Friday, May 29, 2009

Medieval Women's Magazine


The Star shares a story about an interesting recent find.

From the piece...

The year: 1457. Somewhere in England a woman sits by the hearth, reading snippets of medical recipes, romances and a tale by Chaucer. She leisurely flips through the 73 folios, enjoying the prose.

The anthology, dedicated to female readers, is known today as Biblioteca Nazionale. Written in Middle English, it predates by centuries many modern women's magazines such as Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan and Redbook. But just like modern women's magazines, it offers advice aplenty – everything from ways to ease childbirth to how to lure a rabbit out of its warren.

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