Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review the ARC of this book.

5 stars

A fascinating look into medieval wellness - which is basically a look into medieval lives. The author counters the common modern image of medieval people as dirty and unhealthy. It was very surprising to read that medieval people were not so different from all of us in their desires to stay healthy, clean, and attractive. There is also so much amazing medieval artwork included; it’s fascinating to stop and really look at the art and see what is being conveyed.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC! We should all be so grateful to live in these times if only for the healthcare advancements alone (and still very much room for improvement there). I loved the added historical backgrounds and some of the imagery within will both haunt and inspire me for life.

Medieval Wellness is a humorous and extremely well researched look at medieval healthcare. Health and wellness have always been complex and this book proves how far we’ve come with modern medicine but how some things never change.

Such an interesting read! In Medieval Wellness, the author provides a lot of information about medicine, bathing, beauty and self-care in the middle ages, giving us a sense of what was people's understanding of the human body. From the use of herbs and spices, bloodletting, the balance of bodily humours, all intermingled with faith and prayers, we get a comprehensive picture of what was considered well-being at the time. The book also busts some myths about this era, that might have entered and prejudiced our understanding of its most common practices. One of the best things is that it contains many illustrations of the period, showing everyday life and also the medical knowledge or the objects and instruments that were most used. I found it particularly interesting to draw a parallel between these records and our modern habits, seeing how we stil apply some of this knowledge, especially in the use of herbal remedies and oils. Recommended for everyone with an interest in medieval times, or who want to discover something new about history.

Absolutely impressed by the amount of research that must have gone into the creation of this book.
It's not only fascinating, but the pictures (and their captions) make this book stand out.
I was in absolute awe and often found myself wanting to know where and how the author found all of these historical photographs as I was reading.

I do want to also compliment how well this book shows up in the netgalley reader, best i've seen yet!

I'm considering purchasing this for myself once it's released in hardback to fully enjoy all this book has to offer.

Definitely recommend.

This book was so great and fun to read! Its highlight is how thorough and accessible it is, both with its language as well as with how gorgeously and thickly illustrated it is. It debunked a bunch of my prejudices about the middle ages (some I didn't even know I had in the first place) at the same time that it localized for me that a lot of things that are taken for granted as common sense nowadays, both good and bad, true and false, come from middle ages knowledge and beliefs. The only qualm I had with this book is how tiny the publisher font is, lol. But it is truly an immensely intriguing, fascinating and pallatable book that shows a passionate research and a lot of care into its visual component. I'll love having this in my center table soon!

Thank you Getty Publications and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a great introduction for a reader who wants to learn about how people took care of themselves during the Middle Ages. The book provides well-documented research from historical records and books to help the reader understand. There are even illustrations that shows medieval tools that would have been used at the time.

Overall, I enjoyed learning about how both men and women took care of their physical and mental health during the Middle Ages!

This book provided an interesting glimpse into the health and wellness practices in European medieval life. I really liked how the author was able to connect trends and traditions from then to now, as well as engage with the problematic aspects of some elements. The images of artifacts and illustrations from manuscripts are great.

One of the reasons I wanted to read this book was its medieval-style illustrations. To be honest, the idea of reading a book about health in the Middle Ages with this kind of artwork made me curious.

I liked how the book explores different topics, such as overall well-being, hygiene and self-care, medicine and knowledge, treatments, theories and rumours, superstition, and the influence of society. This allows you to discover medieval society from a different perspective. The images of objects from that period are quite interesting too.

As you read, you need to pay attention to the illustrations to fully understand the ideas presented in the book. You can see that, despite the limitations of the Middle Ages, people were concerned about staying healthy and taking care of themselves, even if they had different resources than we have today.

This book is a brilliant introduction to medieval medicine and wonderfully written with some delicious snark!
While the subject matters (and some of the accompanying images) are not light, its a fairly intellectually accessible read - so I binge read it in an afternoon with no regrets.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone unfamiliar with medieval medicine etc.

I loved this book. Overall the writing was very good; it was crisp and conversational. In addition to the writing, there were stellar works of art, with descriptions of how the art fit into the story. I could look at those for hours. This is a great coffee-table book, gift, or just a visual treat. Thank you to Netgalley and Getty Publications for the advance reader copy.

Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

We are not so different from the people of the Middle Ages, and “Medieval Wellness” reminds us of exactly that.

It is a lament of mine that a fair amount of people still consider medieval Europe as a place lacking much in culture, standards, or really anything beyond doom and gloom. This book sheds light on the Europeans of the Middle Ages and just how much our perception of them is untrue and that we mimic them in a lot of ways for the sake of “self help.”

Grollemond walks you through the misconceptions of the medieval people regarding their health and hygiene before explaining the actuality of it in great detail with a plethora of credible sources and visual aids. For instance, many believe that Europeans during this time would forsake bathing. Grollemond explains how this issue mostly depended on one’s social class, how big your “bathing bucket” was, and if you had ventured into a bath house.

The information is provided in a lighthearted fashion that keeps you entertained, and expands over a wide variety of content from bathing, to surgeries, beauty standards, and even mental health during the Middle Ages. And for all our talk of simplicity and sticking our noses up at the people of Europe in the Middle Ages, Grollemond reminds us throughout and especially in the epilogue just how many of these customs we still practice, albeit, for different reasons.

Overall, an incredibly well researched and interesting read. While I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in medieval history, it is also perfect for people who enjoy reading about the history of medicine, as well as anyone who likes something just a little twisted.

I will definitely be incorporating some aspects of this into my AP classroom.

