Open AccessWhat's Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?
Author(s) -
Peregrine Horden
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
social history of medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.201
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1477-4666
pISSN - 0951-631X
DOI - 10.1093/shm/hkp052
Subject(s) - magic (telescope) , folklore , middle ages , context (archaeology) , history , medieval latin , classics , period (music) , literature , art , ancient history , aesthetics , archaeology , physics , quantum mechanics
The medical writings of early medieval western Europe c. 700 – c. 1000 have often beenderided for their disorganised appearance, poor Latin, nebulous conceptual framework, admixtures of magic and folklore, and general lack of those positive features that historians attribute to ancient or later medieval medicine. This paper attempts to rescue the period from its negative image. It examines a number of superficially bizarre writings so as to place them in an intellectual and sociological context, and to suggest that the presumed contrast between them and their ancient and later medieval counterparts has been wrongly drawn
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