Chapter 1 Introduction: ‘Those Sweet and Benign Humours That Nature Sends Monthly’: Reading Menstruation and Vaginal Bleeding

Chapter 2 ‘What a Small Excess Is Called Flooding’ : The Language of Menstruation and Transitional Bleeding

Chapter 3 ‘Having the Benefit of Nature’: Menarche and Female Adolescence

Chapter 4 ‘Full Sixteen and Never Yet Had Those’ : Representations of Early or Delayed Menarche

Chapter 5 ‘Women’s Monthly Sickness’: Accounting for Menstruation

Chapter 6 ‘Wearing of the Double Clout’: Dealing with Menstrual Flow in Practice and in Religious Doctrine

Chapter 7 ‘The Flower of Virginity’: Hymenal Bleeding and Becoming a Woman

Chapter 8 The ‘Cleansing of the Flowers after the Birth’: Managing Pregnancy and Post-Partum Bleeding

Chapter 9 ‘Women Grieve to Thinke They Must Be Old’: Representations of Menopause