The abundant use of medieval art pieces are the highlight of this well researched book. They are fascinating and occasionally a bit horrifying, such as the surgeon’s manual on tools and surgeries to use on the poor nude chap bending over a table with hemorrhoids.

The description gave me the impression that the book would show how surprisingly wise and practical many of their practices were, but I didn’t find that to be the case. There are lots of examples of using dangerous substances like lead and ridiculous recipes like boiling bees and lizards for hair dye. I was frequently surprised by things not mentioned, like I know that henna was used for hair dye since well before that time, but maybe not in Europe, which is the only area this book features. And I would have loved more talk about the things they got right, like using valerian and lavender for depression, or the herbs used for abortions. Each subject gets a very short bit of information from surviving books and artwork. I have to wonder if the wisdom of the midwives and grandmothers was never collected and therefore didn’t survive for the 21st century scholars. There is a lot of information on bathing practices in particular and I appreciated the information that chastity belts were not really a thing.

I read an online arc of this book via netgalley.

This is an absolutely gorgeous, well-curated, beautifully laid out, well researched and thoroughly interesting boom. Highly recommend!

Let me say it plainly, before anything else: I want the physical copy, badly. This is one of those books whose page design is half the pleasure : the layout, the more than 130 illuminations and artefacts, and above all the captions that unpack them, make the whole thing irresistibly moreish. You'll find yourself turning pages for the pictures long before you've decided to read for the argument.

And the argument is a generous one. Grollemond sets out to dismantle the hoariest cliché we carry about the Middle Ages: that it was a thousand years of grime, superstition and people who had, at best, a laughably crude notion of looking after themselves. With wit and genuine scholarly command, she reconstructs a world that turns out to be every bit as self-aware, anxious and inventive about wellbeing as our own...and then, slyly, holds it up against the mirror of twenty-first-century self-care culture. The parallels are often uncanny, occasionally hilarious, and never forced. What I love most is how little it asks of the reader up front. You need not be a history nerd to fall into it; the prose carries you. Yet the medievalists among us will be delighted all the same, because the lightness never comes at the expense of the evidence. Across its chapters the book walks you through medieval medicine and the men who practised it, bathing (yes, they did), cosmetics, hair, womanhood, contraception and sex, and even mental health... each handled with the same even hand, clearing away the misconceptions without ever talking down to you. And don't fret about those gloriously unhinged beauty standards; she gets to those too. The chapter titles alone deserve a round of applause for the sheer cheek of them (I'll say no more; discovering they're all song cues is part of the fun). It's that tonal confidence: scholarship worn lightly, humour deployed precisely that makes the book work.
If you still picture the Middle Ages as primitive and unsophisticated, Grollemond will quietly, cheerfully change your mind. A superb piece of work, and a thoroughly good time.

[Likely] The strongest angle is that the illustrations are the main attraction, with the snippets showing how familiar some of these centuries-old preoccupations feel.

I made the mistake of reading *Medieval Wellness* on my phone. This is a book that belongs on a coffee table, where its illustrations have room to breathe and you can linger over the details without repeatedly pinching the screen.

The images are its main attraction. Medieval artwork sits alongside playful headings and accounts of how people looked after, altered and worried about their bodies. It’s a book to dip into, with plenty of details that invite you to interrupt whoever is sitting beside you.

A section called “Get Ready With Me, Medieval Style” introduces a skincare routine that begins reasonably enough with barley water, before moving on to preparations involving animal fat, white lead and dove dung. An anti-wrinkle treatment promises delicate skin through a process that involves first making it rise and then peeling it off. The pursuit of a smoother face clearly predates the bathroom shelf full of expensive serums.

The passages on body hair were particularly interesting. The book describes expectations for noblewomen to remove hair from their legs, underarms and pubic areas, using tools including pumice stones and tweezers. Elsewhere, women plucked their hairlines to achieve a fashionably high forehead. The desired look may change, but the effort expected of women feels rather familiar.

As a GP with an interest in women’s health, I was also drawn to the discussion of contraception and the gap between religious prescriptions and everyday practice. The account of people seeking practical advice from midwives offers a different perspective from the rules laid down by those claiming authority over their bodies.

There is humour in the juxtaposition of medieval imagery and modern wellness language, although the ideas about women’s supposedly untrustworthy nature make for less amusing reading. Alongside the curious beauty preparations are reminders of how beliefs about bodies could help justify control over them.

For me, the appeal lies in that combination of visual detail, historical curiosities and uncomfortable recognition. I would have enjoyed it more in print: the spacious layouts and illustrations deserve a larger canvas than a phone screen. A book for browsing, looking closely and occasionally reading a particularly extraordinary passage aloud.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

First things first: this book is gorgeous. Major props to the design team. Typesetting, images, everything is brought together beautifully.

The book is organised in different parts that try to connect medieval views on health, beauty, and wellness with modern ones. It's a bit tongue in cheek and at times a bit cringy, but it does manage to bring the "we're not so different after all" message across.

"Medieval" in this case is "Western Europe". Sometimes non-dominant cultures are mentioned, eg. using Jewish writings, but overall the whole of Western Europe is thrown together. I would have liked to see more explicitly mentioned if something was sourced from English, Italian, German... etc sources.

4.5/5

This was a super short book (less than 100 pages), but still full of so much information!

I really loved all of the photos and illustrations and references that were shown. I think that helped to make this such an easy to digest and comprehend non-fiction. And to the point where I think even people who don't like non-fiction would enjoy this.

I learned a lot about the medieval era and its views on wellness and how to handle medical problems, but I also really appreciated the debunking of common myths and misconceptions about the era and topic. (Like how chastity belts weren't real!)

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!