Charms and prayers in medieval medical theory and practice

Social History of Medicine

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 343-366

  Olsan, Lea T ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA AT MONROE   (United States)

Author keywords

Arderne; Charm; Empirica; Experimenta; Fayreford; Gaddesden; Gilbertus; Magic; Medicine; Prayer

Indexed keywords

EID: 3843114284     PISSN: 0951631X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/shm/16.3.343     Document Type: Review

References (134)

1. On 'Gilbertus de Aquila, Anglicus', see F. Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages (Princeton, 1998), pp. 39-41, and her Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle. English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus (Madison, 1991), pp. liii-lvi. See also C. H. Talbot and E. A. Hammond, The Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register (London, 1965), pp. 58-60; R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), p. 144 lists 22 Latin manuscripts of the Compendium medicinae dating from 1271 to 1400. have used the printed edition, Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510).
2. On 'Gilbertus de Aquila, Anglicus', see F. Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages (Princeton, 1998), pp. 39-41, and her Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle. English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus (Madison, 1991), pp. liii-lvi. See also C. H. Talbot and E. A. Hammond, The Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register (London, 1965), pp. 58-60; R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), p. 144 lists 22 Latin manuscripts of the Compendium medicinae dating from 1271 to 1400. have used the printed edition, Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510).
3. On 'Gilbertus de Aquila, Anglicus', see F. Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages (Princeton, 1998), pp. 39-41, and her Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle. English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus (Madison, 1991), pp. liii-lvi. See also C. H. Talbot and E. A. Hammond, The Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register (London, 1965), pp. 58-60; R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), p. 144 lists 22 Latin manuscripts of the Compendium medicinae dating from 1271 to 1400. have used the printed edition, Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510).
4. On 'Gilbertus de Aquila, Anglicus', see F. Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages (Princeton, 1998), pp. 39-41, and her Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle. English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus (Madison, 1991), pp. liii-lvi. See also C. H. Talbot and E. A. Hammond, The Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register (London, 1965), pp. 58-60; R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), p. 144 lists 22 Latin manuscripts of the Compendium medicinae dating from 1271 to 1400. have used the printed edition, Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510).
5. On 'Gilbertus de Aquila, Anglicus', see F. Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages (Princeton, 1998), pp. 39-41, and her Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle. English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus (Madison, 1991), pp. liii-lvi. See also C. H. Talbot and E. A. Hammond, The Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register (London, 1965), pp. 58-60; R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), p. 144 lists 22 Latin manuscripts of the Compendium medicinae dating from 1271 to 1400. have used the printed edition, Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510).
6. Talbot and Hammond, Medical Practitioners, p. 60.
7. See Getz, Medicine, p. 112, n. 41. The Middle English translation reads 'I haue taken litel of emperykes and of charmes, of the which thinges plente is founden in Gilbertyn and in Thesauro Pauperum', in M. Ogden (ed.), The Cyryrgie of Guy de Chauliac (London and New York, 1971), pp. 533-4.
8. See Getz, Medicine, p. 112, n. 41. The Middle English translation reads 'I haue taken litel of emperykes and of charmes, of the which thinges plente is founden in Gilbertyn and in Thesauro Pauperum', in M. Ogden (ed.), The Cyryrgie of Guy de Chauliac (London and New York, 1971), pp. 533-4.
9. F. M. Getz, 'The Faculty of Medicine before 1500', in The History of the University of Oxford, vol. II, J. Catto and R. Evans (eds), Late Medieval Oxford (Oxford, 1992), 373-405, pp. 390-1.
10. A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to 1500, 3 vols, vol. II (Oxford, 1958), p. 739.
11. Talbot and Hammond, Medical Practitioners, pp. 148-50.
12. An exact date of completion has not been determined. Gaddesden says in his introduction to the Rosa medicinae, 'quia omnia hic dicta ego Johannes de Gatisden septimo anno lecture mee compilavi', as quoted in T. Hunt, Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-century England: Introduction and Texts (Woodbridge, 1990), p. 28.
