1 Introduction: The Case of Terenti(an)us
A potion for gout, which is called calapodia,
which I, Terentianus, receivedâ¦1
So begins an entry within a collection of medical recipes found in an early ninth-century medical manuscript located in the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen, cod. sang. 759 (see Figure 1).2 This collection, covering roughly the second half of the manuscript (pp. 58â94), includes a vast range of material, from recipes for scented ointments to treatments for blindness, skin conditions, and kidney problems; the recipe in question presents a potion intended to alleviate the agonising pains associated with gout. These opening lines appear to bring a personal dimension to early medieval health and medicine. Terentianusâ autobiographical note illustrates the relationship between medical knowledge and practice during this period: his written record not only plays a critical role in the transmission of medical knowledge but testifies to his application of this knowledge in the context of therapy.
Potio ad podagra in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 759 (p. 60), a ninth-century manuscript with a collection of medical texts (https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0759/60 )
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-nc 4.0
An examination of a sample of eighth- and ninth-century manuscripts, however, complicates this neat picture. Another early ninth-century manuscript also located in St Gall, cod. sang. 751, contains a nearly identical phrase at the start of an antidote for gout: Antidotum podagricum quod dicitur calipodium quod ego Terentius Eoticianus accepi (see Figure 2).3 There are intriguing parallels between these two entries: both claim to treat gout, are from early
Antidotum podagricum in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 751 (p. 489), a large compendium of medical texts produced in the ninth century (https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0751/489 )
© st. gallen, stiftsbibliothek, licensed under cc by-nc 4.0
Palaeographical analysis supports the latter possibility: an investigation into codd. sang. 751 and 759 indicates that the recipes in question were not written by a single individual. First, it is unlikely that either manuscript originated in St Gall, let alone in the same writing centre. According to Bernhard Bischoff, cod. sang. 751 was probably written at a northern Italian site, whereas cod. sang. 759
Indeed, the differences between the contexts in which these treatments are situatedâtwo unique collections of recipesâindicate that they are not based on a single shared exemplar. The collection in cod. sang. 759 is immediately preceded by a contents list on pp. 53â8. While the list contains 446 entries, many pages have been lost from the manuscript, such that only 199 of these entries are extant. The Potio ad podagra, located on p. 60, is the seventeenth entry. In contrast, the collection in cod. sang. 751 covers pp. 430â96 and, according to a list of recipe titles on pp. 424â8, contains 319 entries. The Antidotum podagricum, found on pp. 489â90, corresponds to entry 277. Although certain individual entries in these collections share overlapping information, it is clear that they represent distinct compilations of medical material.6
This example highlights some of the many challenges arising from an investigation into the practice of medicine and its relationship to recorded medical
So, what do these recipes tell us? While they can shed light on certain aspects of the medical knowledge circulating in ninth-century Francia, they also indicate a) the dangers of drawing conclusions based on a limited textual sample and reading texts in isolation, and b) the challenge of trying to understand the relationship between medical knowledge and practice in this period. The present book seeks to address both issues. First, this study is grounded in a large and diverse sample of written material: over 5000 newly transcribed and analysed recipes.7 These recipes are found outside of more established textual traditions (i.e., pharmaceutical writings known from (late) Antiquity)
Building on the Terenti(an)us example, this opening chapter reviews the existing scholarship on early medieval medicine, explaining the rationale for analysing both the practicality and applicability of the treatments recorded in eighth- and ninth-century manuscripts as well as the significance of setting this work within the long ninth century.
2 Definitions
At the outset, it is essential to define the two key concepts of practicality and applicability that underpin this book. The âpracticalityâ of recipes considers whether the medical knowledge they present was practical with respect to both intention and use in the context of therapy. To evaluate a recipeâs intention or design, we can ask: does the text contain user-friendly features suggesting that it was intended to be consulted for therapeutic purposes? It might be possible to identify, for example, changes in terminology reflecting adaptations made to accommodate individuals from different linguistic backgrounds. To assess a recipeâs potential useability in the context of treatment, it is important to consider whether recipes rely on ingredients that could have been obtained in
The question of applicability, on the other hand, relates to the health needs of individuals during this period. Are the conditions and symptoms described by the texts reflected in the osteological evidence? In other words, did people in early medieval Europe suffer from any of the ailments which the recipes claim to treat? While limitations of both textual and skeletal evidenceâas well as the challenges posed by bringing together these two bodies of evidenceâcomplicate this question, it remains possible to investigate the applicability of recipes. By taking account of these limitations and challenges from the start, pursuing carefully selected case studies, and adopting a cautious approach to data analysis and interpretation, we can productively reassess the written record within the framework established by the osteological evidence.
3 Foundations
To explain the significance of this bookâs aims and evidence base, it is necessary to situate its focus on the questions of practicality and applicability in relation to previous scholarship. Philological approaches to medical texts have long formed the backbone of the study of early medieval medicine and remain vitally important to the field. In addition to reflecting the continuing influence of philological studies, the dual approach pursued over the following chapters builds on and responds to a) the ways in which perceptions of and investigations into early medieval medicine dramatically shifted over the course of the twentieth century, and b) more recent research directions and methodologies in the histories of health and medicine.
3.1 A Philological Underpinning
Across many areas of study relating to the ancient and medieval past, philologists have been the pathbreakers: they have been the first scholars to identify and investigate the relevant texts, explore their relationships, and make their content more accessible through the publication of critical editions and commentaries.9 This is certainly the case for late antique and early medieval medicine, though its current relationship with philological studies differs from many subfields of premodern history. Broadly speaking, the nineteenth and
Related to the emphasis on philological research within the traditional approach to the study of early medieval medicine, there has been an understandable prioritisation of those writings that can be linked to a known classical or late antique tradition.19 Consequently, medical writings with clearer (late) ancient pedigrees have typically received more focus than the many so-called âmiscellaneousâ medical writings and compendia that draw on combinations of sources, though there are a number of important early exceptions, such as the early medieval recipe collections published by Henry Sigerist and Julius Jörimann in the 1920s.20 The fieldâs interests, however, have shifted and expanded over time, such that many studies in recent decades are now focusing on precisely the type of material that was overlooked in the past. Much of the recent work by scholars such as Arsenio Ferraces RodrÃguez and Klaus-Dietrich Fischer has recalibrated and enriched our understanding of the composition of early medieval compilations, tracing the links between recipe collections, extracts, or even individual recipes that appear across a range of manuscripts. Their research emphasises the degree to which (late) ancient medical knowledge underpinned the so-called âmiscellaneousâ and previously
By concentrating on material found outside the established corpus, such as recipes in anonymous collections that appear to have been compiled in the early Middle Ages as well as individual recipes added to manuscripts during this period, this book builds on and contributes to these studies, continuing to broaden the current discourse on early medieval recipe literature. These recipes and their contexts will be discussed in Chapter 2 (and see Appendix 1 for a more detailed review of the specific manuscripts involved in this study).
