Skip to main content

IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 832: The Health of the Realm: The Historical Context of Medicine in the Early Middle Ages

Tuesday 8 July 2014, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Organisers:Julia Bolotina, St John's College, University of Cambridge
Christine Voth, Newnham College, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Christine Voth, Newnham College, University of Cambridge
Paper 832-aA Case for Female Involvement in the Old English Medicina de quadrupedibus
(Language: English)
Bethany Christiansen, Department of English, Ohio State University
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Literacy and Orality, Medicine, Women's Studies
Paper 832-bEadswith's Madness: Mental Illness and Anglo-Saxon Community
(Language: English)
Hilary E. Fox, Department of English, Wayne State University, Michigan
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Medicine, Mentalities
Paper 832-cSupport Structures for the Poor and Sick Poor in Early Medieval England
(Language: English)
Julia Bolotina, St John's College, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Daily Life, Medicine, Social History
Abstract

While interest in medicine and medical texts has been growing in recent years, its historical context has largely been neglected. Illness and treatment do not exist in a vacuum: just as chronic stomach pain finds a place alongside Byzantine diplomacy and the Lombard threat in the
letters of Gregory the Great, so the Anglo-Saxon Bald's Leechbook transcribes a remedy sent to a sick King Alfred, and Bede records the plague that brought the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow to its knees. Medical texts were the product of the circumstances, anxieties, and philosophies of their times, just as the times were shaped by the health of those who lived them. This session will explore the historical framework of illness, care, and the transmission of medical knowledge.