13. An exact date of completion has not been determined. Gaddesden says in his introduction to the Rosa medicinae, 'quia omnia hic dicta ego Johannes de Gatisden septimo anno lecture mee compilavi', as quoted in T. Hunt, Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-century England: Introduction and Texts (Woodbridge, 1990), p. 28.
14. Talbot and Hammond, Medical Practitioners, p. 149.
15. 'Et sicut rosa excellit omnes flores, ita iste liber excellit omnes practicas medicine, quia erit pro pauperibus et divitibus sirurgicis et medicis, de quo non oportet multum recurrere ad alios libros, quia hic videlicet satis de morbis curabilibus in speciali et videbitur in generali', in the earliest printed edition, Johannes de Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica practica medicinae (Pavia, 1492), fol. 1r. [This printed edition is cited hereafter as 'Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica'.]
16. L. D. Benson (ed.), The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn (Boston, 1987), p. 30.
17. For a list of 13 MSS containing the Rosa medicinae, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, p. 349, n. 181. He lists four printed editions of the Rosa in 1492, 1502, 1517, and 1595.
18. Few facts are certain. See P. M. Jones, 'Four Middle English Translations of John of Arderne', in A. J. Minnis (ed.), Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1989), 61-89, p. 64; idem, 'John Arderne and the Mediterranean Tradition of Scholastic Surgery', in L. García-Ballester et al., Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death (Cambridge, 1994), 289-321. H. E. Ussery, Chaucer's Physician: Medicine and Literature in Fourteenth-Century England, Tulane Studies in English, XIX (New Orleans, 1971), pp. 60-9, weighs the evidence for earlier speculations.
19. Few facts are certain. See P. M. Jones, 'Four Middle English Translations of John of Arderne', in A. J. Minnis (ed.), Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1989), 61-89, p. 64; idem, 'John Arderne and the Mediterranean Tradition of Scholastic Surgery', in L. García-Ballester et al., Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death (Cambridge, 1994), 289-321. H. E. Ussery, Chaucer's Physician: Medicine and Literature in Fourteenth-Century England, Tulane Studies in English, XIX (New Orleans, 1971), pp. 60-9, weighs the evidence for earlier speculations.
20. Few facts are certain. See P. M. Jones, 'Four Middle English Translations of John of Arderne', in A. J. Minnis (ed.), Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1989), 61-89, p. 64; idem, 'John Arderne and the Mediterranean Tradition of Scholastic Surgery', in L. García-Ballester et al., Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death (Cambridge, 1994), 289-321. H. E. Ussery, Chaucer's Physician: Medicine and Literature in Fourteenth-Century England, Tulane Studies in English, XIX (New Orleans, 1971), pp. 60-9, weighs the evidence for earlier speculations.
21. See Jones, 'Four Middle English Translations', pp. 65-7, on the contents distinguished by these titles.
22. British Library (hereafter BL), MS Sloane 56 and BL, MS Additional 29,301. For a list of 14 manuscripts containing the Liber and the Practica, see Sharpe, Handlist, pp. 202-4.
23. Two charms against bleeding and one against thieves added on the last folio of BL, MS Additional 29,301 are not Arderne's, but are added to his book. The charms against thieves are printed in S. E. Sheldon [Parnell], 'Middle English and Latin Charms, Amulets, and Talismans from Vernacular Manuscripts' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Tulane University, 1978), pp. 133, 135.
24. For a full account of Fayreford's book, see P. M. Jones, 'Thomas Fayreford: An English Fifteenth-century Medical Practitioner', in R. French, J. Arrizabalaga, A. Cunningham, and L. García-Ballester (eds), Medicine from the Black Death to the French Disease (Aldershot, 1998), 156-83, and P. M. Jones, 'Harley MS 2558: A Fifteenth-Century Commonplace Book', in M. M. Schleissner (ed.), Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays (New York and London, 1995), 35-54.
25. For a full account of Fayreford's book, see P. M. Jones, 'Thomas Fayreford: An English Fifteenth-century Medical Practitioner', in R. French, J. Arrizabalaga, A. Cunningham, and L. García-Ballester (eds), Medicine from the Black Death to the French Disease (Aldershot, 1998), 156-83, and P. M. Jones, 'Harley MS 2558: A Fifteenth-Century Commonplace Book', in M. M. Schleissner (ed.), Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays (New York and London, 1995), 35-54.