3.2 Histories of Early Medieval Medicine: From Negative Stereotypes to Revisionist Approaches
Scholars of the early Middle Ages have been relatively slow to turn to the history of medicine: Loren MacKinneyâs Early Medieval Medicine, With Special Reference to France and Chartres, now over eighty years old, remains the only general monograph on the topic, and discussions of health and medicine have rarely featured in more general studies of the period.23 As Meg Leja has
If early medievalists have, by and large, begun to engage with medical history only in relatively recent years (as discussed below), earlier generations of historians of medicine often dismissed the early Middle Ages entirely. The now outdated, though still influential, teleological approach to medical history understood medicine to be on a path of inevitable progress from Antiquity to the present day, excepting a period of stagnation coinciding with the âDark Agesâ.27 These centuriesâthe millennium or so between the heights of classical learning and the reintroduction of Greek medical knowledge in the central
Already in the early twentieth century, however, a handful of researchers, including Henry Sigerist and Loren MacKinney, bucked the general trends and took seriously the study of early medieval medicine.31 Although their landmark
Expanding from this foundation, the study of early medieval medicine experienced a significant swing of the historiographical pendulum in the second half of the twentieth century. Led by historians such as John M. Riddle, Jerry Stannard, and Linda Ehrsam Voigts, a wave of revisionist scholarship radically altered the field, and especially with respect to topics concerning the relationship between medical knowledge and practice.34 Although Riddle and Stannard concentrated on continental material, much of the research into the practicality of medical texts has been rooted in the study of Old English recipe literature.35 Voigtsâs 1979 article, âAnglo-Saxon Plant Remedies and the Anglo-Saxonsâ, for example, provided one of the first in-depth reassessments of early English herbal medicine and contends that texts such as the Old English
Although this significant body of scholarship has provided great insights into early medieval medicine whilst simultaneously overturning the traditional,
While the heightened focus on Insular recipe literature may stem largely from the interest it has generated as medical knowledge recorded in the vernacular, it has also been facilitated by its size. As Peregrine Horden explains, scholars of Old English medicine âhave to work with a substantial corpus of around 500 folios but embodying only five major works, three of which survive in unique manuscripts. Many difficulties remain, but the focus is at least clearâ.38 By comparison, the Latin continental material, with over one hundred extant early medieval manuscripts containing medical texts, presents a rather different picture than the handful of codices with Old English medical writings.39 Yet, despite the challenges raised by this considerably larger volume of recipe literature, it deserves to be studied in its own right as well as in comparison with the Old English corpus, (late) ancient texts, and later medieval writings.
Although earlier scholarsâ emphasis on the distinctiveness of the Insular medical texts has been revised and the significance of pan-European medical traditions recognised, it is still dangerous to base claims for continental recipe literatureâs practicality primarily on the analyses of the Old English
The second issue raised above, namely, that much recent research on the practicality of recipes begins with the assumption that pharmaceutical writings were naturally intended to be used in therapy, reflects how far the field has moved: this idea stands in stark contrast to the traditional view of Mönchsmedizin, monastic medicine, in which medical writings were understood to be the result of the blind copying of earlier texts. The number of surviving early medieval manuscripts containing medical texts, for example, has
A variety of other features, including signs of wear and tear, the presence of glosses, the lack of theoretical writings, and the size and shape of manuscripts, have also been employed as indications of the use of these texts in medical practice.45 The dimensions and folds of several manuscripts containing recipes considered in this study, such as Paris, BnF lat. 11218 and cod. sang. 217, have been interpreted as evidence of their use by medical practitioners. In the case of BnF lat. 11218, this small, rectangular manuscript dated to the late eighth or early ninth centuries contains a diverse collection of medical and pharmaceutical texts.46 Based on its proportions (23.2 cm x 13.3 cm) and lack of writings on medical theory, it has been described as having âthe appearance of a manual [intended] for practical useâ.47 While the portability of a manuscript does indicate that it could have travelled with easeâand thus could have accompanied a Carolingian medicusâits size cannot be conclusively linked to its deployment in medical contexts. Small volumes may have been made for many reasons entirely unrelated to their use in therapy, such as the constraints of available parchment and other resources. The jump from portability to practicality, moreover, assumes much about how medicine was practised and imagines that a physician-figure would have needed a portable medical guide
Regarding glosses, consider, for example, those in cod. sang. 878, Walahfrid Straboâs vademecum, another manuscript analysed in this study. On p. 333, a number of recipes have been glossed in Old High German, translating many of the ingredients into the vernacular.49 In mixed linguistic communities, this would have been a very practical addition for an individual who was less familiar with Latin. Such glosses, however, could also reflect the manuscriptâs role in teaching vocabulary. Regardless, in this case, they date to the eleventh century and therefore cannot be used to comment on the Carolingian use of these texts. London, bl Harley ms 585, a manuscript containing the Lacnunga, a copy of the Old English Herbarium, and other medical texts, provides a parallel from the Insular world. It has been described as âa complete manual for a physicianâs useâ, which âhas the aspect of a manuscript intended for use, study, and/or referenceâ.50 While its texts do include many recipes and other writings related to therapy, as Katharine Park highlights, the degree to which they were intended for use in the practice of medicine remains unknown, even in manuscripts that that appear âdecidedly practical in orientationâ to a modern reader.51 This final point is crucial: while it is tempting to assume that medical texts that look practical were intended for medical practiceâand then to read all evidence of practical features as supporting this conclusionâit is a circular argument and ignores the possibility that such texts may have been used in other ways.52 While the evidence mobilised in these arguments does confirm the use of these manuscripts, rarely does it pinpoint the specific contexts in which they were read, handled, annotated, and otherwise used. In fact, with respect to the glosses in London, bl Harley ms 585, the comments that most
Studies of cod. sang. 217 paint a similar picture. Based on its âvery practical orientation and simple decorationâ, it has been argued that the manuscript served as the vademecum of an early medieval physician.54 A number of elements, including its a) shape, size, and folds, b) exclusive focus on recipes and bloodletting treatises, c) lack of writings on medical theory, d) simplicity of decoration, and e) signs of wear and tear, support this as a possibility. That is, the evidence suggests that it could have been used in the context of therapy and could have accompanied a practising early medieval medicus. Yet to understand these features as proof of the manuscriptâs use in medical practice assumes that it was designed with this single purpose in mind: the argument presupposes that any signs of use are indicative of its use by a medical practitioner in the context of therapy.55
