The Reception of Latin Medicine in Early Medieval England

The Evidence from Old English Texts
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-914049-16-3
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 8, 300 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 599 g

Reihe: Health and Healing in the Middle Ages

Uses Old English medical texts - ranging from recipe collections and illustrated herbals to the therapeutics of ancient authorities - to reconstruct the diffusion and reception of Classical medical knowledge in early medieval England.

Direct evidence for the earlier Latin sources and transmission of early medieval medical texts in England is sorely lacking - which has led to scholarly neglect. This is a gap this book address, via a close examination of the Old English medical corpus, including the Lacnunga and Bald's Leechbook, to shed light on the diffusion and reception of this knowledge. It considers exactly which Latin medical texts were used in the compilation of the Old English versions, showing that they were, in many cases, translations of Greek medical texts. From this, it argues that the Old English corpus as a whole was a creative endeavor to synthesize the best medical knowledge available at the time, from the various Latin works of Soranus of Ephesus to the sixth- or seventh-century Latin traditions of Galen of Pergamum, Oribasius of Pergamum and Alexander of Tralles. Covering over eight centuries of the textual tradition of medicine, it demonstrates that the dissemination of medical knowledge in pre-Conquest England was far wider than previously believed.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Doyle, Conan T

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Mittelalterliche, neuzeitliche Archäologie (Europa)
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Europäische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction

1. The Old English Medical Corpus
2. The Latin Herbal and the Compilation and Transmission of Medical Texts
3. Receptaria
4. Galen, Pseudo-Galen and the Pre-Gariopontean Ensemble
5. The Fortunes of Oribasius
6. Alexander Trallianus
7. The Tereoperica and the Peri didaxeon

Conclusion
Appendix 1: Source conspectus of Bald's Leechbook
Appendix 2: Compilation from Multiple Sources
Appendix 3: Galen in Old English
Appendix 4: The Latin Alexander in Old English
Appendix 5: Illustrative contents of Medical manuscripts
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Doyle, Conan T
CONAN DOYLE obtained his PhD in 2018 and since 2022 has worked as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague.