Born: Unknown (late 1200s), Italy
Died: Unknown (1300s)
Country most active: France
Also known as: Jacobina Felice, Jacoba Felicie
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Jacoba Felicie was an Italian healer in 1300s France, at a time when restrictions were being placed on who could treat people. Traditional healers and midwives were being sidelined by trained (male) physicians with accompanying legal regulation. In 1322, Felicie was placed on trial for unlawfully practising medicine, because she had not been trained at a university. She had a strong reputation for successful outcomes and did not charge her patients unless her treatments were effective, but her success likely contributed to her being charged, as she would have inspired the ire of male physicians who saw themselves as more qualified yet were less effective. Indeed, Felicie was known to successfully treat patients whom the physicians had failed. During the trial, patient after patient attested to her skill and results, and her medical knowledge was never even questioned. But she was found guilty on the reasoning that women were not allowed to be physicians and were barred from the universities that trained them, so any woman doing what a physician did was automatically breaking the law. Felicie was banned from practising medicine, excommunicated, and fined sixty Parisian pounds.