Instead, as Peregrine Horden emphasises, it is essential to recognise the variety of ways in which medical texts could have been used.56 Although the âsimple preservation of a text for its own sake ⦠should be automatically suspectâ, we should not entirely rule out the possible influence of antiquarian impulses in the drive to copy certain texts.57 Alternatively, some surviving medical manuscripts, such as the richly decorated Vienna Dioscorides, may have been intended as markers of prestige and involved in elite gift exchange.58
Overall, in the process of reclaiming the study of early medieval medicine, historians have, at times, been overly positive in reading the evidence, falling into circular arguments and reaching premature conclusions. Claims regarding the relationship between knowledge and practice that have been built on the idea that a textâs practical adaptations present proof of its consultation in medical practice and, relatedly, that any signs of a manuscriptâs use indicate its use in medical practice, must be reassessed. Although medical texts could have been used in the practice of medicine, it is inappropriate to jump to such a finding without additional evidence. The relationship between knowledge and practice must be interrogated more critically, and that investigation lies at the heart of this book. At the same time, given the past focus on Old English medical texts, further assessment of Carolingian material is particularly needed. As this book demonstrates, a more thorough contextualisation of the manuscript evidence and the analysis of a larger volume of data have significant implications for the question of practicality. The examination of an extensive sample of understudied recipes and recipe collections enables a re-evaluation of the conclusions of earlier research. This investigation begins without presuming that medical texts were exclusively intended for use in medical practice. Rather, that is the question: do recipes provide evidence that can shed light on not only whether they were used but also how they were used? Part 1 tackles
3.3 New Directions in Early Medieval Medical Research
In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of scholars studying early medieval Europe who either specialise in the history of health and medicine or integrate this field into their work on other areas of early medieval history. As a result, early medieval medical history is now being productively connected to a wide range of different subfields, intersecting with and contributing to research in social, cultural, intellectual, political, religious, legal, and environmental history and beyond.61 Among the most important developments have been the diversification of the types of evidence employed in analyses and the drive to explore health as part of medical history.62 The history of medicine, moreover, has traditionally taken a top-down approach that has primarily concentrated on practitionersâand, more specifically, the subset of practitioners who left a written record of their practice (or at least appear in the surviving written record), thereby privileging an elite, western, and male perspective. By concentrating on this limited group of individuals, not only have other types of practitioners been largely ignored, but so, too, have patients. In earlier generations of scholarship, the lack of attention given to patients, their experiences, and the wider cultures of healing in which they
Sources outside of the standard textual corpus are of particular interest and relevance to the study of health and disease in past populations. Genetics, for example, now provides previously unimaginable evidence for tracing the histories of pathogens, while the integration of the osteological record can, as Robin Fleming writes, help historians âto re-animate the historical deadâ.65 Indeed, combinations of multiple lines of written and archaeological evidence
Osteological evidence can provide information about individualsâ diets, living and working conditions, and experiences of injury and disease. Crucially, this source material is not limited to those whose lives are recorded in the texts. The possibility of investigating the health of people who lived in early medieval Europe therefore adds another angle to studying the practice of medicine in this period, and especially the relationship between medical knowledge and practice. Part 2 of this book surveys osteological evidence to gain insights into the health of individuals who lived in the early Middle Ages and then reconsiders the recipe literature from this new perpsective. As Jennifer Davis and Michael McCormick underline, âin the light of archaeological results, the texts must be reanalyzed, and our conventional wisdom, rewrittenâ.68 It is necessary to ask whether skeletal remains preserve evidence of the conditions recorded in the texts. To put it another way, were the treatments listed in eighth- and ninth-century manuscripts applicable to individuals in this period?
It may seem surprising that this book questions the applicability of recipes to the medical needs of individuals in early medieval Europe: a remedy
Although there has traditionally been a ânon-relationship between historians and researchers in more scientific disciplinesâ, historical studies integrating evidence from the archaeological sciences have greatly increased in recent years.71 Scholarship relating to past experiences of and responses to health and
3.4 Summary
As the example of Terenti(an)us revealed, the relationship between medical knowledge and practice in the Carolingian world is far from straightforward and, as the preceding pages have demonstrated, requires further study and critical re-examination. This bookâs dual investigation of the possible practicality and applicability of the medical knowledge recorded in recipes bridge the knowledge-practice divide and provide new perspectives on early medieval medicine. This study, therefore, explores, first, the potential practicality of the recorded knowledge, questioning its useability in the context of therapy rather than presuming an intended use in therapy. That is, do recipes recommend ingredients that could have been sourced in Carolingian Europe? Do recipe collections contain user-friendly features suggestive of their application in medical practice? And secondly, this book investigates whether there is a correlation, a connection, or any overlap between the medical issues recorded in the texts and those seen on skeletons dated to the same period. In other words, is there evidence to suggest that individuals in the early medieval west suffered from the conditions and symptoms described in the texts? These guiding questions consider whether it was possible that those individuals in possession of the recorded medical knowledge could have used the texts in an attempt to treat people during this period. The twin concepts of practicality and applicability thus provide the analytical framework for the book and delineate its use of evidence, with Part 1 a study of practicality and Part 2 an examination of applicability. This dual approach, in conjunction with the examination of a large sample of understudied material, breaks new ground in the field of Carolingian medicine.
4
Before outlining the following chapters, it is essential to address the bookâs chronological positioning. The date range, c. 775â900, covers the âlong ninth centuryâ, from the late eighth century to the cusp of the tenth century. This period has been selected on the basis of the manuscript evidence. While this context is discussed in more detail in the following chapter (and the codices themselves are reviewed in Appendix 1), there are several key features to note with respect to the selection of this timeframe. First, based on the surviving evidence, a burst of manuscript production followed the reforming legislation promulgated by Charlemagneâs court in the late eighth and early ninth centuries; this increase in the written record can be seen across many genres, and, as noted above, medicine is no exception.76 While this intensification of manuscript production has meant that a significantly larger number of codices containing medical writings have survived from this period than the preceding centuries, the selected dates are underpinned by more than the sheer number of extant manuscripts.