26. Jones, 'Thomas Fayreford', p. 178.
27. Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 9308 is dated 1400 by Jayne Ringrose of the Cambridge University Library.
28. For various kinds of fevers, the 'Leechcraft' includes 5 remedies with prayers or charms, while Fayreford includes 2; for toothache, 'Leechcraft' gives 2, Fayreford, 6; to stop various kinds of bleeding, 'Leechcraft' gives 4, Fayreford, 7; for difficulties in childbirth, 'Leechcraft' gives 1, Fayreford, 3; for epilepsy/falling sickness, 'Leechcraft' gives 1, Fayreford, 5, etc. 'Leechcraft', unlike Fayreford, does not give charms or prayers for poison, spasm, or gout, but offers charms for sleep, ear worm, and against thieves.
29. On how various kinds of medical books relate to the theory and practice of medicine, see J. Ajgrimi and C. Crisciani, Edocere Medicos: Medicina scolastica nei secoli XIII-XV (Napoli, 1988), ch. VI.
30. P. M. Jones suggested that Fayreford may have written his book for his heir (e-mail, 1 August 2002).
31. On the variety in the genre of scholastic texts produced between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, see C. Crisciani, 'History, Novelty, and Progress in Scholastic Medicine", Osiris, 2nd ser., 6 (1990), 118-39.
32. For a good general explanation of this concept, see L. Daston and K. Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750 (New York, 1998), p. 127.
33. For a detailed analysis of the relationship of the 'particular' to experimentum, see J. Agrimi and C. Crisciani, 'Per una ricerca su experimentum-experimenta: Riflessione epistemologica e tradizione medica (secoli XIII-XV)', in P. Janni and I. Mazzini (eds), Presenza del lessico greco e latino nelle lingue contemporanee: ciclo di lezioni tenute all'Università di Macerata nell'a.a. 1987-8 (Macerata, 1990), 9-49, pp. 11-12.
34. Ibid., p. 27; Daston and Park, Wanders, pp. 122-6, discuss the theological and philosophical problems related to 'wonder'.
35. Ibid., p. 27; Daston and Park, Wanders, pp. 122-6, discuss the theological and philosophical problems related to 'wonder'.
36. Agrimi and Crisciani, 'Per un ricerca su experimentum-experimenta', p. 13.
37. In the texts under consideration, the discrimination between experimenta and empirica is not so careful as that described in Crisciani, 'History, Novelty, and Progress', p. 130.
38. 'Charm' translates carmen, which is the usual heading found in Latin medical recipe books, house-hold miscellanies, commonplace books, and medical compendia for treatments employing words. They may be spoken as in a performative speech act, written on the body, on foods or over drinks, or on amuletic objects, or parchment carried by the patient. Often they are accompanied by ritual gestures and prayers. For a general discussion of charms and magic in the late medieval period, see R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 56-90; for a recent survey of English charms, see G. R. Keiser, 'Charms', in A. E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, x, Works of Science and Information (New Haven, 1998), pp. 3669-76, 3863-82; for charms from English manuscripts, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, and Sheldon [Parnell], 'Middle English and Latin Charms'. On Latin charms, see E. Bozoki, 'Mythic Mediation in Healing Incantations', in S. Campbell (ed.), Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture (New York, 1992), 84-92 and L. Olsan, 'Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition', Oral Tradition, 7 (1992), 116-42. On charms from Eastern Europe, see W. R. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (Stroud, 1999), pp. 164-216.
39. 'Charm' translates carmen, which is the usual heading found in Latin medical recipe books, house-hold miscellanies, commonplace books, and medical compendia for treatments employing words. They may be spoken as in a performative speech act, written on the body, on foods or over drinks, or on amuletic objects, or parchment carried by the patient. Often they are accompanied by ritual gestures and prayers. For a general discussion of charms and magic in the late medieval period, see R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 56-90; for a recent survey of English charms, see G. R. Keiser, 'Charms', in A. E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, x, Works of Science and Information (New Haven, 1998), pp. 3669-76, 3863-82; for charms from English manuscripts, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, and Sheldon [Parnell], 'Middle English and Latin Charms'. On Latin charms, see E. Bozoki, 'Mythic Mediation in Healing Incantations', in S. Campbell (ed.), Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture (New York, 1992), 84-92 and L. Olsan, 'Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition', Oral Tradition, 7 (1992), 116-42. On charms from Eastern Europe, see W. R. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (Stroud, 1999), pp. 164-216.
