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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
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.
1 Tolkein, J. R. R., ‘Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics’, PBA 22 (1936), 245–95.Google Scholar
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7 See especially Stanley, Anglo-Saxon Paganism, passim.
8 In Grattan, J. H. G. and Singer, C., Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine Illustrated Specially from the Semi-Pagan Text ‘Lacnunga’ (Oxford, 1952), p. 92.Google Scholar
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22 References to Lacnunga will be to Grattan and Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 96–205. Talbot (Medicine, p. 23) described Lacnunga thus: ‘The Lacnunga is a rambling collection of about two hundred prescriptions, remedies, and charms derived from many sources, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Celtic and Teutonic… The Lacnunga may show “the final physiological disintegration of Greek medical thought”, but it does not show that Anglo-Saxon scholars were involved in it.’ Yet this was the work on which Singer chose to base his opinions of Anglo-Saxon medicine, some of which have been quoted above.
23 Grattan and Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 106.
24 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 57.
25 Ibid. p. 29.
26 M. Grieve, A Modern Herbal (Darien, Conn., 1970), p. 483.
27 Ibid. p. 277.
28 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 83–5.
29 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 42.
30 Marcelli De Medicamentis Liber, ed. M. Niedermann, rev. R. Liechtenhan, 2 vols., Corpus Medicorum Latinorum 5 (Berlin, 1968), 170.
31 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 56.
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33 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 20.
34 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 56.
35 Nöth, ‘Semiotics’, p. 64.
36 Marcelli de medicamentis, ed. Niedermann, pp. 548 and 566.
37 The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de quadrupedibus, ed. H. J. De Vriend, EETS os 286 (London, 1984), 126.
38 Grieve, Herbal, p. 746 (who does not mention haemorrhoids).
39 Old English Herbarium, ed. De Vriend, p. 270.
40 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 18 and 20.
41 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 57.
42 C. Plinii Secundi naturalis historiae libri XXXVII, ed. K. Mayhoff and L. Jan, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1875–1906) v, 301.
43 Plinii Secundi Iunioris qui feruntur de medicina libri tres, ed. A. Önnerfors, Corpus Medicorum Latinorum 3 (Berlin 1946), 8.
44 Marcelli de medicamentis, ed. Niedermann, p. 72.
45 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 356.
46 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 70.
47 Marcelli de medicamentis, ed. Niedermann, p. 354.
48 Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei de materia medica libri V, ed. M. Wellmann, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1906–14) 11, 41: Nαυσ⋯ας τε κα⋯ δηγμοὺς στομ⋯χου μετ’ ⋯ξυκρ⋯του ποϑεĩσα παραμυϑεĩται
49 Old English Herbarium, ed. De Vriend, pp. 138–9.
50 Grieve, Herbal, pp. 624–6.
51 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 304–6.
52 Marcelli de medicamentis, ed. Niedermann, p. 70.
53 Ibid. p. 54.
54 Ibid. p. 68.
55 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 39–40.
56 Marcelli de medicamentis, ed. Niedermann, p. 70.
57 Ibid. p. 68.
58 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 65.
59 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 34.
60 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 71–2.
61 Block, E., ‘The Chemistry of Garlic and Onions’, Scientific American 252 (no. 3) (1985), 114–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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65 Ibid.
66 Dioscuridis libri V, ed. Wellmann, 111, 49.
67 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 72.
68 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 38.
69 Ibid. p. 26.
70 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 133–4.
71 Old English Herbarium, ed. De Vriend, p. 117.
72 C. Plinii Secundi Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVII, ed. Mayhoff and Jan, IV, 146.
73 Dioscuridis Libri V, ed. Wellman, 1, 251: Tα⋯της ⋯ χυλ⋯ς μιγε⋯ς μ⋯λιτι κα⋯ ⋯ψηϑε⋯ς ⋯ν χαλκῳ^ <⋯γγειῳ> ⋯π᾽ ἂνϑρακ∘ς ⋯ρμ⋯ζει πρ⋯ς ⋯ξυωπ⋯αν.
74 Ibid. 1, 165: M⋯;λι πρωτε⋯ει τ⋯ ᾽ Aττικ⋯ν.
75 Old English Herbarium, ed. De Vriend, p. 332, n. 13.
76 Grieve, Herbal, p. 179.
77 Majno, The Healing Hand, pp. 115–20.
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81 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 79.
82 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 96.
83 Ibid. pp. 142–4.
84 Ibid. p. 266.
85 Bartia, K. O., ‘Antibiotics in Lichens’, The Lichens, ed. Ahmadjian, V. and Hale, M. E. (New York and London, 1973), pp. 547–61.Google ScholarSee also Asahina, Y. and Shibata, S., Chemistry of Lichen Substances (Amsterdam, 1971), pp. 216–24.Google Scholar
86 Majno, The Healing Hand, pp. 87–8.
87 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 256; Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 78.
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89 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 236.
90 Davies, R. W., ‘A Note on the Hoard of Roman Equipment Buried at Corbridge’, Durham Univ. Jnl 31 (1970), 177–80.Google Scholar
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92 Grattan and Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 150.
93 Hugo, V., Les Misérables (Paris, 1966), vol. 1, 131.Google Scholar
94 Thomas, L., The Medusa and the Snail (New York, 1979), pp. 76–81.Google Scholar
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97 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 290–2.
98 Grieve, Herbal, pp. 109–10.
99 Marcelli de medicamentis, ed. Niedermann, p. 476.
100 Grieve, Herbal, p. 175.
101 Oxford, St John's College 17 (Thorney, A.D. 1110–11), 175r.
102 Grattan and Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 49–50.
103 Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, 11, 54.
104 Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 304.
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.
