisabeth of Rochlitz’s distillery at, 106, 179; isolation of, 169, 183 Schmalkaldic War, 120, 173 Schmiere (the smear), treatment for the French Disease, 190, 201 Schmitt, Charles, 38 Schnellenberg, Tarquinius, 39, 47–48, 53 Scholastica, Lady of Falkenstein, 217n61 Schönfeld, Walther, 21 Schrick, Michael Puff von, 105, 176 Schwarzburg, countesses of, 13 science, early modern: role of empiricism in, 60; scholarly reassessment of, 18–19, 21–22 scientia: as philosophy, 46, 75–76; as true learning, 45 Scientific Revolution, 60, 208, 209 scientific societies, 43, 59; women excluded from, 5 scorpion oil, 144 scribes, use of, 32, 79, 81, 97 scurvy weed, 108 Sebisch, Melchior, the Elder, 53 Sebottendorf, Tam von, 34 Sechs Bücher (Eleonora of Württemberg, 1600), 205, 206, 208 secrecy: justifications for, 86; oath of, 80; problems maintaining, 87–88; and the transmission of recipes, 80, 112, 157, 210. See also secrets secreti, I (1555, Piemontese/Ruscelli), 47, 85–86, 217n61 secreti della signora Isabella Cortese, I (1561), 224n8 secrets: books of, 15, 66, 85; divulgence of, 85–86; professors of, 85, 87. See also recipes; secrecy self-care, 178–79; among noblewomen, 168, 198, 199; medical manuals for, 116. See also patients self-diagnosis, 198–202 senna leaves, 103, 108, 178 Serres, Olivier de, 3 servants, 28, 35, 129, 141; at Annaburg, 153–57; as “invisible technicians,” 29; qualities in preferred by Anna of Saxony, 154, 155, 167, 241n119 Settinlein, a talented dog, 75 Settlerin, Elisabeth, 75 Sforza, Caterina, 74, 225n52 Shapin, Steven, 29, 43, 45 Sigmund, Duke of Tyrol, 40, 68 silver, dross of, 65 Simonius, Simon, 56, 58 Sirach, 189 Siraisi, Nancy, 27, 46, 192 skin problems: remedies for, 177, 184; symptom of French Disease, 169, 175, 187–88 Smith, Pamela, 27, 48, 52, 59, 60, 76, 78, 142 sneezing powder, recipe for, 99, 101 social order: gender roles and, 162; Lutheran ideas of, 160; maintenance of, 156, 158

296 Sophia of Miltitz, Hofmeisterin to Agnes of Saxony, 28; recipe collection, 29, 75, 78 sorcery, 2, 45, 156; Anna of Saxony accused of, 45, 163. See also magic Spangenberg, Cyriacus, 96, 103, 109 Speyrer Arzneibuch (1321), 66–67, 69 spices, 35, 96, 103 spike lavender, 101, 108 spirits (medicinal), 103 Spital (hospital), 187 stag horn water, 36–37 Stannard, Jerry, 64 status: its effect on the careers of noblewomen healers, 45, 129, 164–67; patronage and, 95; reflected in correspondence, xiii, 129; of servants at Annaburg, 154, 156–57; suitability of medicines according to, 106, 143–44; transmission of recipes unimpeded by, 61–62, 68–69; trustworthiness and, 44–45, 60. See also class; patronage Steiger, Johann Anselm, 171 Stein, Claudia, 200 still, described, 103–4, 104. See also distillation Stine, Jennifer, 17–18 Stock, Brian, 226n75 Stolberg, Michael, 189, 195 stomach illness: Novenianus on, 15–16; regimen for, 56; remedies for, 61, 93, 124, 139 stone licorice, 145 Strang, Ursula, 154, 157, 167 Strocchia, Sharon, 11 stroke: preventatives for, 34, 100, 101, 125, 139, 146, 192; remedies for, 61, 139 Strupp, Joachim, 12, 74 Stuck (item), term for recipes, 75, 77 Sturmhoefel, Karl, 130 Stuttgart, pharmacy in, 13, 14, 30 sublimation, 151 sugar, 64, 73, 107, 182; canary, 35; for candying, 110; in electuaries, 108; lavender blossom, 125; red clove, 125; rose, 110 sulfur, 65; recipe for, 151; water, 152 surgeons, 5, 6; authors of recipes, 66; compared to noblewomen healers, 45, 48; description of ideal, 48–49; efficacy of remedies verified by, 43, experiential knowledge of, 42, 48; as “learned empirics,” 49; medicines prepared by, 181; perceived as effective by Elisabeth of Rochlitz, 202; responsible for the external body, 49, 200 surgery, manuals of, 48, 76 surveying, 4, 136 swallow stone, 109, 122 swallow-wort, 30 Swangeren frawen und hebammen roßgarten, Der (Rösslin, 1513), 15