40. 'Charm' translates carmen, which is the usual heading found in Latin medical recipe books, house-hold miscellanies, commonplace books, and medical compendia for treatments employing words. They may be spoken as in a performative speech act, written on the body, on foods or over drinks, or on amuletic objects, or parchment carried by the patient. Often they are accompanied by ritual gestures and prayers. For a general discussion of charms and magic in the late medieval period, see R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 56-90; for a recent survey of English charms, see G. R. Keiser, 'Charms', in A. E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, x, Works of Science and Information (New Haven, 1998), pp. 3669-76, 3863-82; for charms from English manuscripts, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, and Sheldon [Parnell], 'Middle English and Latin Charms'. On Latin charms, see E. Bozoki, 'Mythic Mediation in Healing Incantations', in S. Campbell (ed.), Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture (New York, 1992), 84-92 and L. Olsan, 'Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition', Oral Tradition, 7 (1992), 116-42. On charms from Eastern Europe, see W. R. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (Stroud, 1999), pp. 164-216.
41. 'Charm' translates carmen, which is the usual heading found in Latin medical recipe books, house-hold miscellanies, commonplace books, and medical compendia for treatments employing words. They may be spoken as in a performative speech act, written on the body, on foods or over drinks, or on amuletic objects, or parchment carried by the patient. Often they are accompanied by ritual gestures and prayers. For a general discussion of charms and magic in the late medieval period, see R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 56-90; for a recent survey of English charms, see G. R. Keiser, 'Charms', in A. E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, x, Works of Science and Information (New Haven, 1998), pp. 3669-76, 3863-82; for charms from English manuscripts, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, and Sheldon [Parnell], 'Middle English and Latin Charms'. On Latin charms, see E. Bozoki, 'Mythic Mediation in Healing Incantations', in S. Campbell (ed.), Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture (New York, 1992), 84-92 and L. Olsan, 'Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition', Oral Tradition, 7 (1992), 116-42. On charms from Eastern Europe, see W. R. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (Stroud, 1999), pp. 164-216.
42. 'Charm' translates carmen, which is the usual heading found in Latin medical recipe books, house-hold miscellanies, commonplace books, and medical compendia for treatments employing words. They may be spoken as in a performative speech act, written on the body, on foods or over drinks, or on amuletic objects, or parchment carried by the patient. Often they are accompanied by ritual gestures and prayers. For a general discussion of charms and magic in the late medieval period, see R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 56-90; for a recent survey of English charms, see G. R. Keiser, 'Charms', in A. E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, x, Works of Science and Information (New Haven, 1998), pp. 3669-76, 3863-82; for charms from English manuscripts, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, and Sheldon [Parnell], 'Middle English and Latin Charms'. On Latin charms, see E. Bozoki, 'Mythic Mediation in Healing Incantations', in S. Campbell (ed.), Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture (New York, 1992), 84-92 and L. Olsan, 'Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition', Oral Tradition, 7 (1992), 116-42. On charms from Eastern Europe, see W. R. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (Stroud, 1999), pp. 164-216.
43. 'Charm' translates carmen, which is the usual heading found in Latin medical recipe books, house-hold miscellanies, commonplace books, and medical compendia for treatments employing words. They may be spoken as in a performative speech act, written on the body, on foods or over drinks, or on amuletic objects, or parchment carried by the patient. Often they are accompanied by ritual gestures and prayers. For a general discussion of charms and magic in the late medieval period, see R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 56-90; for a recent survey of English charms, see G. R. Keiser, 'Charms', in A. E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, x, Works of Science and Information (New Haven, 1998), pp. 3669-76, 3863-82; for charms from English manuscripts, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, and Sheldon [Parnell], 'Middle English and Latin Charms'. On Latin charms, see E. Bozoki, 'Mythic Mediation in Healing Incantations', in S. Campbell (ed.), Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture (New York, 1992), 84-92 and L. Olsan, 'Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition', Oral Tradition, 7 (1992), 116-42. On charms from Eastern Europe, see W. R. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (Stroud, 1999), pp. 164-216.
