Masculinity and medicine: Thomas Walsingham and the death of the Black Prince

This article examines the nature of the illness that plagued Edward the Black Prince (1330–76) for the last nine years of his life and caused his death. The prince's premature death had profound political repercussions and a discussion of his symptoms provides a lens through which to examine late medieval attitudes to a wide range of social, religious and medical issues. The prince's symptoms, especially those described by Thomas Walsingham in his Chronica maiora, suggest traditional explanations of his death are incorrect. This article offers a number of varied but connected medieval and symbolic interpretations as well as a consideration of methodologies appropriate for analysing such material     

Masculinity and medicine: Thomas Walsingham and the death of the Black Prince

This article examines the nature of the illness that plagued Edward the Black Prince (1330–76) for the last nine years of his life and caused his death. The prince's premature death had profound political repercussions and a discussion of his symptoms provides a lens through which to examine late medieval attitudes to a wide range of social, religious and medical issues. The prince's symptoms, especially those described by Thomas Walsingham in his Chronica maiora, suggest traditional explanations of his death are incorrect. This article offers a number of varied but connected medieval and symbolic interpretations as well as a consideration of methodologies appropriate for analysing such material     

The care of women's health and beauty: an experience shared by medieval Jewish and Christian women

In this article I intend to elucidate the extent to which medieval western Jewish and Christian women shared customs, knowledge and practices regarding health care, a sphere which has been historically considered as part of women's daily domestic tasks. My study aims to identify female agency in medical care, as well as women's interaction across religious lines, by analysing elusive sources, such as medical literature on women's health care, and by collating the information they provide with data obtained from other textual and visual records. By searching specific evidence of the dialogues that must have occurred between Christian and Jewish women in transmitting their knowledge and experiences, I put forward the idea (developed from earlier work by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet) that medical texts with no clear attribution can be used as sources to reconstruct women's authoritative knowledge.     

The care of women's health and beauty: an experience shared by medieval Jewish and Christian women

In this article I intend to elucidate the extent to which medieval western Jewish and Christian women shared customs, knowledge and practices regarding health care, a sphere which has been historically considered as part of women's daily domestic tasks. My study aims to identify female agency in medical care, as well as women's interaction across religious lines, by analysing elusive sources, such as medical literature on women's health care, and by collating the information they provide with data obtained from other textual and visual records. By searching specific evidence of the dialogues that must have occurred between Christian and Jewish women in transmitting their knowledge and experiences, I put forward the idea (developed from earlier work by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet) that medical texts with no clear attribution can be used as sources to reconstruct women's authoritative knowledge.     

Aspects de la Fatigue Dans L’anthropologie Médiévale

Psychosomatic sympton of the sinful human soul, progress of natural and progressive wear of the psychic or corporeal machinery, exclusive property of the world of bodies or place of the obligatory link between the intellect and the body, fatigue crosses the philosophical and theological medieval literature. The various treatments of fatigue can, in their turn, serve as symptoms to differentiate the medieval anthropologies. This article presents four of their figures: the anthropology of danger elaborated by Augustin, greek and arabe medical diagnosis which is passed on the ^{xi th} century, and the readings of Aristotle’s psychology by Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas in the xiii ^th century.     

Infection, contagion, and public health in late medieval and early modern German imperial towns

From today's point of view, the concepts of "miasma" and "contagion" appear to be two mutually exclusive perceptions of the spread of epidemic diseases, and quite a number of historians have tried to discuss the history of public health and epidemic diseases in terms of a progression from the miasmic to the contagionist concept. More detailed local studies, however, indicate how extremely misleading it may be to separate such medical concepts and ideas from their actual historical context. The article presented here, based on local studies in late medieval and early modern imperial towns in southern Germany, demonstrates to what extent the inhabitants of these towns had notions of both "miasma" and "contagion." Furthermore, a contextual analysis of language shows that they did not see a necessity to strictly distinguish between these different concepts relating to the spread of diseases. Tracing the meaning of "infection" and "contagion," we find that these terms were used in connection with various diseases, and that a change in the use of the expressions does not necessarily imply a change of the corresponding notion. Moreover, a coexistence of differing perceptions cannot--as some historians have suggested--be attributed to a divergence between the academic medicine and the popular ideas of that period. A survey of measures and actions in the public health sector indicates that a coexistence of--from our point of view--inconsistent concepts helped the authorities as well as the individuals to find means of defense and consolation during all those crises caused by epidemic diseases--crises that occurred very frequently in these towns during the late medieval and early modern periods. As the article demonstrates, the interaction during such crises reveals the continuity of ancient rituals and concepts as well as the adoption of new insights resulting from changes in the economical, political, scientific, religious, and social structures.     

