Abortion in Early Modern Italy

Abortion in Early Modern Italy PDF Author: John Christopoulos
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674248090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A comprehensive history of abortion in Renaissance Italy. In this authoritative history, John Christopoulos provides a provocative and far-reaching account of abortion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. Drawing on portraits of women who terminated—or were forced to terminate—pregnancies, he finds that Italians maintained a fundamental ambivalence about abortion, despite injunctions from civil and religious authorities. Italians from all levels of society sought, had, and participated in abortions. Early modern Italy was not an absolute anti-abortion culture, an exemplary Catholic society centered on the “traditional family.” Rather, Christopoulos shows, Italians held many views on abortion, and their responses to its practice varied. Bringing together medical, religious, and legal perspectives alongside a social and cultural history of sexuality, reproduction, and the family, Christopoulos offers a nuanced and convincing account of the meanings Italians ascribed to abortion and shows how prevailing ideas about the practice were spread, modified, and challenged. Christopoulos begins by introducing readers to prevailing medical ideas about abortion and women’s bodies, describing the widely available purgative medicines and surgeries that various healers and women themselves employed to terminate pregnancies. He also explores how these ideas and practices ran up against and shaped theology, medicine, and law. Catholic understanding of abortion was changing amid religious, legal, and scientific debates concerning the nature of human life, women’s bodies, and sexual politics. Christopoulos examines how ecclesiastical, secular, and medical authorities sought to regulate abortion, and how tribunals investigated and punished its procurers—or didn’t, even when they could have.

Abortion in Early Modern Italy

Abortion in Early Modern Italy PDF Author: John Christopoulos
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674248090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Get Book Here

Book Description
A comprehensive history of abortion in Renaissance Italy. In this authoritative history, John Christopoulos provides a provocative and far-reaching account of abortion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. Drawing on portraits of women who terminated—or were forced to terminate—pregnancies, he finds that Italians maintained a fundamental ambivalence about abortion, despite injunctions from civil and religious authorities. Italians from all levels of society sought, had, and participated in abortions. Early modern Italy was not an absolute anti-abortion culture, an exemplary Catholic society centered on the “traditional family.” Rather, Christopoulos shows, Italians held many views on abortion, and their responses to its practice varied. Bringing together medical, religious, and legal perspectives alongside a social and cultural history of sexuality, reproduction, and the family, Christopoulos offers a nuanced and convincing account of the meanings Italians ascribed to abortion and shows how prevailing ideas about the practice were spread, modified, and challenged. Christopoulos begins by introducing readers to prevailing medical ideas about abortion and women’s bodies, describing the widely available purgative medicines and surgeries that various healers and women themselves employed to terminate pregnancies. He also explores how these ideas and practices ran up against and shaped theology, medicine, and law. Catholic understanding of abortion was changing amid religious, legal, and scientific debates concerning the nature of human life, women’s bodies, and sexual politics. Christopoulos examines how ecclesiastical, secular, and medical authorities sought to regulate abortion, and how tribunals investigated and punished its procurers—or didn’t, even when they could have.

Abortion in Early Modern Italy

Abortion in Early Modern Italy PDF Author: John Christopoulos
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674249364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A comprehensive history of abortion in Renaissance Italy. In this authoritative history, John Christopoulos provides a provocative and far-reaching account of abortion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. His poignant portraits of women who terminated or were forced to terminate pregnancies offer a corrective to longstanding views: he finds that Italians maintained a fundamental ambivalence about abortion. Italians from all levels of society sought, had, and participated in abortions. Early modern Italy was not an absolute anti-abortion culture, an exemplary Catholic society centered on the “traditional family.” Rather, Christopoulos shows, Italians held many views on abortion, and their responses to its practice varied. Bringing together medical, religious, and legal perspectives alongside a social and cultural history of sexuality, reproduction, and the family, Christopoulos offers a nuanced and convincing account of the meanings Italians ascribed to abortion and shows how prevailing ideas about the practice were spread, modified, and challenged. Christopoulos begins by introducing readers to prevailing ideas about abortion and women’s bodies, describing the widely available purgative medicines and surgeries that various healers and women themselves employed to terminate pregnancies. He then explores how these ideas and practices ran up against and shaped theology, medicine, and law. Catholic understanding of abortion was changing amid religious, legal, and scientific debates concerning the nature of human life, women’s bodies, and sexual politics. Christopoulos examines how ecclesiastical, secular, and medical authorities sought to regulate abortion, and how tribunals investigated and punished its procurers—or did not, even when they could have. Abortion in Early Modern Italy offers a compelling and sensitive study of abortion in a time of dramatic religious, scientific, and social change.