44. 'Ultimo nunc insurrexit una fatua Rosa anglicana que michi mandata et visa; credidi in ea invenire odorem suavitatis, et inveni fabulas Yspani, (V3rb) Gilberti, et Theoderici'. Gaddesden's presumed sources here are Petrus Hispanus, Gilbertus Anglicus, and Theodoric Borgognoni. Guigonis de Caulhiaco (Guy de Chauliac), M. R. McVaugh (ed.), Inventarium sive Chirurgia Magna, 2 vols, vol. I (Leiden, New York, Köln, 1997), p. 7, lines 7-10.
45. 'De illis incantacionibus et coniuriis Nicodemi quod ponit Thidericus et Gilbertus non curo'. Thidericus is Theodoric Borgognoni. Ibid., vol. I, p. 143, lines 1-2, and vol. II, pp. 126-7.
46. 'De illis incantacionibus et coniuriis Nicodemi quod ponit Thidericus et Gilbertus non curo'. Thidericus is Theodoric Borgognoni. Ibid., vol. I, p. 143, lines 1-2, and vol. II, pp. 126-7.
47. 'Dicitur empiricum, cui virtus insita sic, cum/ Se procul effundit, nec se minus inde refundit/Subiecto proprio', R. Ganszyniec (ed. and trans.), Brata Mikołaja z Polski Pisma Lekarskie (Krakow, 1920), p. 50.
48. '[R]es extra corpora pendit/ Vasis conclusas, inscribratas neque tusas,/ Que pendendo foris intus sunt cura doloris:/ Nam miro tractu tollunt morbos sine tactu'. The ring speaks for itself, 'Curo langores, fugo febres, sedo dolores, / Sum senibus sompnus, pueris sum fons et alumpnus', ibid., pp. 62 and 64, respectively.
49. W. Eamon and G. Keil, '"Plebs amat empirica": Nicholas of Poland and His Critique of the Mediaeval Medical Establishment', Sudhoffs Archiv, 71 (1987), 180-96, p. 187.
50. 'Plus sublimatur, plus et uirtute beatur", Gansryniec, Brata Mikołaja z Polski, p. 56.
51. 'Spiritus hoc nequam dat nee complexio quequam./ Sed uirtus diua mirabilium genitiva/Semper amans humiles. Non spernens visere viles, / Rem vilem visit, in ea manet, et quod ibi sit / Hoc patet effectu', ibid., p. 58.
52. 'Virtus sublimis, que desuper influit imis,/ A firmamento condescendens, elemento/ Nubit et vnitur simul, in re cum sepelitur/ Et manet occulta. Res ex uirtute sepulta/ In se fomalem vim concipit et specialem:. . . Nuptu iuncta rei pro dote sue speciei/ Vim tribuit virtus sibi, que foris astet et intus', ibid., p. 58.
53. Eamon and Keil, '"Plebs amat empirica"', p. 188.
54. This element of faith in the lowly might also be deduced from the humility of Christ's status as an infant child or, equally, of the crucified man as the manifestation of God in the world.
55. The assumption on the part of twentieth-century scholars and physicians that such cures are indeed superstitious complicates historical attempts to contextualize the medieval doctors' theoretical position.
56. See above, n. 9.
57. BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 64v.
58. See L. E. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon: Professor and Practitioner (Toronto, 1980), p. 157.
59. 'Empirica. Quamuis ego declino ad has res par[andum?], tantum est bonum scribere in libro nostro vt non remaneat tractatus sine eis quae dixerunt antiqui', Gilbertus, Compendium medicinae, fol. 327r.
60. C. O'Boyle, The Art of Medicine: Medical Teaching at the University of Paris, 1250-1400 (Leiden, 1998), p. 266.
61. Gilbertus, Compendium, fol. 327r.
62. 'Dixit dominus crescite. +, Uthihoth . +. et multiplicamini. +.thabechay . +. et replete tenant. +. amath . +'. Gilbertus, Compendium, fol. 287vb.
