Men and Infertility in Late Medieval English Medicine

Abstract

The history of male reproductive disorders in the Middle Ages has been comparatively neglected compared to the history of women’s medicine. This article explores the ways the subject was discussed in a sample of widely circulated medieval Latin medical texts and examines how this information was adapted in English translations and recipe collections aimed at a wider audience which included medical practitioners. It argues that the possibility of male infertility was often recognized in learned medicine and that the forms of male infertility discussed went beyond sexual dysfunction and were presented as more closely equivalent to female infertility. However, male reproductive disorders were not so prominent in less academic texts aimed at medical practitioners. These works did acknowledge the possibility of male infertility and their readers may have employed remedies for this in practice, but a greater emphasis was placed on women, a situation which may reflect wider social attitudes.