Medieval Ireland and the Shannon Hydro-Electric Scheme: reconstructing the past in independent Ireland

This essay considers the position of Irish medieval buildings in the early years of the twentieth century. Focusing on the treatment of the oratory of St. Lua at Killaloe, it examines the ways in which the ruins of the medieval past were used to signify a range of political, religious and cultural ideas and attitudes. The rising water levels following the Shannon Scheme works (begun in 1925) meant that this stone oratory was moved from its original position on Friar’s Island to the grounds of St. Flannan’s Roman Catholic Church in 1929. The resulting paper trail reflects the complex processes of decision-making within a civil service in transition as the new Irish Free State calibrated its position with regard to the past and the treatment of medieval ruins throughout the countryside. The case study of St. Lua’s oratory is considered here in the context of the nineteenth-century tradition of scholarship on medieval buildings, the development of the idea of a national Irish architecture during this period, and the impact of this tradition on subsequent engagement with the buildings of the medieval past.     

Seventeenth century concepts of "apoplexy" as reflected in Bonet's "Sepulchretum"

The term "apoplexy," which has been in use since antiquity, referred to a catastrophic illness with an abrupt loss of consciousness and a frequently fatal outcome. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries scholastic approaches that relied on authorities were merging with an observational approach to medicine and Galen's speculation that apoplexy was due to an accumulation of phlegm or black bile in the cerebral ventricles began to be seriously challenged. The most extensive collection of case reports with autopsies published in the seventeenth century was Theophile Bonet's Sepulchretum sive Anatomia Practica. Section 2 of Book I of the Sepulchretum contains 70 case reports of patients that died with the diagnosis of apoplexy. The scholia in this section provide an idea for the modern reader of the notions physicians had of apoplexy in the seventeenth century. The Sepulchretum was an important book for physicians of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It played an important role in the development of modern medicine and it was an important foundation for Morgagni's De Sedibus et Causis Morborum. This essay reviews the pathological findings reported in victims of apoplexy and examines the views concerning the symptomatology, pathogenesis, etiology, and treatment of this condition that were prevalent at that time.     

Medieval descriptions and doctrines of stroke: preliminary analysis of select sources. Part III: multiplying speculation - the high and late Middle Ages (1000-1450)

By analyzing a body of texts compiled by various medical authors from the 11th to the 15th century, four basic developments can be noted: (1) From the beginning of the eleventh century the reception, translation and assimilation of Arabian and arabicized ancient texts became the ultimate goal of Western medicine (Constantine the African, Arnad of Villanova, et al.). Concepts of stroke were consequently guided by textual tradition, not by observation. (2) Scholastic speculations about different aspects of apoplexy, especially those concerning its origins, were numerous (Johannes Platearius, Batholomaeus Salernitanus, Pietro d'Abano, Giacomo da Forli). Although most medieval physicians used the ancient doctrine of the four humors as model and explanation, opinions differed in many ways. (3) Attempts developed to present a simple outline of the etiology, the prognosis, and the treatment of the disease (Gilbertus Anglicus, Bernard of Gordon, John of Gaddesden). (4) Although lacking in originality, many of these writers nevertheless achieved a certain uniformity in presenting main topics, thus setting the standard for later practitioners.     

From pear maiden to tower princes: towards a new history of medieval childhood

Twenty years ago, Philippe Arie`s presented a negative view of childhood, characterized by abuse and neglect. The thesis was persuasive, but evidence from England from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries contradicts its tenets. The neglected material suggests that medieval society placed a high value on its children's lives and safety, and condemned harshly those who ignored it. Neglect still existed, but honored as a cultural ideal was a caring commitment towards children. Sermons and medical treatises increasingly described childhood innocence and parental devotion. Narrative literature such asPearl used the image of a grieving parent to underline philosophical themes. The most public of medieval literature, the Corpus Christi plays, directly addressed the parents in the audience on their responsibilities to their children. Richard III's political career was irrevocably affected by his society's beliefs about children. The disappearance of his nephews from public view sparked rumors about his abuse and murder of them. Even mere rumor about an attack on innocents inspired rebellion during Richard's reign and literary condemnation by contemporary chronicles. By the sixteenth century, Richard had become the prime example of the monster shunned by society because of his disregard for its most basic ideal.     

Die subjektive Objektivität der mittelalterlichen Medizin

The problem of ‘reality’ and ‘realism’ is rarely discussed in medieval medical texts, although medieval medicine is based on objectivity. There are three reasons why medieval physicians were so sure about their image of human nature: the convincing model of humoral pathology, the undoubted truth of tradition, and the suggestive similarities between worldly things and their presumed divine purpose. Thus, individual cases were only examples of the common theory of medicine and were by no means able to change it.     

Wild Cattle: Red Deer in the Religious Texts,Iconography, and Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland

Humans use animals as a means of creating and manipulating relationships with other human beings. This process occurs both through the use of animals for food or raw materials and through the use of animals as literary and artistic symbols. Cervus elaphus is Irelands only indigenous deer species. It is also unique in being the only native Irish, wild animal to appear frequently in medieval texts, iconography, and archaeological deposits. This paper brings together diversesources of information to illuminate how early medieval monasteries used reddeer to establish an identity for themselves and to conceptualize socioeconomic relationships with others.     