Although the concept of a Carolingian ârenaissanceâ has been revised in recent years, the intellectual culture that developed in the wake of the reforms stemming from Charlemagneâs court provides the framework within which the written sources must be understood.77 Despite the fact that, as noted above,
By beginning this study in c. 775, it captures the start of the major increase in manuscript production.80 This upswing not only provides the sources of this book but also documents the evolving intellectual and cultural environment of the Carolingian world, an environment inherently linked to the ecclesiastical and elite networks of the period. The movement of manuscripts and dissemination of knowledge, themes that emerge in Part 1, were dependent on the intellectual, socio-cultural, ecclesiastical, and political dynamics of this period. In the decades after c. 900, changes in these dynamics, including in the intellectual culture of medicine, begin to emerge. Building on the increasing number of medical texts in circulation, scribes and scholars started moving in new directions. A growth in cathedral schools can be seen in France, with centres such as Laon, Chartres, and Reims recorded as places of medical teaching
Determining c. 775 to c. 900 as the bookâs chronological focus thus centres the manuscript sample around the shared cultural and intellectual framework of the Carolingian world while avoiding overlap with new developments in the study and recording of medical knowledge that emerged in the wake of the long ninth century. It must be remembered, however, that the selected dates are guidelines rather than strict boundaries, and manuscripts whose dating has been debated or that contain hands dated beyond this timeframe are discussed further in Appendix 1. The dating of archaeological sites, and the osteological remains found within them, must likewise be approached with some degree of flexibility given that a) many sites were used over a longer period of time than the years considered in this book, and b) much dating is relative rather than exact. The specific challenges presented by this material are considered in Chapter 6.
5
As noted above, this book is divided into two parts, aligning with its dual approach. Part 1 focuses on the textual evidence for practicality. Chapter 2 introduces the investigation into the question of the recipesâ practicality by reviewing the relationship between medical knowledge and practice as documented by the written record and outlining the recipe literature under analysis. Chapters 3â5 each explore a different aspect of the recipe literatureâs practicality, shedding light on these treatmentsâ potential useability in the context of therapy from multiple directions. Chapter 3 traces the introduction (or, in some cases, reintroduction) of materia medica from the east, following the appearance of ingredients such as camphor, musk, and ambergris. Recipes that include these types of exotic products highlight the dynamic nature of this body of knowledge in the Carolingian world and may reflect the practicality of these treatmentsâif only for a very restricted and elite clientele. Chapter 4 then looks at the other end of the spectrum, turning to the appearance of beer and mead (specifically as medus) in medical contexts. The assimilation of these non-classical beverages in medical texts points to the active adaptation of the written record to meet local conditions. While Chapters 3 and 4 concentrate on case studies of ingredients, Chapter 5 examines other features within recipes: units of measurement and the inclusion of instructions for substituting ingredients. By considering how knowledge is presented in recipes, these two aspects explore the practicality of their design, complementing the preceding chaptersâ focus on the possibility of their use via the availability of ingredients. The combination of case studies thus addresses the potential practicality of the recipe sample from a variety of perspectives to reconsider whether this material was intended to be used in medical practice.
Part 2 unites the textual and skeletal evidence to investigate the potential applicability of this body of knowledge. Chapter 6 introduces the process of reconsidering the recipe literature in view of the evidence provided by the osteological record, addressing key conceptual challenges, such as retrospective diagnosis, and outlining the analytical approach to the following case studies. Chapters 7â9 each concentrate on different types of pathologies that have the potential to be recorded in skeletal remains, using palaeopathological reports from excavations of early medieval burials to re-evaluate the texts. More specifically, Chapter 7 examines dental disease, Chapter 8 considers joint diseases, and Chapter 9 focuses on surgery and trauma.
Bringing together the two approaches, Chapter 10 assesses the findings from both Parts 1 and 2. This chapter concludes with a final reflection on the practicality and applicability of the medical knowledge circulating during the
Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen, cod. sang. 759, p. 60: Potio ad podagra que dicitur calapodia quem ego Terentianus accipi⦠Note: manuscripts held in St Gall are paginated not foliated. For a transcription of the entire recipe, see Appendix 2, entry 11.8; on the textual evidence examined in this book, see Chapter 2. Although calopodium, καλοÏÏδιον, can mean âclogâ, the word recorded in the treatment, calapodium, is likely from καÏάÏοÏον, âpillâ, and has undergone some orthographic changes through the process of transmission.
On the identification of âmedical manuscriptsâ as a distinct genre, see Chapter 2; see also Meg Leja, Embodying the Soul: Medicine and Religion in Carolingian Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022), 12â13.
Cod. sang. 751, pp. 489â90. For a transcription of the entire recipe, see Appendix 2, entry 9.38.
Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen), 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998â2014), vol. 3, nos. 5844 and 5846.
Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). On the movement of early medieval manuscripts with medical texts specifically, see Florence Eliza Glaze, âThe Perforated Wall: The Ownership and Circulation of Medical Books in Medieval Europe, ca. 800â1200â (PhD diss., Duke University, 1999), 73â5, 92â8.
At least one additional example of a Terenti(an)us recipe survives: Ernest Wickersheimer recorded another version of the recipe, in this case listed as Potio ad podagram quae dicitur calapodia quem ego Terrentianus accepi, in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (hereafter BnF) lat. 11219. While a selection of recipes in this manuscript are also analysed in the present book, its version of the Terenti(an)us recipe is located within a section of the manuscript that does not form part of the textual sample under consideration; see Chapter 2 for further details. Ernest Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits latins de médecine du haut Moyen Ãge dans les bibliothèques de France (Paris: Ãditions du Centre national de la Recherche scientifique, 1966), no. 77.
Note: three recipe collections included in this study, all located in cod. sang. 44, were transcribed and published in the early twentieth century (see Studien und Texte zur frühmittelalterlichen Rezeptliteratur, ed. Henry E. Sigerist (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1923), 78â99; Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, ed. Julius Jörimann (Zurich: Orell Füssli, 1925), 37â61), while Peter Köpp has published a transcription and translation of a recipe collection I have included from cod. sang. 217 (Vademecum eines frühmittelalterlichen Arztes: Die gefaltete lateinische Handschrift medizinischen Inhalts im Codex 217 und der Fragmentensammlung 1396 der Stiftsbibliothek in St. Gallen, ed. and trans. Peter Köpp (Aarau: Sauerländer, 1980)). I have produced new, revised transcriptions in all cases. More recently, material on one folio (p. 392) within a recipe collection in cod. sang. 751 included in this study was published by RocÃo MartÃnez Prieto (RocÃo MartÃnez Prieto, âA Short Approach to the Analysis of the Textual Tradition of an Extract about Phytotherapy from the Codex Sangallensis 751â, in ii Jornadas Predoctorales en Estudios de la Antigüedad y de la Edad Media. ÎÏá¿Î¼Î± á¼Ï αἰεὶ: el texto como herramienta común para estudiar el pasado: Proceedings of the Second Postgraduate Conference in Studies of Antiquity and Middle Ages, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 19â21st November 2014, ed. Núria Olaya Montero, Manuel Montoza Coca, Alba Aguilera Felipe, and Roser Gómez Guiu (Oxford: bar, 2015), 115â19) and an entire collection in bav pal. lat. 1088 was published by Arsenio Ferraces RodrÃguez after I completed my transcription and analysis of this material (see Arsenio Ferraces RodrÃguez, âUn recetario médico altomedieval (Città del Vaticano, bav, Pal. lat. 1088, ff. 50r-66r): ensayo de edición crÃticaâ, in âCui tali cura vel remedio subveniturâ: De animales y enfermedades en la Edad Media europea, ed. Gerardo Pérez Barcala (Avellino: Edizioni Sinestesie, 2019), 41â80), so these recipes are still included in the present study. In sum, all analyses of the textual selection delineated in Chapter 2 are based on my own transcriptions; see Appendix 2 for specific examples of recipes cited in the text.