Authority, Gender, and Midwifery in Early Modern Italy

Authority, Gender, and Midwifery in Early Modern Italy PDF Author: Jennifer F. Kosmin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000174662
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Authority, Gender, and Midwifery in Early Modern Italy: Contested Deliveries explores attempts by church, state, and medical authorities to regulate and professionalize the practice of midwifery in Italy from the late sixteenth to the late eighteenth century. Medical writers in this period devoted countless pages to investigating the secrets of women’s sexuality and the processes of generation. By the eighteenth century, male practitioners in Britain and France were even successfully advancing careers as male midwives. Yet, female midwives continued to manage the vast majority of all early modern births. An examination of developments in Italy, where male practitioners never made successful inroads into childbirth, brings into focus the complex social, religious, and political contexts that shaped the management of reproduction in early modern Europe. Authority, Gender, and Midwifery in Early Modern Italy argues that new institutional spaces to care for pregnant women and educate midwives in Italy during the eighteenth century were not strictly medical developments but rather socio-political responses both to long standing concerns about honor, shame, and illegitimacy, and contemporary unease about population growth and productivity. In so doing, this book complicates our understanding of such sites, situating them within a longer genealogy of institutional spaces in Italy aimed at regulating sexual morality and protecting female honor. It will be of interest to scholars of the history of medicine, religious history, social history, and Early Modern Italy.

Domestic Devotions in Early Modern Italy

Domestic Devotions in Early Modern Italy PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004375872
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Domestic Devotions in Early Modern Italy illuminates the vibrancy of spiritual beliefs and practices which profoundly shaped family life in this era. Scholarship on Catholicism has tended to focus on institutions, but the home was the site of religious instruction and reading, prayer and meditation, communal worship, multi-sensory devotions, contemplation of religious images and the performance of rituals, as well as extraordinary events such as miracles. Drawing on a wide range of sources, this volume affirms the central place of the household to spiritual life and reveals the myriad ways in which devotion met domestic needs. The seventeen essays encompass religious history, the histories of art and architecture, material culture, musicology, literary history, and social and cultural history. Contributors are Erminia Ardissino, Michele Bacci, Michael J. Brody, Giorgio Caravale, Maya Corry, Remi Chiu, Sabrina Corbellini, Stefano Dall’Aglio, Marco Faini, Iain Fenlon, Irene Galandra Cooper, Jane Garnett, Joanna Kostylo, Alessia Meneghin, Margaret A. Morse, Elisa Novi Chavarria, Gervase Rosser, Zuzanna Sarnecka, Katherine Tycz, and Valeria Viola.

Episcopal Reform and Politics in Early Modern Europe

Episcopal Reform and Politics in Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Jennifer Mara DeSilva
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1612480756
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
In the tumultuous period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when ecclesiastical reform spread across Europe, the traditional role of the bishop as a public exemplar of piety, morality, and communal administration came under attack. In communities where there was tension between religious groups or between spiritual and secular governing bodies, the bishop became a lightning rod for struggles over hierarchical authority and institutional autonomy. These struggles were intensified by the ongoing negotiation of the episcopal role and by increased criticism of the cleric, especially during periods of religious war and in areas that embraced reformed churches. This volume contextualizes the diversity of episcopal experience across early modern Europe, while showing the similarity of goals and challenges among various confessional, social, and geographical communities. Until now there have been few studies that examine the spectrum of responses to contemporary challenges, the high expectations, and the continuing pressure bishops faced in their public role as living examples of Christian ideals. Contributors include: William V. Hudon, Jennifer Mara DeSilva, Raymond A. Powell, Hans Cools, Antonella Perin, John Alexander, John Christopoulos, Jill Fehleison, Linda Lierheimer, Celeste McNamara, Jean-Pascal Gay

Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance

Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance PDF Author: John M. Riddle
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674168763
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This text traces the history of contraception and abortifacients from ancient Egypt to the 17th century, and discusses the scientific merit of the ancient remedies and why this knowledge about fertility control was gradually lost over the course of the Middle Ages.

