Today, when we think about medicine in the past, we often imagine something primitive, even dangerous—a world of leeches, superstition, and doctors who didn’t quite know what they were doing. But that version of history leaves out a much bigger story.

Long before modern medicine as we know it, women were not just caring for the sick in their homes; they were treating illnesses, delivering babies, experimenting with remedies, and in many cases, providing the majority of medical care in their communities. While some women built reputations as trusted healers, others became something far more controversial—entangled in stories of poison, power, and the fear of what that knowledge could be used for. So today, we’re looking at the real role women played in early modern medicine; how they learned, how they practiced, and why so much of their work has been overlooked.

To help us unpack this world, I’m joined by historian Alanna Skuse, author of The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England, whose research reveals just how central (and complex) women’s roles in medicine really were.

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For centuries, Anne has been cast in so many roles: temptress, reformer, political schemer, Protestant martyr. But what if her story looks very different when we place it not just in the court of Henry VIII, but in the wider legal, political, and religious world of sixteenth-century Europe?

In this episode, I’m joined by Heather Darsie, whose new book takes a fascinating and fresh approach to Anne Boleyn’s rise and fall. Drawing in part on her perspective as a lawyer, Heather explores how Anne’s upbringing in the Low Countries and France, her connections to religious reform, and the legal structures developing under Henry VIII all help us better understand why Anne became so dangerous and why her end unfolded the way it did.

We talk about Anne’s continental influences, the difference between Henry’s break with Rome and Anne’s own religious interests, the legal precedents that made her execution possible, and why her death may have been about far more than adultery. This episode reminds us Anne Boleyn was not simply a symbol or a scandal, but a real woman caught in forces far larger than herself.

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In this episode, we’re stepping into the birthing chambers, parish homes, and crowded streets of Tudor England to meet a group of women who were absolutely essential to their communities and yet often left out of the historical record: midwives.

For centuries, birth was women’s work; overseen, supported, and guided by other women. And at the center of that world stood the midwife. She was healer, witness, community authority. She carried knowledge passed down not through universities or textbooks, but through experience, memory, and trust.

And yet, like so many women whose power existed outside formal institutions, midwives have often been misunderstood, minimized, or erased.

Today, I’m joined by Brigitte Barnard, an author, historian, and midwife whose work brings these women back into focus. Brigitte is the author of a Tudor-era historical novel series that imagines the lives of women navigating birth, belief, and survival in Tudor England. Brigitte also shares details about her upcoming non-fiction work, which takes us even deeper into the historical realities of childbirth. Separating myth from evidence and restoring midwives to their rightful place in the story.

In our conversation, we talk about what it actually meant to be a midwife in Tudor England: the authority these women held, the dangers they faced, and why childbirth was never just a dangerous or private moment. Birth was communal. It was political. And it was deeply entangled with questions of power and control over women’s bodies.

Disclaimer: Topics covered in this episode may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

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