MEDIEVALISMS AND MEDIEVAL TIMES: CONFRONTING CHRONOPOLITICS WITH MEDIEVAL TEXTURES OF TIME

This review essay examines Nadia R. Altschul's discussion of medievalism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South America in Politics of Temporalization: Medievalism and Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century South America. She explores a chronopolitics whereby the notion that late medieval Iberia lagged developmentally behind the rest of Europe sustained the claim that parts of South America were still medieval, even while capitalist modernity was established elsewhere. Her exploration of the instrumentalization of this trope for neocolonial and neoliberal purposes provokes my own exploration here of medieval ideas about time. Medieval people actually had very sophisticated ideas about time, and this complexity troubles the idea of a simplistic and dully repetitive medieval temporality on which the linear hierarchies of time analyzed and critiqued by Altschul rely. More than this, though, I suggest that medieval ideas of time provide us with alternative chronotopes in the sense of thinking through the relationships between time and space in very different ways; in turn, this might permit a different kind of chronopolitics. First, I explore the ways in which medieval people experienced and articulated multiple interwoven layers of time, de-essentializing hierarchies of temporalities and puncturing the illusion that certain spaces should be associated with certain times. Second, I look at the ways in which time was not straightforwardly conceived of as linear in the Middle Ages and consider the ways in which this troubles ideas of periodization; a short discussion of nostalgia in different periods sustains this point. Third, I explore the ways in which ideas about time could be contested in the Middle Ages, challenging the idea that chronopolitics need just be a study of hegemonic attitudes.     

从流民法看都铎时期议会与王权的关系

都铎时期是英国从中世纪封建社会向近代资本主义社会过渡的历史大变革时期。英国虽确立了君主专制制度,但国王在政策上仍需要议会的支持,议会亦需要王权的保护。这种“互助”的关系也反映在流民立法上。当英国出现严重的流民问题时,议会颁布的一系列法令法规中充分体现了国王的意志。因此,无论是“血腥立法”还是“社会福利”立法,其根本目的都是解决社会危机,避免发生动乱,稳固统治,在这一点上议会与国土的利益是一致的,国王与议会的关系是对立统一的。     

Potential osteoarchaeological evidence for riding and the military use of horses at Malbork Castle,Poland

The paper explores interpretations of two sets of pathological horse vertebrae identified during analyses of animal bones from recent excavations at the castle at Malbork in northern Poland (formerly Marienburg in Prussia). One specimen dates to the 18th century and the other to the medieval period. The castle was initially constructed by the Teutonic Order from the late 13th century and occupied by military institutions into the 19th century, and is one of the largest fortified structures in Europe. The pathological vertebrae are attributed to prolonged load‐bearing. The problematic interpretation of the remains from the medieval context as belonging to a warhorse is discussed. Warhorses are widely described in contemporary documentary sources which indicate that mares were typically kept in farms on the Order's estates in late‐medieval Prussia, while studs were separately stabled at castles. There is not enough data to confirm the medieval specimen as a warhorse, and both vertebrae may simply represent riding animals. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Internationalism of German Castle Research: Bodo Ebhardt,His European Network,and the Construction of 'Castle Knowledge'

Abstract

Recent monographs and articles emphasize the strong impact of nationalism and racist thinking on archaeology. In contrast to the treatments which focus on single nation states and on archaeology as a politically legitimate science, this paper explores the tension between internationalism and racist premises in German castle research, and how it manifests itself in the construction of knowledge about medieval castles across national borders. I will focus on Bodo Ebhardt, Germany's most famous and influential castle researcher of the first half of the 20th century. The analysis of his scientific work, and of his personal contact with other European researchers as well as with German politicians and patrons, will shed light on the changes and continuities in his network, and in particular on his construction of the past that was influenced by the formation of this network, which, in turn, affected his assessment of medieval castles.     

The archaeology of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: a review of work 1947-97

The mid- to late tenth century has been seen as a period in which the kings of León saw their ability to project their power throughout their regnum challenged by the emergence of a magnate class increasingly disinclined to co-operate with public authority. This article aims to re-examine this premise via the following approach: first, a discussion of common problems and misconceptions related to notions of public power and government as these terms are used in an early medieval Spanish historiographical context; second, a case study which examines the roles of political actors in one relatively well-documented region of the kingdom. It argues that structures designed to deliver justice and maintain order in the region depended much more on the participation of local actors than they did on the king's official agents; the wider implications for our understanding of public authority are then considered anew.     

Überlieferungs- und Verständnisprobleme im medizinischen Latein des frühen Mittelalters

In most instances, knowledge is passed on through the medium of language. The author tries to demonstrate to what extent the Latin present in early medieval Latin medical treatises failed to fulfill its role as an efficient medium of communication, which factors may account for this failure and how scholars in the middle ages strove to restore sense in texts in various stages of corruption, an attempt that was bound to be unsuccessful in many cases owing to a lack of reliable dictionaries.