Christian le Leche of Bute, Physician

Christina b. c. 1290 (Jarrow, County Durham) [1]

Ancient Medical practitioner

Jarrow is a town in north-east England, located on the River Tyne, with a population of 27,526.[1]

It was historically in County Durham, but in 1974 it became part of the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear.

In the eighth century, the monastery of Saint Paul in Jarrow, was the home of the venerable Bede, who is regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar and the father of English history.

"Another physician mentioned in the reign of James II .is Christian Leche, who in 1444 received £36s.8d. for the cure of a friend of the king dwelling with Lord Colin Campbell,3 and to whom the rents of Scoulogmore were regularly allowed" [2]

[1] Women medical practitioners in England (act. c.1200–c.1475) source: Oxford Index

[2]2] HISTORY OF SCOTTISH MEDICINE BY JOHN D. COMRIE M.A.,B.SC, M.D.,F.R.C.P. Physician to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh; Lecturer on the Practice of Medicine in the School of Medicine of the Royal College sat Edinburgh and on History of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh; President, History of Medicine Section, British Medical Association Meetings, 1927 and 1930; Late Consulting Physician to the British Forces in North Russia. Published for THE WELLCOME HISTORICAL MEDICAL MUSEUM 54, Wigmore Street, London, w. by BAILLIERE, TINDALL & COX 7&8, Henrietta Street,Covent garden london, w.c.2193*

Not every woman healer practised in association with a man. The court rolls of the manor of Hales in Worcestershire contain several mentions of a certain Margery (fl. 1300–1306), called ‘Leech’. Margery's existence and vocation are known only from her involvement in several actions before the manorial court. She was three times fined for damage to the lord's land by allowing her cow to stray and by gathering nuts and firewood without permission. In 1302 she was thrown into a stream by Roger Ordrych. In 1232 Matilda la Leche (fl. 1232) of Wallingford, Berkshire, was assessed at 20d. for taxes. Cecilia la Leche (fl. c.1350) owned a tenement in Oxford that passed to Robert le Leche and then to his son Nicholas le Leche.

The physician Christiana (fl. 1313) who received corn from the master of Jarrow Priory in 1313 was a woman. Dependence on men seems to have been the rule rather than the exception, however. One set of rules for the nuns of Syon stipulated that the infirmaress tend to the bodily needs of the sick according to the advice of male physicians called in from outside.