Medieval Medicine Essay

Modern medicine has always been seen to be the only medicine that has ever worked to cure our illnesses. Medieval medicine has always been cast aside, but today historians are beginning to explore the early medieval understanding of health and medicine. In eighth and ninth century Anglo-Saxon England’s use of medicine are summarized in Life of St. Cuthbert by Bede, Bald’s Leechbook, and Herbarium by Pseudo-Apuleius. Through these texts we are able to see how early medieval people created and used concoctions that they believed cured the sick. Some of these methods of healing required rituals that were believed to help aid the recovery process of the sickened. Some maladies could be cured in many different ways with the same main ingredient. …show more content…
Both of these texts assert the fact that in the early middle ages religion and rituals were a major factor in medicine. In the Herbarium, one of the cures for snakebite calls for the creator to “hold it (the plant) in your hands and say this three times: Omnes malas bestias canto, that is in our language, enchant and overcome all evil wild beasts” The footnote of this quote says ”For many who collect plants in the wild (wildcrafters) and herbalists, speaking to a plant before it is cut explaining why one is gathering it is not at all unusual” This further proves that at that time people who created these remedies performed rituals while creating them in order to add a spiritual effect on the drug. This can also be seen in Bard’s Leechbook where, in order to cure “elf-sickness” one must “take bishopswort, fennel, lupin, alftone the lower part and lichen from a hallowed crucifix and frankincense, put a handful of each, tie up all the herbs in a cloth, dip in consecrated font-water three times and sing over them three masses” This one quote has many religious