5 - Medicine in Anglo-Saxon England

Summary

In the early Anglo-Saxon period, Bede describes one of the most illustrious Anglo-Saxon saints being treated by a physician. In his description of Æthelthryth's death, Bede writes that a certain doctor, Cynifrid, was consulted about her illness and death: sed certiori notitia medicus Cynifrid, qui et morienti illi et eleuatae de tumulo adfuit; qui referre erat solitus quod illa infirmata habuerit tumorem maximum sub maxilla (‘but with more certain knowledge, the doctor Cynifrid, who was present both during her death and during her exhumation, used to say how she, the sick one, had a great tumour under her jaw’). After this description, Cynifrid continues to provide further details about her condition and death. In this account of Æthelthryth's illness, Bede treats Cynifrid with respect, relying on him as a person whose testimony was trustworthy and of particular value because of his expertise. Æthelthryth herself had received his medical care, and although in this case the medical treatment was unsuccessful (and probably also superfluous in light of the saint's prophetic vision of her death), there is no suggestion that the abbess was wrong in seeking professional medical attention.

Bede's account provides a contrast to St Bernard of Clairvaux's notorious remark in the twelfth century, when he discouraged his monks from seeking doctors or purchasing medicines, writing that this religioni indecens est et contrarium puritati (‘is unseemly for religion and contrary to purity of life’). Bernard's outlook is sometimes taken as typical of patristic and medieval theologians, but, in fact, attitudes towards the appropriate use of medicine (perhaps unsurprisingly) varied considerably during the classical and Late Antique periods. While traditionally scholarship has tried to paint the Church Fathers as uniformly suspicious of the medical arts, in the last two decades several scholars have argued that medicine was much more widely approved in the early Church than has generally been assumed. Nevertheless, although some Church Fathers (such as Clement and Augustine) were generally approving of the practice of medicine, others held more restrictive views.