For catalogue descriptions of âmiscellaneousâ medical material, see Augusto Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (secoli ix, x e xi) (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956) and Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits. See Chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion of recipe literature and the specific recipes under consideration in this book.
On the development of textual criticism, see Sebastiano Timpanaro, The Genesis of Lachmannâs Method, trans. Glenn W. Most (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Justin Lake, âCurrent Approaches to Medieval Historiographyâ, History Compass 13, no. 3 (2015): 89â109,
Modern editorial and translation projects continue to play an important role in these areas (e.g., the Corpus Christianorum is working to replace the less reliable editions of the Patrologia Latina, and the mgh remains highly active), but they are less prominent than in past generations of scholarship. In contrast, as Vivian Nutton highlights, some of the early editorial enterprises that focused on medical writings, such as Karl Gottlob Kühnâs monumental twenty-volume edition of Galenic works, were medical in purpose rather than philological; see Vivian Nutton, Galen: A Thinking Doctor in Imperial Rome (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020) and Galen, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, ed. K. G. Kühn, 20 vols. (Leipzig: Carl Cnobloch, 1821â33). However, other projects, including the still active Corpus Medicorum Graecorum and Corpus Medicorum Latinorum series, have always focused on philological research.
While it is impossible to do justice to these scholarsâ extensive outputs in a single footnote, significant contributions in recent years include Ars medicinalis de animalibus: Estudio introductorio, edición crÃtica y traducción, ed. and trans. Arsenio Ferraces RodrÃguez (Santiago de Compostela: Andavira Editora, 2016); Arsenio Ferraces RodrÃguez, ed., Tradición griega y textos médicos latinos en el perÃodo presalernitano: actas del viii Coloquio Internacional âTextos Médicos Latinos Antiguosâ (A Coruña, 2â4 septiembre 2004) (La Coruña: Servizio de Publicacións, Universidade da Coruña, 2007), including chapters from Arsenio Ferraces RodrÃguez, Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, MarÃa Teresa SantamarÃa Hernández, and Manuel Enrique Vázquez Buján; Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, âA Most Sovereign Herb: Pseudo-Antonius Musa on Betonyâ, Cuadernos de FilologÃa Clásica. Estudios griegos e indoeuropeos 30 (2020): 131â48,
Faith Wallis, âThe Experience of the Book: Manuscripts, Texts, and the Role of Epistemology in Early Medieval Medicineâ, in Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions, ed. Don G. Bates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 101â26, at p. 102.
Wallis, âThe Experience of the Bookâ, 102.
Eric Knibbs, âHow to Use Modern Critical Editions of Medieval Latin Textsâ. History Compass 5, no. 5 (2007): 1521â49,
Wallis, âThe Experience of the Bookâ, 102; Monica H. Green, âMoving from Philology to Social History: The Circulation and Uses of Albucasisâs Latin Surgery in the Middle Agesâ, in Between Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Florence Eliza Glaze and Brian K. Nance (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011), 331â72.
Indeed, a drive to centre manuscriptsâwhich has surely been augmented by the increasing number of libraries and archives that are digitising and making their manuscript collections freely available onlineâcan be felt across many subfields within early medieval history. See, for example, Carine van Rhijn, Leading the Way to Heaven: Pastoral Care and Salvation in the Carolingian Period (London: Routledge, 2022); Monique Goullet, Martin Heinzelmann, and Christiane Veyrard-Cosme, eds., Lâhagiographie mérovingienne à travers ses réécritures (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2010); Alice Rio, Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle Ages: Frankish Formulae, 500â1000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); and Rosamond McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). On the impact of digitisation projects, see, for example, Benjamin Albritton, Georgia Henley, and Elaine Treharne, eds., Medieval Manuscripts in the Digital Age (London: Routledge, 2021).
Anna Grotans, Julian Hendrix, and Bernice Kaczynski. âUnderstanding Medieval Manuscripts: St. Gallâs Virtual Libraryâ. History Compass 7, no. 3 (2009): 955â80,
For editions and the categorisation of texts, see Sabbah, Corsetti, and Fischer, btml; Fischer, btml 1; Fischer, btml 2; and Fischer, btml 3 as well as Beccaria, I codici and Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits.
On the emphasis on classical and late antique medical writings in earlier research, see, for example, the publications of the cml, including Celsus, A. Cornelii Celsii quae supersunt, ed. Friedrich Marx, cml 1 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1915); Quintus Serenus, Liber medicinalis, ed. F. Vollmer, cml 2 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1916); Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur De medicina libri tres, ed. Alf Ãnnerfors, cml 3 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964); Antonii Musae De herba vettonica liber. Pseudoapulei Herbarius. Anonymi De taxone liber. Sextii Placiti Liber medicinae ex animalibus etc., ed. Ernst Howald and Henry E. Sigerist, cml 4 (Leipzig; Teubner, 1927); Marcellus, De medicamentis liber, ed. Eduard Liechtenhan and Maximilian Niedermann, trans. Jutta Kollesch and Diethard Nickel, cml 5, 2 vols. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1968); Caelius Aurelianus, Celerum Passionum Libri iii. Tardarum Passionum Libri v, ed. Gerhard Bendz, trans. Ingeborg Pape, cml 6, 2 vols. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1990â93); and Anthimus, De observatione ciborum ad Theodoricum regem Francorum epistula, ed. and trans. Eduard Liechtenhan, cml 8 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963). On early exceptions, see Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist; Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, ed. Jörimann.
Arsenio Ferraces RodrÃguez, âReutilización de fuentes en recetarios médicos de la antigüedad tardÃa: Teodoro Prisciano-Teraupetica-Tereopericaâ, Acta Classica: Proceedings of the Classical Association of South Africa 64, no. 1 (2021): 212â36; Arsenio Ferraces RodrÃguez, âEl recetario Ut pili evulsi non recrescant (Paris, bnf, Lat. 13955, ff. 146r-147v)â, Galenos 5 (2011): 71â90; Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, âTwo Latin Pre-Salernitan medical manuals, the Liber passionalis and the Tereoperica (Ps. Petroncellus)â, in Medical Books in the Byzantine World, ed. Barbara Zipser (Bologna: Università di Bologna, 2013), 35â56; and Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, âAntidotum cui nomen est acharistumâ, in Between Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Florence Eliza Glaze and Brian K. Nance (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011), 173â99.