63. Bernardus de Gordonio, 'De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum', in Practica, seu Lilium medicinae, De ingeniis curandorum morbomm, De regimine acutarum aegritudinum, De prognosticis, De urinis, De pulsibus (Venice, 1498).
64. J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Leiden, 1984), gives 'fascium, fascius, fassis,fassus, fassius = fascis'. The Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1994) etymology compares fascis to Irish basc, 'neckband'. The word may also be related to fas, 'what is right according to divine law', and for, fari, fatus, 'to speak' especially authoritatively, whence fatum, 'what has been spoken, fate'.
65. Bernardus de Gordonio, De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum, fol. 1, in Practica as in n. 36. Quoted in Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 157, n. 117, from Vatican MS Pal. 1083, fol. 283v with variants noted.
66. Bernardus de Gordonio, De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum, fol. 1, in Practica as in n. 36. Quoted in Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 157, n. 117, from Vatican MS Pal. 1083, fol. 283v with variants noted.
67. Bernardus, Practica, fol. 34r-v. Cf. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 158, especially n. 120.
68. Bernardus, Practica, fol. 34r-v. Cf. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 158, especially n. 120.
69. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 158, n. 124. The care offered to the child corresponds to the recommendations of Vincent of Beauvais, as reported by Thorndike, 'that incantations may be used to enchant the sick or children or animals, provided . . . only licit prayers adjurations, and such symbols as the sign of the cross are used'. Furthermore, 'Vincent believes that men and women who introduce many useless and superstitious ceremonies should be forbidden to continue these practices, which should be confined to priests, and to laymen and women of excellent life and proved discretion". L. Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols, vol. II (New York, 1964), pp. 466-7.
70. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 158, n. 124. The care offered to the child corresponds to the recommendations of Vincent of Beauvais, as reported by Thorndike, 'that incantations may be used to enchant the sick or children or animals, provided . . . only licit prayers adjurations, and such symbols as the sign of the cross are used'. Furthermore, 'Vincent believes that men and women who introduce many useless and superstitious ceremonies should be forbidden to continue these practices, which should be confined to priests, and to laymen and women of excellent life and proved discretion". L. Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols, vol. II (New York, 1964), pp. 466-7.
71. A string of individual remedies follow the charm, which employ mistletoe, peony (both common for epilepsy), rue, gum, and animal extracts such as a lace of wolf's pelt, curdled hare's milk, weasel's blood, and the ashes of a cuckoo. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 158, points out that 'Most of these were presumably based on the occult or sympathetic qualities of such ingredients . . . and thus they might fall either into the category of empirica or into that of experimenta''.
72. Bernardus, Practica, fols.12va, and 93va, respectively. Also, Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 157, nn. 118 and 119.
73. Bernardus, Practica, fols.12va, and 93va, respectively. Also, Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 157, nn. 118 and 119.
74. 'Quinsy' nowadays is a 'peritonsillar abscess'.
75. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 131.
76. On rhetoric and metaphor in medicine, see D. Harley, 'Rhetoric and the Social Construction of Sickness and Healing', Social History of Medicine, 12 (1999), 407-35.
77. For a broader cultural view of how language operates in healing and other rituals, see S. J. Tambiah, Culture, Thought, and Social Action: An Anthropological Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 1985), ch. 2.
78. Ganszyniec, Brata Mikołja z Polski, p. 60. Cf. Eamon and Keil, '"Plebs amat empirica'", p. 187, n. 35.
79. Ganszyniec, Brata Mikol??ja z Polski, p. 60. Cf. Eamon and Keil, '"Plebs amat empirica'", p. 187, n. 35.
80. Quoted in H. P. Cholmeley, John of Gaddesden and the Rosa Medicinae (Oxford, 1912), p. 49. Also, Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 153rb.
81. Quoted in H. P. Cholmeley, John of Gaddesden and the Rosa Medicinae (Oxford, 1912), p. 49. Also, Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 153rb.
