This lecture draws on Dr. Minji Lee’s recent publication, The Medieval Womb: Hildegard of Bingen's Views on the Female Reproductive Body.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a German Benedictine nun, believed that human beings possess the power to heal themselves in body, mind, and soul as being created by God and inheriting the divine power. She used the concept of viriditas, the greening power, to explain human health and reproduction as analogous to the vitality by which trees and plants draw water and nutrients from the earth to produce leaves and flowers.

Hildegard particularly emphasized herbs as essential sources of healing and treatment for women's ailments, viewing the female body's regenerative capacity as an expression of this greening power. Dr Lee will offer a historical approach to understanding the medieval construction of women's bodies as positive and powerful through the framework of herbal medicine and viriditas.