Alchemy and Cultures of Knowledge among Early Modern Women

Abstract

I n this essay, I consider where alchemy sits in the spectrum of interests that make up women' s knowledge in early modern Europe by considering evidence from a group of women whose work is not usually discussed in relation to alchemy: namely, philosophers. I shall examine the writings of Oliva Sabuco (b. 1562), Anne Conway (1631-1679), and Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673 to discover what their philosophy reveals about their engagement with alchemy and other branches of knowledge, such as medicine and pharmacology. In so doing, I argue that women not only had practical knowledge in these areas, but also engaged with them at a theoretical level. Alchemy and Cultures of KnowledgeThere are two obvious reasons for alchemy being a useful prism through which to consider the cultures of female knowledge in the early modern period. First, as Carol Pal reminds us, in the mid-seventeenth-century republic of letters, alchemy was just one form of knowledge in an epistemic culture "embracing everything from alchemy to agriculture, and open conversation wherein discussions could range in one breath from metaphysics to mining to millenarian theology." 1 Second, alchemy was wide-ranging in its scope, encompassing a variety of ideas and practices that today are treated as separate disciplines. Alchemy was not just about the transmutation of metals or search for the elixir; rather, it was integrally 1