82. 'Radix apii collo suspensa dolorem dentis tollit, Idem facit radix piloselle maioris et minons et radix diptami", Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 153va.
83. See above, n. 29.
84. BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 250, 'Sed illud quod non fallit. Et est de meis secretis pro quo habui bonam pecuniam a barbitonsoribus'. Also, Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 154va.
85. BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 250, 'Sed illud quod non fallit. Et est de meis secretis pro quo habui bonam pecuniam a barbitonsoribus'. Also, Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 154va.
86. BL, MS Sloane 1067, fols, 247r-248v. The list from the 1492 printed edition as reported by Cholmeley is comparable, but Cholmeley omits the herb remedy on the verso. Hunt, Popular Medicine, p. 28, prints the charms and prayers exclusively.
87. Cf. Bernard's empirica for epilepsy, above n. 52.
88. M. McVaugh, 'Two Montpellier Recipe Collections', Manuscripta, 20 (1976), 175-80. See also M. McVaugh, "The Experimenta of Arnald of Villanova', Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1 (1972), 107-18.
89. BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 19v. Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 10r, a, supplies the attribution 'experimentum Gilbertini ad omnem fluxum sanguinis'.
90. BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 219r (Appendix B.4). Also Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 134v, a.
91. BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 219r (Appendix B.4). Also Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 134v, a.
92. BL, MS Harley 2558, fols. 125v and 139v.
93. On the ideology of secrets, see W. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton, 1994), pp. 80-90.
94. BL, MS Additional 33996, fol. 153v.
95. BL, MS Sloane 56, fol. 2r. A shoat is a young pig.
96. Ibid., fol. 79r and BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 117r respectively.
97. Pliny, Natural History, Vol. VIII, Libri XXVIII-XXXII, trans. W. H. S. Jones (Cambridge, MA, 1963), XXVIII.iii. 10, p. 8, conceives words as the medicine derived from man: 'Ex homine remediorum primum maximae questionis et semper incertae est, polleantne aliquid verba et incantamenta caminum?' ('Of remedies derived from man first there is the greatest and always unsettled question: do words and incantations of charms affect anything?') My translation.
98. For a different model found in early modern Italy, compare D. Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy (Manchester, 1998). Gentilcore demonstrates how medical, ecclesiastical, and popular systems of healing overlapped and competed. F. Wallis, in a subtle and important reconsideration of the state of medical manuscripts and their textual contents from the early medieval period, concludes that non-religious and religious medicine 'were not seen as incompatible kinds of practice'. See 'The Experience of the Book: Manuscripts, Texts, and the Role of Epistemology in Early Medieval Medicine', in D. Bates (ed.), Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions (Cambridge, 1995), 101-26. Early negotiations between the 'two medicines' may have opened a channel that allowed the flow of religious medicine (at times only a trickle) into serious medical practice, even at its most rigorously rational and scientific moments.
99. For a different model found in early modern Italy, compare D. Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy (Manchester, 1998). Gentilcore demonstrates how medical, ecclesiastical, and popular systems of healing overlapped and competed. F. Wallis, in a subtle and important reconsideration of the state of medical manuscripts and their textual contents from the early medieval period, concludes that non-religious and religious medicine 'were not seen as incompatible kinds of practice'. See 'The Experience of the Book: Manuscripts, Texts, and the Role of Epistemology in Early Medieval Medicine', in D. Bates (ed.), Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions (Cambridge, 1995), 101-26. Early negotiations between the 'two medicines' may have opened a channel that allowed the flow of religious medicine (at times only a trickle) into serious medical practice, even at its most rigorously rational and scientific moments.
100. On ananizapta, see P. M. Jones and L. T. Olsan, 'Middleham Jewel: Ritual, Power, and Devotion', Viator, 31 (2000), 249-90.
101. Appendix, B.17, C.2, C.5, D.37, D.40 (same as C.5).
102. Appendix, D.12, 13, 14.
103. Appendix, B.3, 14, D. 17.
104. Appendix A.5, B.17; B.4, C.5, D.39, D.40; C.2, D.37.
105. BL, MS Sloane 56, fol. 79v (Appendix C.8) and BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 123v (Appendix D.29), Fayreford also prescribes words inscribed on communion wafers for a woman suffering a difficult delivery, ibid., fol. 117v (Appendix, D.21).
