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

Abstract

Many commentators on early modern culture have assumed that women used linen pads to absorb their menstrual flow. Such claims are often based on early twentieth-century practice transposed into the early modern era, usually with no historical sources to support them. The absence of sources is not, perhaps, surprising. The question of how a woman managed her menstrual flow was a very personal matter and hence one that was not likely to be recorded openly. But it was also a topic that recurred in biblically informed preaching, alluding to Isaiah 64:6, which uses the phrase ‘menstruous clout’ as a metaphor for human sin. This chapter, then, has two purposes: firstly, it analyses accounts of the ways in which women might have dealt with their menstrual blood flow; secondly, it examines the implications of the use of this biblical metaphor.