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The Modus Medendi and the Benedictine Order in Anglo-Norman England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Anne F. Dawtry
Anne F. Dawtry*
Affiliation:
Westfield College, University of London
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Extract

The Benedictines played an important part in the development of medicine in England between 1066 and 1215. In pre-conquest England, the care of the sick had been based upon little more than the practices of Anglo-Saxon leeches which were largely founded upon superstition. Botany had become a drug list and medicine had deteriorated into little more than a collection of formulae. After the Norman conquest, chiefly through the influence of Benedictine scholars from the continent, medical learning in England began to be based upon the writings of the ancient world. These included not only the works of Galen and Hippocrates but also anonymous medical treatises in Latin such as the De Modo Medendi.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 19: The Church and Healing , 1982 , pp. 25 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1982

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References

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