index swine flu, remedy for, 41 Sybille, Duchess of Württemberg, 9, 13, 29–30 syphilis, 199, 200. See also French Disease syrups, 96, 103, 182 Tabernaemontanus, Jacob Theodor, 3, 16, 116, 117 Tabitha (biblical figure), 95, 118 tamarinds, 35 Tauberherr, Hans von, 156 Tauberherrin, Frau, 156 technical arts, 76 Teck, Christina, 69 Teck, Christoph, 69 teeth, 6, 34, 175; remedies for, 61 Telle, Joachim, 117 theriac, 103, 145, 157, 182 Thesaurus pauperum (Brunschwig, 1512), 116 Thesaurus pauperum (Peter of Spain, 13th c.), 116, 117 Thola, Benedetto, 133 Thola, Gabriele, 133 throat soreness, remedies for, 178 thyme water, 154 tobacco, 34–35, 149 tooth pullers, 6 Tranck (drink), 108. See also drafts; drinks (medicinal) translations, of medical texts, 11, 12, 87, 144; for Elisabeth of Saxony, 56, 57, 58; of I secreti, 47, 85–86; in manuscripts, 67; and rise of lay medicine, 116 Trautson, Brigitta, baroness, 32, 43–44, 44–45; procures materials and recipes for Anna of Saxony, 34, 72, 139, 144, 149; represents Anna of Saxony before Empress Maria, 34, 129, 218n2 travelers, remedies for protection of, 74 tree oil, medicine containing, 55 Tristan (Gottfried von Strassburg, c. 1210), 3 trustworthiness: status and, 60; of witnesses to remedies, 43–45 Überlingen, medical practitioners in, 53 Ulia, Johann, 99 Ulm, medical practitioners in, 53 Ulrich, Duke of Mecklenburg, 151 Ungenad, Johann, Baron of Sonnegg, 41, 42, 43, 82–85, 86, 227n100 Ungenad, Magdalena, 82 unguents, 58, 177, 197, 201 unicorn horn, 145 unter der Linden, Johann, 29, 154, 166, 226n72; wife of, 155, 167 Valentine, Saint, patron saint of epileptics, 110, 231n63 Valerian Krakow, count, 76

index vapors (medicinal), 103 vervain juice, 64 Vesalius, Andreas, 142, 208 veterinary remedies, 12, 41, 67 vetula (old woman), symbol of experiential knowledge, 45 vinegars, 65, 103, 105, 129; making of, 154 violets, 35; flowers of, 178; juleps of, 100; waters made with, 30, 100 “virtual witnessing,” 43 vitriol, 151 Vives, Juan Luis, 11 Vogel, Paul, 160 Volquinus, Dr., 196 Volrad, Count of Mansfeld, 119 Von allen geprenten Wassern (von Schrick, 1478), 105, 105 Von den guten Werckenn (Luther, 1520), 118 Wagner, Bastian, 69 warts, treatments for, 61 Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen, 133, 136 waters. See distilled waters wax, sealing, 182 Wear, Andrew, 188 Weber, Andreas, 154, 244n169 Wecker, Johann Jacob, 47, 73; authors etiquette book for women, 243n144; dedicates medical manuals to noblewomen, 16, 105, 106, 117; as “learned empiric,” 47; translates I secreti, 85–86 Weckerin, Anna, 72–73 Weckerin, Catharina, 225n46 Weiberkunst (women’s arts): term used by Anna Maria of Württemberg, 26, 115; term used by Anna of Saxony, 25, 26, 27, 45, 58–59 Weiberziemung verdeutscht (Wecker, 1575), 243n144 weight loss, recipe for, 41 Weissenfels, 34, 132, 140 Weizeln, Margaret, 185 Welser, Anna, 164, 209 Welser, Frank, 164 Welser, Philippine, 10; contrasted with Anna of Saxony, 20, 163–65, 165–66; recipe collection of, 72, 165, 209 werckman (artisan), 49 werckmeister (master craftsman), 49 Werner, Meister, a barber, 200 Wernerin, Katharina, 40, 82; recipe collection of, 242n135 Wetzel, Jacob, 69 Weymarisches Artzney-Buch (Eleonora of Württemberg, 1678), 208 Whitaker, Elaine, 70 white lead powder, 183 white nickel powder, 178

