Peretta Peronne was an unlicensed female surgeon who operated in Paris in the early fifteenth century. The legacy of Peretta Peronne is known primarily through her prosecution by the Parisian medical faculty in 1411. The Commentaries of the Parisian medical faculty documented the expenditures associated with pursuing cases against practitioners, as well as the charters of the Parisian university, which provided documentation for their efforts towards legal recognition of their positions on medical practice.
During this time period, there was a larger movement in early modern Europe to denounce all non-university trained medical professionals as either inferior or illegitimate. The faculty sought to increase the status of physicians and emphasize the necessity for training and licensing in order for a medical professional to be recognized as legitimate. In France, the delineation between different types of medical practitioners was becoming particularly rigid, as professionalization of the medical field was increasingly discussed in the ecclesiastical and political realms.
Throughout the Middle Ages, women participated in medical practice across various disciplines. While history has often focused on women’s roles as caregivers within the domestic sphere, such as wet nurses and midwives, there were also women who practiced medicine more broadly. Historian Monica H. Green has argued that one of the greatest myths of female practitioners in the middle ages is that they primarily treated female complaints. However, towards the end of the Middle Ages, increased regulation and legal repercussions against female medical practitioners became significant enough that their profession began to disappear from the historical record.
Peretta Peronne’s prosecution in 1411 highlights this changing mindset towards female medical practitioners in France. She was brought before the Master Surgeons of the University of Paris after being pursued by the St. Damien and St. Cosme surgeon’s confraternity, which consisted of approximately eleven members. The confraternity sought the assistance of the Paris medical faculty in bringing a case against Peronne because she had been displaying a sign outside her home advertising herself in the manner of a public surgeon. It is worth noting that she is the only known case of a female surgical practitioner being prosecuted by the Parisian medical faculty during this time.
In the fourteenth century, surgeons, barbers, and apothecaries were typically free from prosecution by the faculty if they were members of a guild supervised and regulated by the medical faculty. However, women were not permitted to be members of surgeons’ guilds and were typically excluded. Therefore, Peretta Peronne’s practice as a female surgeon was seen as a threat to the well-being and the distinct separation between the work of physicians and surgeons.
Overall, Peretta Peronne’s story sheds light on the challenges faced by women in the medical profession during the early fifteenth century in Paris. Her prosecution serves as a symbol of the increasing professionalization and strict regulations within the medical field, which resulted in the disappearance of female surgeons from the historical record.