106. Appendix, D.42 is an exception.
107. Appendix, D.2.
108. Appendix, A.5, B.17, C.6, D.19, C.7.
109. Medicina Antiqua: Codex Vindobonensis 93, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (London, 1999), f. 13r.
110. Fayreford regularly writes open thorns, which are transcribed here as 'th'. This pronoun appears in the manuscript as a thorn with a superscript 'u'.
111. Capitalization and punctuation are editorial.
112. BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 63v. Omnes [for Omnipotens?] qui variis herbis virtutem concessisti has herbas henedicere et sanctificare dignare. et sicut apostolis tuis dedisti potestatem calcandi super serpentes et scorpiones sic ubicumque medicina ex hiis fuerit exibita. omnis infirmatis et langor expellatur et gratia tua benyngna infirmitatibus tribuatur p. d. (Appendix, D.1).
113. Appendix, B.1, 12, C.1.
114. BL, MS Sloane 56, fol. Iv (Appendix, C.1).
115. 'Modo de empiricis videamus', BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 19v (Appendix, B.1).
116. This is not a hard and fast rule, but even when popular formulae are employed for two or three complaints, as when the dialogue between St Peter and Jesus (not found in our texts) is used for toothache but also fevers, a formula will not be used indiscriminately for just any purpose. For a preliminary list of purposes and narrative motifs, see Olsan, 'Latin Charms of Medieval England', p. 130.
117. The River Jordan motif appears near the end of the charm and prayer in BL, MS Additional 33996, fol. 149r-v (Appendix, B.10).
118. This, and the previous Lazarus motif, appear in Arderne's charm for a woman in labour, which begins as a statement of faith. BL, MS Sloane 56, fol. 9v (Appendix, C.6).
119. I take the letters written on a lead rectangle, 'os. a. acori. sa. t. p. .ii.N.d.', to be a garbled form of the Sator word square plus two Nomina Dei. In BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 118v (Appendix, D.22).
120. Appendix, A.1, B.11, D.2.
121. See above, n. 78.
122. J. Voragine, Legenda Aurea, ed. T. Graesse (Osnabrück, 1969), pp. 293-4. Appendix, B.6, D.8, 12.
123. pietatis] Followed by the letters ti cancelled.
124. Gaddesden in BL, MS Sloane 1067, f. 19v (Appendix, B.3). The line from 'restringere . . . extendendo' may have originally been part of the directions for a physician to apply pressure, since this charm staunches bleeding in a man or woman, not specifically menstrual.
125. Fayreford in BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 115v (Appendix, D.17).
126. BL, MS Harley 2558, fols. 123r, 118v, 119r (Appendix, D.29, 22, 23).
127. BL, MS Sloane 56, fols. 9v, 79v, 7r (Appendix, C.6, 8, 9, 5).
128. Hunt, Popular Medicine, p. 29, calls attention to this. On how vernacular charms supplement Latin texts, see T. Hunt, Anglo-Norman Medicine, Vol. II Shorter Treatises (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 1-16.
129. Harley, 'Rhetoric and the Social Construction of Sickness and Healing", and L. Jordanova, 'The Social Construction of Medical Knowledge', Social History of Medicine, 8 (1995), 361-81.
130. Harley, 'Rhetoric and the Social Construction of Sickness and Healing", and L. Jordanova, 'The Social Construction of Medical Knowledge', Social History of Medicine, 8 (1995), 361-81.
131. Rituals unaccompanied by prayers and charms are not included. Charms include any words or characters to be spoken or inscribed on objects. I am grateful to Peter Murray Jones for use of his transcriptions of Fayreford's charms, especially, and his list of Arderne's charms from BL, MS Sloane 56. I have examined all the manuscripts listed; the readings supplied are my own.
132. Gaddesden attributes the charm to Gilbertus (Experimentum gilberti ad omnem fluxum sanguinis).
133. Fayreford attributes the charm to Gilbertus Anglicus (secundum gylbertum anglicum).
134. Fayreford attributes the charm to 'hencricum [sic] Arderne'.