IMC 2004: Sessions

Session 509: Health Culture, Medicine, and Wellbeing in the Later Middle Ages

Tuesday 13 July 2004, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:	University of East Anglia
Organiser:	Isla Fay, School of History, University of East Anglia
Moderator/Chair:	Christopher Knüsel, Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford
Paper 509-a	The Material Culture of Health in Renaissance Italy: Hospitals, Medicine and Religion (Language: English) John Henderson, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London / School of Philosophy, History & International Studies, Monash University
Paper 509-b	Health and Disease in Medieval Norwich (Language: English) Isla Fay, School of History, University of East Anglia Index terms: Archaeology - General, Daily Life, Local History, Social History
Paper 509-c	Alchemical Routes to Health from Late Medieval Cambridge (Language: English) Peter M. Jones, King's College, University of Cambridge
Abstract	This is an interdisciplinary exploration of medieval attitudes to wellbeing. Paper one considers medieval definitions of health by charting the rise of self-help manuals and their relationship to the teachings of the church and medical faculties.The second paper looks at the issues of cleanliness and health using archaeological finds, the burial location of diseased individuals, civic ordinances and leet records from Norwich. Paper three considers skeletal lesions evident in an individual from a mass grave at Towton. It is argued that such lesions provide evidence of strenuous youthful training. The burial placement and position of these individuals allows insight into their social status.