Medical Writings from Early Medieval England: The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts (1) (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)

by John D. Niles (Translator), Maria A D'Aronco (Editor)

The first comprehensive edition and translation of Old English writings on health and healing in more than 150 years.

Unlike elsewhere in Europe, vernacular writings on health and healing had a major place in early medieval England. These texts―unique local remedies and translations of late antique Latin treatises―offer insights into the history of science and medicine, social history, scribal practices, and culture. Some cures resemble ones still used today; others are linguistically extravagant, prescribing ambitious healing practices. Alongside recipes for everyday ailments such as headaches are unparalleled procedures for preventing infant mortality, restoring lost cattle, warding off elf-shot, or remedying the effects of flying venom.

Medical Writings from Early Medieval England presents the first comprehensive edition and translation from Old English of these works in more than 150 years. Volume I includes The Old English Herbal , Remedies from Animals , Lacnunga , the Peri Didaxeon , and a compendium of miscellaneous texts.

864 pages, Hardcover

Published May 1, 2023

Reviews

[Joseph Leake]

It came as something of a surprise to me that the Dumbarton Oakes series did an edition of these of all Old English texts; but I'm delighted that they did. I find perusing this old lore about plants, their distribution and habitats, and their medical properties (putative or actual) to be so enjoyable and satisfying. It's a whole window into a world that feels — at one and the same time — appealingly distant and "other," but also quintessentially, familiarly English.

This simultaneous "double perspective" is present even in just the names of plants and flowers. Look at them in their Old English form, and they look and sound stirringly strange and old: wulfes camb, attorlaðe, beowyrt, hrefnes fot, hundes tunge.

But then update these same names with their Modern English forms, and they sound completely familiar: wolf's comb, atterlathe, beewort, raven's foot, hound's tongue all sound utterly and recognizably English; even though (as far as I know) these don't exist as plant-names today, they sound completely plausible as such. They are simultaneously old but imaginable in the present.

It's also great that this volume includes the wildly weird and intriguing OE "metrical charms." An excellent collection!

[Morgan McKenny-Cowley · Rating 5 out of 5]

what funky fellas