IMC 2021: Sessions
Session 1314: Magic, Medicine, and Meteorology: Three Modes of Human Interaction with Climate
Wednesday 7 July 2021, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | Department of History, University of Reading |
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| Organiser: | Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Reading |
| Moderator/Chair: | Ruth Salter, Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Reading |
| Paper 1314-a | Witchcraft and Weather: The Problem of Magical Control of Weather (Language: English) Index terms: Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Mentalities, Religious Life, Social History |
| Paper 1314-b | Climate and Health: Weather, Seasons, and Places in the Treatment Recommendations of Constantine of Africa (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Medicine, Science |
| Paper 1314-c | From Climate to Weather: The Explanatory Power of the Planets in Medieval Meteorology (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Mentalities, Science |
| Abstract | The complex relationships between climate, weather, and human society constituted a field of active exploration throughout the medieval period. The first paper in this session examines the problem of how weather, notoriously beyond human control, could apparently be directed by the power of magic. The second discusses how doctors sought to improve health by taking climate and weather into account in understanding disease, and in treatment and lifestyle advice. The last paper argues that medieval astronomy and astrology offered a means of making 'scientific' predictions of weather for chosen dates and locations. Overall it will be shown that humans were by no means without agency in relation to the climate. |