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IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 1325: Medical Recollections in Manuals and Manuscripts

Wednesday 4 July 2018, 16.30-18.00

Moderator/Chair:Flocel Sabaté Curull, Departament d'Història, Universitat de Lleida
Paper 1325-aForgotten Authorities: Sources in the Recipe Miscellanies in St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 751
(Language: English)
Nora Thorburn, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, Downtown
Index terms: Manuscripts and Palaeography, Medicine, Science
Paper 1325-bMemorias de al-Andalus: Averroes y la medicina en el Medioevo Latín
(Language: Español)
Sara Lenzi, Departamento de Filosofía Teórica e Historia de la Filosofía, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Index terms: Islamic and Arabic Studies, Medicine, Philosophy
Paper 1325-cFacts to Remember: Some Annotations in Late Medieval Medical Manuscripts
(Language: English)
Rebeca Cubas-Peña, York Minster
Index terms: Daily Life, Language and Literature - Middle English, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Medicine
Paper 1325-dConstructing Authority through Paratext and Personalisation: The Case of Printed Dutch Herbals
(Language: English)
Andrea van Leerdam, Departement Talen, Literatuur en Communicatie, Universiteit Utrecht
Index terms: Art History - General, Language and Literature - Dutch, Printing History, Rhetoric
Abstract

Paper -a:
Examining the miscellaneous recipe collections in medical manuscripts can help understand how texts were compiled and what the medical concerns of the compiler were. At the same time, how the compiler manipulates and changes the recipes reflects adaptations to time and place. St. Gall Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 751 has recipe collections compiled in the 9th century in Italy. This paper will examine the sources of the recipes and show how they help to link manuscripts. The adaptations made by the compiler of the recipes will be examined to show their medical priorities and how they attempted to accommodate their audience.

Paper -b:
A veces no tenemos bastante memoria de cuanto el Medioevo latín heredó de la sabiduría de los filósofos y maestros árabes, especialmente a través de al-Andalus. Se pretende aquí prestar particular atención a los estudios de medicina del gran médico y filósofo Ibn Rusd, Averroes para los latinos, con referencia al texto que a lo largo de mucho tiempo, fue uno de los principales manuales de medicina de la Edad Media: el 'Kitab al-kuliyyat fi al-tibb', con especial análisis sobre la sección dedicada a la anátomia y a delicados y 'peligrosos' temas cuales la disección y la autopsia.

Paper -c:
Contemporary and later owners and readers of medieval medical manuscripts used the margins and the blank spaces of their books to write notes of diverse nature. Written at different historical periods, these annotations frequently contain information the annotators were willing to store and recall: information which, in most cases, is related to the text where it was copied and conveys a reaction to it. By flagging up a few late medieval instances, this paper will show how, like modern diaries, some of these medieval and post-medieval annotations were intended to act as reminders of personal and/or professional facts the annotators, often medical practitioners, considered valuable and worth keeping close at hand.

Paper -d:
Abundant and variegated users' traces in surviving copies of the illustrated Dutch herbal Den groten herbarius attest its extensive readership. Translated from the German Gart der Gesundheit (1485), no less than six editions appeared in the early 16th-century Low Countries. This paper demonstrates how the woodcuts and other paratextual features, with subtle yet meaningful modifications from edition to edition, jointly function to present the text as relevant and trustworthy. In parallel, close scrutiny of users' traces such as annotations and hand-coloured woodcuts reveals how readers affirm or defy this verbal and visual rhetoric of authority. We see them customising their copies to create personally 'authorised' collections of medical recipes.