ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��

Lizard shampoo next to a saints’ calendar in a priest’s book, and headache remedies among canon law? What are medical recipes doing in these unexpected places? Associate Professor of Medieval History Carine van Rhijn has spent the past few years working with an international team of medievalists to research medieval medical texts. With support from the British Academy, the team discovered a large number of previously unknown medical texts, written down in non-medical manuscripts dating from before the year 1000.

Superdrinks and DIY recipes

With the ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� of St Andrews as the project’s home base, Van Rhijn worked together with researchers from the universities of Oslo, Binghamton, and Fordham. While researching entirely different kinds of texts, she kept coming across short medical entries.

For example, a recipe for the beauty remedy lizard shampoo, written in the margin of a priest’s book. Not exactly what you would expect in a book usually containing theological commentary and texts for the Mass. “That sparked my imagination: was that priest worrying about his hair while preparing his sermon?”, says Van Rhijn.

Superdrinks for every month of the year

The material shows how (literate) people dealt with everyday complaints and concerns: “There are fantastic things among them, superdrinks for every month of the year, diet tips, remedies for skin and hair care, and loads of DIY recipes for all kinds of everyday ailments (yes, including haemorrhoids).” The themes are still recognisable today – even if the solutions are not always so familiar.

It is striking that Van Rhijn found these texts in non-medical manuscripts, such as legal texts, in schoolbooks, and in collections of scholarly treatises on timekeeping. Together with a team of researchers, she gathered all the material and found 198 manuscripts containing unknown medical content. This doubled the number of known manuscripts in which medical texts appear.

You would not write down useless knowledge on expensive parchment.

Medieval medicine wasn’t quackery

The idea still exists that nothing much happened in the early Middle Ages, and that medicine amounted to quackery. “But we now see that people paid attention to their health, knew how to deal with everyday ailments, and shared that knowledge with one another. That can’t be for nothing, you wouldn’t write down useless knowledge on expensive parchment,” Van Rhijn explains.

We also see that health was approached more broadly: “So it wasn’t just about a pill or an ointment, but also about eating well and restoring balance in the body,” says Van Rhijn. Most of the methods don’t match our modern medical science. They include astrology, a touch of religion, and some striking ideas about the powers of plants and stones. Still, there are all sorts of interesting ideas behind them, and they’re well worth investigating.

When you start looking at manuscripts, you never know what you’re going to find – and for researchers, that’s a little addictive.

A new story about the early Middle Ages

It quickly became clear that the vast majority of medical knowledge from this period has never been printed, let alone translated. For a long time, scholars were mainly interested in classical authors of medical texts, such as Hippocrates and Galen, while the often-anonymous medieval authors remained largely overlooked. “That really surprised me,” says Van Rhijn. “Statements about early medieval medicine are almost always based on just a fraction of the material that exists, usually the strange or disgusting stories that make everyone look foolish and superstitious.”

The material Van Rhijn and her team have collected contributes to a new image of the early Middle Ages: “I’m very curious to see what will happen when a new story is told based on all this unknown material, and there’s certainly more out there to be found. It’s a bit like treasure hunting: when you start looking at manuscripts, you never know what you’re going to find – and for researchers, that’s a little addictive.”