that fourteen was considered the age at which women commonly gave birth. See Sefer Tosafot
haShalem, Gen. 25:26, no. 9. Eleven was seen as the age at which girls were deemed able to give
birth: Rashi, Ketubbot 39a, s.v. “Pah·ot mikan” and s.v. “Veyeter al ken.”
- Karen E. Paige and Jeffrey M. Paige, The Politics of Reproductive Ritual(Berkeley, Los An-
geles, and London, 1981); Whyte, The Status of Women,53–54, 80. - This idea comes across in the medieval marriage and inheritance laws as well. Israel J. Yuval,
“HaHesderim haKaspiyim shel haNissuin beAshkenaz beYemei haBenayim,” in Religion and Econ-
omy: Connections and Interactions. Collected Essays, ed. Menahem Ben Sasson (Jerusalem, 1995),
191–207, esp. 193–96, 199–205. - Vern Bullough noted this paradox in his path-breaking article written almost thirty years ago:
“Medieval Medical and Scientific Views of Women,” Viator4(1973): 497. - See pp. 35–36.
- Jacqueline Murray, “On the Origins and the Role of ‘Wise Women’ in Cases for Annulment
on the Grounds of Male Impotence,” Journal of Medieval History16(1990): 241–45. For an il-
lustration of these examinations, see: Laurent, Nâitre au moyen âge, illustration 16. For an exam-
ple in the Jewish sources: Sefer Or Zaru’a, 1: no. 652.
51.SHP, no. 380. - See, for example, in the Sefer Assaf, published by Zusman Muntner, Korot5(1970): 58, no.
- Supra, n. 50.
- It is not clear who would have performed the examination. Sefer Or Zaru’a, 1: no. 653.
- For examples of women bewitching in cases of fertility as well as in other cases, see Joseph
Dan, “Sippurim demonologim mi-kitvei R. Judah he-H·asid,” in The Religious and Social Ideas of
the Jewish Pietists in Medieval Germany, ed. Ivan G. Marcus (Jerusalem, 1987), 288, no. 29 [in
Hebrew]. Witches are often called by their German name, “streya,” for example SHP, no. 1465–
67, as well as Dan, ibid., 278, no. 2; 280, no. 5. - Lett, L’Enfant des miracles, 242–44.
57.See, for example, R. Gershom Me’or HaGolah’s discussion of a woman who does not men-
struate but shows no exterior signs of physical difference. R. Gershom b. Judah, Teshuvot Ragmah,
ed. Shlomo Eidelberg (New York, 1956), no. 84, and parallel source: Mordekhai, Yevamot, no. 113. - MS Oxford Bodl., Opp. Add. 14 (1101), fol. 187a–b. This experiment was omitted from the
printed version of the Lekah·Tov. - Laurent, Nâitre au moyen âge, 48. The Trotulatexts have been thoroughly examined over
the past years by Monica Green. See her articles “The Development of the Trotula,” Revue d’his-
toire des textes16(1996): 119–203; and “A Handlist of Latin and Vernacular Manuscripts of the
So-called TrotulaTexts.” Scriptorum50(1996): 137–75; 51(1997): 81–103. See Green’s transla-
tion of the text: The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women’s Med-
icine(Philadelphia, 2002). - These cures appear in a manuscript of the book Sefer Z·ori haGufby Nathan b. Joel Fal-
quera, MS Paris héb. 1122, fol. 4b, 45a. On the author, see David Margalith, “Falquera, Nathan
b. Joel,” EJ6: 1140, and the passing references to him in Barkai, Jewish Gynecological Texts, 88;
Joseph Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine and Medieval Society, 53–54. - For example: “Sefer Assaf”; Korot4(1968): 531 no. 325.
- James Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe(Chicago-London,
1987), 39, 115, 143–45. - Murray, “Role of Wise Women,” 235–50.
- These statutes are documented in Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle
Ages(New York, 1964), 20–30, 139–47. For the different opinions on the dating of the manu-
scripts and evidence, see: Grossman, Pious and Rebellious, 122–33. Recently, this topic has been
discussed by Elimelech Westreich, Transitions in the Legal Status of the Wife in Jewish Law
(Jerusalem, 2002), 62–96 [in Hebrew].