Though fifteenth-century readers did not often cancel or erase the contents of practical manuscripts, by the later sixteenth century readers had grown concerned about certain genres of texts copied in these centuries-old collections. For the most part, these concerns were driven by the English Reformation, which was especially hostile toward the “superstition” and magic associated with the older medieval church, as well as by rising fears about witchcraft and magic. Indeed, as the spreadsheet below indicates, the categories of text most often censored by early modern readers often had to do with charms, incantations, or “natural” magic or with reproductive healthcare, and specifically, abortion. These categories of knowledge had long been associated with women–even in the fifteenth century–but it wasn’t until the later sixteenth century that we find evidence of readers censoring such knowledge in the pages of practical manuscripts.

To download this dataset as a .csv file, click here.