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Anglo-Saxon medicine and magic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

M. L. Cameron
M. L. Cameron
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Extract

When J. R. R. Tolkein criticized the critics of Beowulf, it was because ‘Beowulf has been used as a quarry of fact and fancy far more assiduously than it has been studied as a work of art.’ The Old English medical documents have suffered from a similar treament in that critics have rarely dealt with them primarily as medical documents. So far as I know, none of them has been criticized primarily as a medical work, to the extent that its recipes and remedies have been evaluated for their usefulness as medical treatments. But they have been searched, discussed, emended and evaluated as sources for the study of paganism, magic, superstitions, Christianity and the influence of Christian and Latin culture on the primitive beliefs of the Teutonic peoples, and as indicators of the spread of Greek and Latin science among the Northern peoples. Yet they were all originally conceived, used and finally preserved in writing as medical documents. They deserve consideration for what they were intended to be.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 17 , December 1988 , pp. 191 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

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53 Ibid. p. 54.

54 Ibid. p. 68.

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57 Ibid. p. 68.

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105 This and other Anglo-Saxon laws against magic and witchcraft are conveniently gathered in Grendon, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Charms’, pp. 140–2; the one quoted above is on p. 140.

106 Grattan and Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 202.

107 See above, n. 13.

108 I wish to thank Dalhousie University for the sabbatical leaves and grants in aid of research which made possible the initiation of the research on which this paper is based. I thank also the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine for a travel grant to continue my researches. My best thanks go to my wife who has read and discussed endless drafts and ideas and whose encouragement and advice have been invaluable.