A Fragmented Landscape

A Fragmented Landscape PDF Author: Silvia De Zordo
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 178533428X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Since World War II, abortion policies have remained remarkably varied across European nations, with struggles over abortion rights at the forefront of national politics. This volume analyses European abortion governance and explores how social movements, political groups, and individuals use protests and resistance to influence abortion policy. Drawing on case studies from Italy, Spain, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the European Union, it analyses the strategies and discourses of groups seeking to liberalise or restrict reproductive rights. It also illuminates the ways that reproductive rights politics intersect with demographic anxieties, as well as the rising nationalisms and xenophobia related to austerity policies, mass migration and the recent terrorist attacks in Europe.

When Abortion Was a Crime

When Abortion Was a Crime PDF Author: Leslie J. Reagan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520387422
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
The definitive history of abortion in the United States, with a new preface that equips readers for what’s to come. When Abortion Was a Crime is the must-read book on abortion history. Originally published ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this award-winning study was the first to examine the entire period during which abortion was illegal in the United States, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with that monumental case in 1973. When Abortion Was a Crime is filled with intimate stories and nuanced analysis, demonstrating how abortion was criminalized and policed—and how millions of women sought abortions regardless of the law. With this edition, Leslie J. Reagan provides a new preface that addresses the dangerous and ongoing threats to abortion access across the country, and the precarity of our current moment. While abortions have typically been portrayed as grim "back alley" operations, this deeply researched history confirms that many abortion providers—including physicians—practiced openly and safely, despite prohibitions by the state and the American Medical Association. Women could find cooperative and reliable practitioners; but prosecution, public humiliation, loss of privacy, and inferior medical care were a constant threat. Reagan's analysis of previously untapped sources, including inquest records and trial transcripts, shows the fragility of patient rights and raises provocative questions about the relationship between medicine and law. With the right to abortion increasingly under attack, this book remains the definitive history of abortion in the United States, offering vital lessons for every American concerned with health care, civil liberties, and personal and sexual freedom.

Abortion and the Early Church

Abortion and the Early Church PDF Author: Michael J. Gorman
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1579101828
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 119

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Book Description
What is abortion? A convenience to society? A legal offense? Murder? The twentieth century is not the first to face these questions. Abortion was a common practice two thousand years ago. The young Christian church, growing up in influential centers of Greco-Roman culture, could not ignore the practice. How would church leaders define abortion? Gorman examines Christian documents in their Greco-Roman context, concluding that Christians held a consistent position throughout the church's first four hundred years.

The Criminalization of Abortion in the West

The Criminalization of Abortion in the West PDF Author: Wolfgang Müller
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801464153
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Anyone who wants to understand how abortion has been treated historically in the western legal tradition must first come to terms with two quite different but interrelated historical trajectories. On one hand, there is the ancient Judeo-Christian condemnation of prenatal homicide as a wrong warranting retribution; on the other, there is the juristic definition of "crime" in the modern sense of the word, which distinguished the term sharply from "sin" and "tort" and was tied to the rise of Western jurisprudence. To find the act of abortion first identified as a crime in the West, one has to go back to the twelfth century, to the schools of ecclesiastical and Roman law in medieval Europe. In this book, Wolfgang P. Müller tells the story of how abortion came to be criminalized in the West. As he shows, criminalization as a distinct phenomenon and abortion as a self-standing criminal category developed in tandem with each other, first being formulated coherently in the twelfth century at schools of law and theology in Bologna and Paris. Over the ensuing centuries, medieval prosecutors struggled to widen the range of criminal cases involving women accused of ending their unwanted pregnancies. In the process, punishment for abortion went from the realm of carefully crafted rhetoric by ecclesiastical authorities to eventual implementation in practice by clerical and lay judges across Latin Christendom. Informed by legal history, moral theology, literature, and the history of medicine, Müller's book is written with the concerns of modern readers in mind, thus bridging the gap that might otherwise divide modern and medieval sensibilities.