Das âLorscher Arzneibuchâ: Ein medizinisches Kompendium des 8. Jahrhunderts (Codex Bambergensis medicinalis 1): Text, Ãbersetzung und Fachglossar, ed. and trans. Ulrich Stoll (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992); Vademecum eines frühmittelalterlichen Arztes, ed. and trans. Köpp; and Der St. Galler Botanicus: Ein frühmittelalterliches Herbar: Kritische Edition, Ãbersetzung und Kommentar, ed. and trans. Monica Niederer (Bern: Peter Lang, 2005).
Loren C. MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine, With Special Reference to France and Chartres (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1937). For overviews of Carolingian history and culture, and the conspicuous absence of health and medicine from these works, see, for example, Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean, The Carolingian World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Rosamond McKitterick, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History ii, c. 700-c. 900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751â987 (London: Longman, 1983); and Joanna Story, ed., Charlemagne: Empire and Society (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005). Michael McCormickâs contribution to The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies is a notable exception: Michael McCormick, âMolecular Middle Ages: Early Medieval Economic History in the Twenty-First Centuryâ, in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 83â97.
Meg Leja, âThe Sacred Art: Medicine in the Carolingian Renaissanceâ, Viator 47, no. 2 (2016): 1â34,
Vivian Nutton, âEarly Medieval Medicine and Natural Scienceâ, in The Cambridge History of Science 2: Medieval Science, ed. David C. Lindberg and Michael H. Shank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 323â40, at p. 336.
MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine, 99; Peregrine Horden, âWhatâs Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?â Social History of Medicine 24, no. 1 (2011): 5â25,
See, for example, the general assessments of late antique medicine in Vivian Nutton, âFrom Galen to Alexander, Aspects of Medicine and Medical Practice in Late Antiquityâ, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984): 1â14,
Peter van Minnen, âMedical care in late antiquityâ, in Ancient Medicine in Its Socio-Cultural Context, Volume 1: Papers Read at the Congress Held at Leiden University, 13â15 April 1992, ed. H. F. J. Horstmanshoff, Philip J. van der Eijk, and P. H. Schrijvers (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995), 153â169, at p. 153.
While many earlier historians may have viewed medieval medical writings simply as witnesses to the blind copying of older sources, others went further, comparing early medieval pharmacy to the potion produced by the witches in Macbeth and even labelling some material as âabsurd and childishâ; Charles Singer, âA Review of the Medical Literature of the Dark Ages, with a New Text of about 1110â, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 10 (1917): 107â60, see especially pp. 158â60. Similar views are espoused in J. H. G. Grattan and Charles Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine: Illustrated Specially from the Semi-Pagan Text Lacnunga (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952). On the development of these perceptions, see Medieval Herbal Remedies: The Old English Herbarium and Anglo-Saxon Medicine, trans. Anne Van Arsdall (New York: Routledge, 2002), 35â100.
On general Carolingian histories, see n. 23 above. For an overview of western medical history, and the relatively limited space given to early medieval medicine, see Lawrence I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter, and Andrew Wear, The Western Medical Tradition: 800 bc to ad 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). For medicine in the ancient world, see especially Nutton, Ancient Medicine; and for later medieval medicine, see, for example, Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1990); Monica H. Green, âBodies, Gender, Health, Disease: Recent Work on Medieval Womenâs Medicineâ, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3 (2005): 1â46; Michael R. McVaugh, Medicine before the Plague: Practitioners and their Patients in the Crown of Aragon, 1285â1345 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Michael McVaugh, The Rational Surgery of the Middle Ages (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2006); and Piers D. Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades: Warfare, Wounds and the Medieval Surgeon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). These titles offer only a fraction of the available scholarship on these topics.
See, for example, MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine; Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist; Henry E. Sigerist, âA Summer of Research in European Librariesâ, Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 2, no. 10 (1934): 559â610; Henry E. Sigerist, âThe Latin Medical Literature of the Early Middle Agesâ, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 13, no. 2 (1958): 127â45.
Studien und Texte, ed. Sigerist, iii-v and 182â95.
On medieval medicine and popular culture, see Lucy Barnhouse and Winston Black, eds., Beyond Cadfael: Medieval Medicine and Medical Medievalism (Budapest: Trivent Publishing, 2023).
See, for example, John M. Riddle, âThe Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs in the Early Middle Agesâ, Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften 49, no. 2 (1965): 185â98; John M. Riddle, âTheory and Practice in Medieval Medicineâ. Viator 5 (1974): 157â84,
Horden, âWhatâs Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?â, 6.
Voigts, âAnglo-Saxon Plant Remediesâ. On medieval herbals more generally, see Minta Collins, Medieval Herbals: The Illustrative Traditions (London: British Library, 2000) and on the Old English Herbarium, see Maria Amalia DâAronco and Malcolm L. Cameron, The Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1998) and Medieval Herbal Remedies, trans. Van Arsdall.
M. L. Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); M. L. Cameron, âAnglo-Saxon Medicine and Magicâ, Anglo-Saxon England 17 (1988): 191â215; Anne Van Arsdall, âChallenging the âEye of Newtâ Image of Medieval Medicineâ, in The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice, ed. Barbara Bowers (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 195â205; Anne Van Arsdall, âThe Transmission of Knowledge in Early Medieval Medical Texts: An Explorationâ, in Between Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Florence Eliza Glaze and Brian K. Nance (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011), 201â15; Maria Amalia DâAronco, âAnglo-Saxon Plant Pharmacy and the Latin Medical Traditionâ, in From Earth to Art: The Many Aspects of the Plant-World in Anglo-Saxon England. Proceedings of the First aspns Symposium, University of Glasgow, 5â7 April 2000, ed. C. P. Biggam (Amsterdam: Rodopi: 2003), 133â51; Maria Amalia DâAronco, âThe Transmission of Medical Knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England: The Voices of Manuscriptsâ, in Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-Saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence: Papers Presented at the International Conference, Udine, 6â8 April 2006, ed. Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Maria Amalia DâAronco (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 35â58; Medieval Herbal Remedies, trans. Van Arsdall; Audrey Meaney, âThe Practice of Medicine in England about the Year 1000â, Social History of Medicine 13, no. 2 (2000): 221â37,
Horden, âWhatâs Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?â, 6. The major surviving recipe collections in Old English include three Leechbooks (Baldâs Leechbook i and ii as well as Leechbook iii), the Lacnunga, and translations/adaptations of several late antique Latin recipe collections.
