Female Nurses in the Medicine Area of the Hospital de las Cinco Llagas in Seville in the XVI and XVII Centuries

In the Iberian Old Regime, hospitals were among the few institutions that were characterized by specialization of women's work where the female nurse could develop freely, and they became places of refuge and life choice for many women who showed absolute dedication to the hospital. In this context, the raised hypothesis is that, in a hospital governed by religious as it was that of las Cinco Llagas of Seville, it was outlined the feminine work of the care, characterized by the control, the prohibition and the separation of sexes. In such a way that this hospital sheltered ill women and needed other women to work both in domestic and medical activities, creating a place closed to public visibility of the job done by these women in an institution protected by the church. The methodology used was heuristics and hermeneutics of primary sources consulted in the Archivo de la Diputacion Provincial of Seville.