Trota of Salerno facts for kids
Trota of Salerno (also called Trocta) was a skilled doctor and writer who lived in the city of Salerno, Italy, around the 1100s. Her fame spread far, even to France and England. She wrote about many health topics, especially women's health. Over time, her work was mixed with writings from other doctors into a collection called the Trotula. People later mistakenly thought "Trotula" was the name of the author of the whole book, not realizing it was Trota's work and that the book had three different authors. This confusion sometimes led to her real name, gender, or knowledge being forgotten or changed by later scholars. Trota's true writings, like her book Practical Medicine According to Trota, were lost for a long time until they were found again in the late 1900s.
Contents
Trota's Medical Training
Trota of Salerno studied at the Medical School of Salerno. This was the world's first medical school! There, she became a very good doctor. She focused on women's bodies and childbirth. You could say she was one of the first doctors to specialize in women's health. Later, she even became a professor at the school. People called her Magistra Medicinae, which means "Master of Medicine." As a teacher, she shared her knowledge with her students. This helped improve how women's health was treated in the Western world.
Trota and the "Trotula" Book
The names "Trotta" or "Trocta" were common for women in Salerno in the 1100s. But "Trotula" was never a woman's name. Later in the 1100s, some of Trota's writings, like "On Treatments for Women" (De curis mulierum), became part of a larger book. This book was a collection of three different works on women's medicine by three different authors.
Since Trota's work was the only one with an author's name, she was given credit for the whole collection. The book was first called Trotula, meaning "the little work of Trota." But as the book traveled outside Italy, people misunderstood the title. They thought "Trotula" was the name of the single author of all three texts.
Trota's fame seemed to blend with the idea of "Trotula." The Trotula texts became very popular. There are nearly 140 copies of the original Latin book and about 60 copies translated into other languages. But Trota's actual works exist in only a few copies. So, it's important to remember that Trota was a real person, and "Trotula" was the name of a book that included some of her work.
People started debating if "Trotula" was a real person in the 1500s. These discussions continued until the late 1900s. That's when Trota's book Practica secundum Trotam was found. This discovery helped show that Trota was a real historical woman, separate from the book "Trotula."
Trota's Life and Writings
We don't have much information about Trota's life outside of her writings. What we do know suggests she lived in the first half of the 1100s. In 2007, a study looked at all known writings by Trota. This helped us understand the full range of her work. She likely wrote even more than we know today. Between the 1100s and 1400s, Trota's texts were published many times in different cities. They were read widely across Western Europe. This happened even though other books on women's health were also available.
Trota also taught people how to live a healthy and long life. She suggested daily exercise, a good diet, low stress, and staying clean. She also wrote about personal care, including makeup, how to reduce wrinkles, remove puffiness from the face and eyes, remove unwanted body hair, lighten skin, hide spots, clean teeth, and even dye hair.
Practical Medicine According to Trota
The book most clearly written by Trota is called Practica secundum Trotam, or "Practical Medicine According to Trota." This book covers many different medical topics. It talks about problems having children and menstrual issues. It also covers snakebites and beauty tips. Trota was a well-known expert in childbirth and a famous midwife in Salerno.
While her works are known for practical advice on women's health, Trota also wrote about problems faced by both men and women. In her practical medicine book, about three-quarters of the text is about common illnesses. These include internal diseases, fevers, and wounds. This shows that Trota treated more than just women's health issues.
Trota's writings included new ideas for her time. She bravely stated that both men and women could be responsible for problems with conception. This idea, which questioned a man's ability to have children, caused a lot of discussion about her work. Her book also gave advice on conception, C-sections, and childbirth. Most of her texts were written for male doctors. They helped male doctors learn about the female body. At that time, most medical books were written by men who had little experience treating women. Trota's books were used for centuries. They helped shape how women's health issues were treated before modern medicine.
This book, the Practica, was first found in 1985 by California Institute of Technology historian John F. Benton. He found the text in a very old manuscript in Madrid. Another partial copy was found by Monica H. Green in a manuscript in Oxford.
On Treatments for Women
Trota is also linked to one of the three texts in the Trotula collection. This collection of works on women's medicine was put together later in the 1100s. The text linked to Trota is called De curis mulierum, or "On Treatments for Women." Trota isn't exactly the "author" of this text as we know it. This is because she is mentioned within the text itself, not as the writer.
For example, Trota appears in a story about a young woman. This woman had a problem called ventositas matricis, or "wind in the uterus." The text explains that sometimes women get "wind" in their uterus. This can make them look like they have a hernia or stomach pain. Trota was called to treat this woman. The text says that "Trota was called in as if she were a master." The Latin word for "master" here is magistra, which is the feminine form. This is a strong sign that Trota had a high standing, similar to male masters of medicine.
This treatment for "wind" in the uterus is unique. It's not found in other known works from Salerno. But much of the rest of "On Treatments for Women" sounds very similar to practices Trota described in her Practica secundum Trotam.
The fact that Trota's cure is mentioned in the third person makes us wonder who the "we" is throughout "On Treatments for Women." Historian Monica H. Green believes the text might show the shared practices of a group of female doctors. She suggests it was written down to help pass on knowledge from woman to woman. This was a more lasting way than just telling stories.
The De curis mulierum might have been written for people in England. At that time, both England and southern Italy were ruled by the Normans. So, medical writings from southern Italy often traveled to England.
Trota's Reputation and Her Writings in the Middle Ages
The story of Trota curing the young woman shows how famous she was in her own community. Being called a "magistra operis" (master of the work) was a big achievement. This feminine form of "master" was rarely used back then. We haven't found more direct evidence of Trota in other documents from Salerno. No male doctors from Salerno at that time mention her by name. And while many women named Trota lived in Salerno, we can't be sure which one was the doctor.