On the numbers of surviving manuscripts, see Beccaria, I codici and Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits; the former includes 158 manuscripts produced between the ninth and eleventh centuries while the latter, which only focuses on manuscripts held in French collections, gives 119 manuscripts for the same period. Both catalogues, however, are in need of revision and the Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine (cemlm, formerly the Beyond Beccaria Project (2020â23)), a British Academy-funded cataloging project (
On pan-European traditions, see Gundolf Keil and Paul Schnitzer, eds., Das Lorscher Arzneibuch und die frühmittelalterliche Medizin: Verhandlungen des medizinhistorischen Symposiums im September 1989 in Lorsch (Lorsch: Laurissa, 1991); Medieval Herbal Remedies, trans. Van Arsdall, 68â100; Riddle, âTheory and Practiceâ. On the Latin sources of Old English medical writings, see Conan T. Doyle, The Reception of Latin Medicine in Anglo-Saxon England: Evidence from Old English Medical Texts (York: York Medieval Press, forthcoming).
Glaze, âThe Perforated Wallâ, 5â6.
Faith Wallis, âSigns and Senses: Diagnosis and Prognosis in Early Medieval Pulse and Urine Textsâ, Social History of Medicine 13, no. 2 (2000): 265â78,
Van Arsdall, âThe Transmission of Knowledgeâ, 210.
Nutton, âEarly Medieval Medicine and Natural Scienceâ, 336.
Voigts, âAnglo-Saxon Plant Remediesâ; Riddle, âTheory and Practiceâ; Bernhard Bischoff, âÃber gefaltete Handschriften, vornehmlich hagiographischen Inhaltsâ, in Mittelalterliche Studien. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, ed. Bernhard Bischoff, vol. 1 (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1966), 93â100, at p. 99; Horden, âWhatâs Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?â, 10 and 16.
Beccaria, I codici, no. 34: âIl volume, che nelle proporzioni ha lâaspetto di un manuale per lâuso practicoâ (p. 161).
All surviving records of a term for a professional medical practitioner are masculine (medicus), though the possibility of female healers with access to medical texts should not be automatically discounted. See also Leja, Embodying the Soul, 137.
Emil Elias von Steinmeyer and Eduard Sievers, Die althochdeutschen Glossen. 5 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1879â1922), vol. 4, 455.
DâAronco, âThe Transmission of Medical Knowledgeâ, 50.
Katharine Park, âMedicine and Society in Medieval Europe, 500â1500â, in Medicine in Society: Historical Essays, ed. Andrew Wear (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 59â90, at p. 66.
Peregrine Horden, âPrefatory Note: The Uses of Medical Manuscriptsâ, in Medical Books in the Byzantine World, ed. Barbara Zipser (Bologna: Università di Bologna, 2013), 1â6.
DâAronco, âThe Transmission of Medical Knowledgeâ, 52.
Clare Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy: More to Life than Leeches? (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 81. On the interpretation of the manuscriptâs use, see the studies by Monica Niederer and Peter Köpp: Der St. Galler Botanicus, ed. and trans. Niederer (see especially pp. 9â23, 51â61); Vademecum eines frühmittelalterlichen Arztes, ed. and trans. Köpp (see especially pp. 12â13). The manuscript itself is discussed further in Chapter 2.
Despite reiterating many of the standard views regarding the use of cod. sang. 217, Clare Pilsworth also cautions against assuming that medical texts were intended exclusively for use in therapy and extends the discussion of manuscriptsâ potential to be used in multiple ways based on her analysis of Modena, Archivio Capitolare, O.I.11: Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy, 81â93.
Horden, âPrefatory Noteâ, 1â6. See also Horden, âWhatâs Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?â, 5â25.
Horden, âPrefatory Noteâ, 4.
Vienna, Ãsterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Med. gr. 1. On this manuscript, see, for example, Leslie Brubaker, âThe Vienna Dioskorides and Anicia Julianaâ, in Byzantine Garden Culture, ed. Antony Robert Littlewood, Henry Maguire, and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 189â214 and Ernst Gamillscheg, âDas Geschenk für Juliana Anicia: Ãberlegungen zur Struktur und Entstehung des Wiener Dioskuridesâ, in Byzantina Mediterranea. Festschrift für Johannes Koder zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Klaus Belke, Ewald Kislinger, Andreas Külzer, and Maria A. Stassinopoulou (Vienna: Böhlau, 2007), 187â95. On illustrated herbals, see Collins, Medieval Herbals. See also Monica Greenâs compelling argument regarding the advertising purposes of deluxe, illustrated surgical treatises in Green, âMoving from Philology to Social Historyâ.
Horden, âPrefatory Noteâ, 4; Glaze, âThe Perforated Wallâ, 103.
Horden, âPrefatory Noteâ, 1â6. Faith Wallis also links the arrangement of manuscripts to the context of education, connecting âthe transmission of texts through florilegiaâ to medical training; Wallis, âThe Experience of the Bookâ, 106. On medicineâs place within a general education, see James T. Palmer, âMerovingian Medicine between Practical Art and Philosophyâ, Traditio (forthcoming).
For connections between medicine and other subfields of Carolingian history, see, for example, Leja, Embodying the Soul; Zubin Mistry, Abortion in the Early Middle Ages, c. 500â900 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015); Palmer, âMerovingian Medicineâ; and Faith Wallis, âMedicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscriptsâ, in Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine, ed. Margaret R. Schleissner (London: Garland, 1995), 105â43. For more focused assessments of health and disease, medicine, and medical practitioners in early medieval Europe, see, for example, Timothy P. Newfield, âMalaria and Malaria-like Disease in the Early Middle Agesâ, Early Medieval Europe 25, no. 3 (2017): 251â300,
On the increasing range of evidence and methodologies available to historians, see McCormick, âMolecular Middle Agesâ. On the history of health vs. the history of medicine, see, for example, Monica H. Green, ââHistory of Medicineâ or âHistory of Healthâ?â, Past and Future: The Magazine of the Institute of Historical Research 9 (2011): 7â9.
Monica H. Green, âGendering the History of Womenâs Healthcareâ, Gender & History 20, no. 3 (2008): 487â518,
On Wintar, see Heiric of Auxerre, Miracula S. Germani 86, pl 124, cols. 1207â72, at col.1248B and Eigil of Fulda, Vita Sturmi 25, in Eigil of Fulda, Die Vita Sturmi des Eigil von Fulda: Literarkritisch-historische Untersuchung und Edition, ed. Pius Engelbert (Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 1968), 161. On Zedechias, see the Annales Bertiniani, ed. G. Waitz, mgh ss Rer. Germ. 5 (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), 136â7 (note: his name recorded as âSedechiasâ) and The Annals of St-Bertin, trans. Janet L. Nelson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 202. For examples of medici named in charters, see Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy and Skinner, Health and Medicine in Early Medieval Southern Italy. On doctors in early medieval law codes, see Lisi Oliver, The Body Legal in Barbarian Law (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011).
