Domestic Care in the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

This essay combines a gendered approach with a perspective on the spatial, material, and performative dimensions of care practices within sixteenth-century German domestic environments. Terminological and semantic challenges of premodern and modern vocabularies are discussed first. The essay questions dichotomies between public, communal, and institutional care versus private, domestic care in light of the collaboration between internal and external experts and the collective nature of infirmity and caregiving. Using a case study of written and pictorial instructions in an illustrated surgeon’s manual, the essay suggests the value of interdisciplinary approaches to the field of premodern care.