297 widows: associated with care of the poor, 95, 115– 16; employed by Anna of Saxony, 13, 153–54, 167. See also Andreä, Maria; Anna, Duchess of Mecklenburg and Landgravine of Hesse; Dorothea, Countess of Mansfeld; Eleonora, Duchess of Württemberg; Elisabeth of Rochlitz; Sybille, Duchess of Württemberg; Wernerin, Katharina Wiesner, Merry, 6, 7 Wilhelm II, Landgrave of Hesse, 172; suffers from the French Disease, 199, 250n136 Wilhelm IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel: Anna of Saxony and, 31, 35, 156; scientific pursuits of, 133, 134 Wilhelm the Younger of Oppersdorf, wife of, 146 William I, Prince of Orange, 120 William II, Prince of Orange, 221n77 willow hawthorn, 43 Windisch, Jörg, 182 wine, 5, 83, 196; Malvasian, 110, 125; red currant, 76; remedies for preserving, 74. See also brandywine Wirsung, Christoph, 15, 16–17, 116 Wissenschaft: Anna of Saxony’s use of the term, 25, 37, 59; as practical knowledge, 35–36 witchcraft, 2. See also sorcery Wittenberg, 54, 99, 119; Bible published in, 160 Wittich, Johann, 117 womb: remedy for, 75; rising, 194, 195, 198 women: as alchemists, 18, 151–53; banned from practicing medicine, 6, 11, 14, 53, 104–5; charity and medical work of, 115, 126–27; early modern medicine and, 17–18; early modern science and, 21–22; experiential knowledge associated with, 26, 45, 46, 59–60; gynecology the province of, 55–56; as healers, reduced opportunities for, 6; herbal medicine a specialty of, 10; “honored,” 55, 222n117; instruction manuals for, 11–12, 243n144; literacy rates among, 70; medical education of, 11–13, 63, 69–70; as medical practitioners, 3, 6–7, 10–12, 53; negative stereotypes of, 2, 26, 45, 46, 59–60; old, 45, 46 (see also vetula); pharmacy and, 10–14, 71, 63; piety and, 115–16; and publication, 8, 72–73, 205–6; and recipes, 18, 19–20, 62–63, 69, 70, 71, 76; as rulers, 162; texts on the treatment of, 15, 86; theological ideas on, 159, 160, 190, 243n143; viewed as competitors by physicians, 56. See also charity; distillation: women and; distilleries; gender; gender roles; noblewomen healers; Weiberkunst; widows women’s arts. See Weiberkunst wonderbarlich, 113, 124, 125 wonders, therapeutic, 84 wood cure, 201 wormwood, 145 wounds, care of, 109–10, 150, 184, 193, 201, 240n95

298 writing, 80–82; distrust of, 79; recipes and, 63, 79. See also penmanship Wunder, Heide, 7, 162, 165 Wunderkammer, 136 “Wund vnd anderer ertznei Kunstbuch” (anon.), 76 Wurm, Balthasar, 55 Wurm, Frau, 55

index Zangmeister, Regina, 61–62, 63, 69, 71, 81, 86; recipe from her collection, 63–64, 65 Zettel (recipe), 179 Zieglerin, Anna, 152 Zimmerman, Birgit, 117 zinc oxide powder, 178, 183