Maria A. Spyrou, Kirsten I. Bos, Alexander Herbig, and Johannes Krause, âAncient pathogen genomics as an emerging tool for infectious disease researchâ, Nature Reviews Genetics 20 (2019): 323â40,
Paolo Squatriti, Landscape and Change in Early Medieval Italy: Chestnuts, Economy, and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Paolo Squatriti, Weeds and the Carolingians: Empire, Culture, and Nature in Frankish Europe, ad 750â900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022); Jamie Kreiner, Legions of Pigs in the Early Medieval West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020); and Caroline Goodson, Cultivating the City in Early Medieval Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
McCormick, âMolecular Middle Agesâ, 90. See also Raphaël G. A. M Panhuysen, âDemography and Health in Early Medieval Maastricht: Prosopographical Observations on Two Cemeteriesâ (Diss., Universiteit Maastricht, 2005), 10â12.
Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick, âThe Early Middle Ages: Europeâs Long Morningâ, in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 1â10, at p. 5.
Take, for example, Vivian Nuttonâs comment on the content of early medieval medical manuscripts: âmost medical manuscripts before 1100 are largely recipe lists, often well organized and well suited to the needs of the communityâ; Nutton, âEarly Medieval Medicine and Natural Scienceâ, 335.
Horden, âWhatâs Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?â, 19.
Fleming, âWriting Biographyâ, 614. For an overview, see McCormick, âMolecular Middle Agesâ, and for a sample of the current diversity of research areas uniting evidence from archaeological sciences with traditional historical sources, see, for example, A. Radini, M. Tromp, A. Beach, E. Tong, C. Speller, M. McCormick, J. V. Dudgeon, et al., âMedieval womenâs early involvement in manuscript production suggested by lapis lazuli identification in dental calculusâ, Science Advances 5, no. 1 (2019),
Monica H. Green, âA New Definition of the Black Death: Genetic Findings and Historical Interpretationsâ, De Medio Aevo 11, no. 2 (2022): 139â55,
Piers D. Mitchell, âPalaeopathology of the Crusadesâ, in Crusader Landscapes in the Medieval Levant: The Archaeology and History of the Latin East, ed. Micaela Sinibaldi, Kevin J. Lewis, Balázs Major, and Jennifer A. Thompson (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2016), 349â59; Piers D. Mitchell, âImproving the Use of Historical Written Sources in Paleopathologyâ, International Journal of Paleopathology 19 (2017): 88â95,
E.g., Simon Mays, âA Biomechanical Study of Activity Patterns in a Medieval Human Skeletal Assemblageâ, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 9, no. 1 (1999): 68â73,
Clare Pilsworthâs chapter on diet and health within her study of healthcare in early medieval northern Italy offers one such exception: Pilsworth, Healthcare in Early Medieval Northern Italy, 47â72, see especially pp. 68â71 for the section on joint diseases and fractures, âJoint Conditions and Fractures in the Osteo-Archaeological Evidenceâ.
On the extant medical manuscripts see Beccaria, I codici and Wickersheimer, Les manuscrits. On medical texts listed in Carolingian library catalogues, see Glaze, âThe Perforated Wallâ, 268â71. On writing and manuscript production in the Carolingian period, see McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word and Rosamond McKitterick, âEighth-Century Foundationsâ, in The New Cambridge Medieval History ii, c. 700-c. 900, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 681â94. James Palmer, however, highlights the need for caution when comparing numbers of surviving manuscripts, especially with respect to medicine; see Palmer, âMerovingian Medicineâ and, on the shift from papyrus to parchment, see Dario Internullo, âDu papyrus au parchemin. Les origines médiévales de la mémoire archivistique en Europe occidentaleâ, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 74, nos. 3â4 (2019): 523â57,
Much has been written about the related topics of reform, manuscript production, and literacy in the Carolingian world; for a sample of the range of assessments of the Carolingian ârenaissanceâ in recent decades, see Giles Brown, âIntroduction: The Carolingian Renaissanceâ, in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1â51; Rosamond McKitterick, âThe Carolingian Renaissance of Culture and Learningâ, in Charlemagne: Empire and Society, ed. Joanna Story (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 151â66; van Rhijn, Leading the Way to Heaven; Carine van Rhijn, âManuscripts for local priests and the Carolingian Reformsâ, in Men in the Middle: Local Priests in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 177â98; Carine van Rhijn, âCharlemagneâs correctio: A Local Perspectiveâ, in Charlemagne: les temps, les espaces, les hommes. Construction et déconstruction dâun règne, ed. Rolf Grosse and Michel Sot (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), 43â59; Janet L. Nelson, âRevisiting the Carolingian Renaissanceâ, in Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown, ed. Jamie Kreiner and Helmut Reimitz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 331â46; Rutger Kramer, âMonasticism, Reform, and Authority in the Carolingian Eraâ, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, ed. Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 432â49; and Rutger Kramer, Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire: Ideals and Expectations during the Reign of Louis the Pious (813â828) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019).
Leja, Embodying the Soul; Leja, âThe Sacred Artâ.
Leja, Embodying the Soul; Wallis, âMedicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscriptsâ; and Claire Burridge, âHealing Body and Soul in Early Medieval Europe: Medical Remedies with Christian Elementsâ, Studies in Church History 58 (2022): 46â67,
See n. 76 above.
Loren C. MacKinney, âTenth-Century Medicine as Seen in the Historia of Richer of Rheimsâ, Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 2, no. 6 (1934): 347â75; Park, âMedicine and Societyâ, 66â7; Nutton, âEarly Medieval Medicine and Natural Scienceâ, 337; Florence Eliza Glaze, âMaster-Student Medical Dialogues: The Evidence of London, British Library, Sloane 2839â, in Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-Saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence: Papers Presented at the International Conference, Udine, 6â8 April 2006, ed. Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Maria Amalia DâAronco (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 467â94.
Wallis, âThe Experience of the Bookâ, 119.
Florence Eliza Glaze, âGariopontus and the Salernitans: Textual Traditions in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuriesâ, in La Collectio Salernitana di Salvatore De Renzi. Convegno internazionale, Università degli Studi di Salerno, 18â19 giugno 2007, ed. Danielle Jacquart and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Florence: sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2008), 149â90; regarding developments in Cassinese manuscripts, I have also benefitted from hearing Glazeâs papers at several conferences, including âThe Confluence of Latin, Byzantine, and Arabic Pharmacy: Southern Italy c. 1050â1150 ceâ, a paper delivered at âDrugs in the Medieval World (ca. 1050-ca. 1400)â (Kingâs College London, 7 December 2018).
Park, âMedicine and Societyâ, 70.