Trota, however, did mention some of her male colleagues. In "Treatments for Women," she refers to a doctor named Copho twice. She knew his ideas about anatomy and seemed to use his ideas about problems having children. So, Trota knew about the work of male doctors, but they didn't seem to mention her in return.
Dame Trote
Her fame is more clearly seen in northern Europe. A 1200s English-Norman book about beauty, Ornatus mulierum (On the Adornment of Women), mentions "Dame Trote" twelve times. The author of this book even claimed to have studied with Trota. She is the only woman mentioned by name as a source of information. This suggests Trota's good reputation spread internationally.
The Codex Salernitanus
Trota's importance as a medical writer is also shown in a late 1100s manuscript called the Codex Salernitanus. This book was kept in a library in Poland. It contained a work called De egritudinum curatione, or "On the Treatment of Illnesses." This work was a collection of treatments from seven doctors from Salerno. Notes in the margins identified the authors, like "M.C." for magister Copho (master Copho). We now know that parts marked "Trot'" were written by Trota of Salerno. She likely wrote other parts of the text that weren't credited to anyone.
The Codex Salernitanus was probably the only copy of this work. Trota's Practica secundum Trotam also didn't circulate much. So, knowledge of Trota, outside of what was in the Trotula texts, slowly disappeared. By the 1200s, people forgot that "Trota" was her real name. Scribes started writing "Trotula" in the story about Trota's cure in "Treatments for Women."
At the same time, stories about "Trotula" as an "expert on women's affairs" grew. The Trotula texts became more important sources for women's medicine. They were translated into many European languages. But "Trotula" was also sometimes used to spread negative ideas about women. For example, in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale, "Trotula" is mentioned in a way that suggests negative views.
Forgetting the Female Trota
In 1544, a person named Georg Kraut rearranged the three Trotula texts. He made them look like they were written by one person. He also removed mentions of common names from after the 3rd century. This made later readers think it was a very old text. Later, in the 1500s, Casper Wolf, another editor, changed the name from Trotula to Eros (a male name). He also changed words from feminine to masculine to match the new name. This wrongly gave credit to a man and made the text seem ancient. This helped erase a woman author from the Middle Ages.
Over time, many historians and researchers doubted Trota's authorship, gender, and medical knowledge. For example, in 1773, Gruner said Trota couldn't have written the texts because she was mentioned inside the text, not as the author. He called the author an unknown man. Often, the time period, gender, and Trota's education were downplayed or changed. This was often based on the personal opinions of the scholar.
Trota is not often linked to Hildegard of Bingen, another female doctor and writer from the 1100s. But Monica Green sees similarities between their lives and what happened to their writings. Both women were famous for their medical knowledge during and after their time. Later, during the Renaissance and modern times, historians and doctors studied their works. But they often questioned if these women really wrote the texts or tried to erase their authorship.
"Trota" in a Copy of De curis mulierum
There's one interesting example where the real Trota was remembered. A historian named Montserrat Cabré i Pairet found a partial 1400s translation of "On Treatments for Women" in Catalan. This was the only one of the three Trotula texts that kept Trota's original teachings. The person who copied the manuscript (maybe a surgeon) compared the Catalan translation with an original Latin copy. They wrote that, in the original Latin, the maestra (female master) who was called in was named Trota "in the Latin."
This rare mention of Trota's fame shows how much her recognition had disappeared by the end of the Middle Ages. This led to many arguments about who wrote Trotula. These debates shaped medical studies of the texts for the next 400 years, starting in the 1500s.
Rediscovery in the 1900s and 2000s
The Codex Salernitanus, a large collection of texts from Salerno, was first noticed by modern scholars in 1837. The text "On the Treatment of Illnesses" was published twenty years later. In the early 1900s, a historian named Karl Sudhoff had students edit different texts from the Codex Salernitanus. In 1921, Conrad Hiersemann chose to re-edit the parts of "On the Treatment of Illnesses" credited to "Trot'." Hiersemann thought the name was masculine, so he changed it to "Trottus."
This erasing of the female author Trota was not questioned until 1985. That's when John F. Benton, a historian, found the Practica secundum Trotam in a manuscript in Madrid. Benton realized that the Practica had many similarities with the treatments credited to "Trot'" in "On the Treatment of Illnesses." He was then able to bring the real historical woman Trota back from being forgotten for 800 years.
However, Benton still believed that the Trotula texts were written by men. He thought they had nothing to do with the real Trota. What Benton didn't realize was that the Practica secundum Trotam also had many similarities with the second of the three Trotula texts, "On Treatments for Women." Monica H. Green, a historian of medieval women's medicine, made this discovery. In 2007, Green showed the connections between all four texts that included Trota's work. These were: "On the Treatment of Illnesses," Practica secundum Trotam, "On Treatments for Women," and some beauty practices credited to "Dame Trote." Together, these works suggest that Trota was skilled in most areas of medicine, except for general surgery.
Green was not very hopeful about what this evidence for Trota says about the status of women in medicine in Salerno in the 1100s. She believes Trota was on the edge of the formal medical traditions. Trota didn't quote famous sources like Hippocrates or Galen. Her work also didn't have much theory about how the body works or why diseases happen. Green concluded that Trota succeeded as a practical doctor. But as a teacher who could give formal lessons to students, she didn't have much impact. Green sees Trota's story as a symbol of how women were often on the sidelines of intellectual life in Europe in the 1100s, when universities were just starting. We know about other female doctors in southern Italy after Trota. However, none of these women are known to have written medical texts.
See also
In Spanish: Trota de Salerno para niños
