Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages

ISBN-13: 9781903153079 Publisher: Boydell & Brewer, Limited Publication date: 09/10/2001 Series: York Studies in Medieval Theology , #3 Pages: 271 Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d) Medicine and religion were intertwined in the middle ages; here are studies of specific instances.The sheer extent of crossover - medics as religious men, religious men as medics, medical language at the service of preaching and moral-theological language deployed in medical writings - is the driving force behind these studies. The book reflects the extraordinary advances which 'pure' history of medicine has made in the last twenty years: there is medicine at the levels of midwife and village practitioner, the sweep of the learned Greek and Latin tradition of over a millennium; there is control of midwifery by the priest, therapy through liturgy, medicine as an expression of religious life for heretics, medicine invading theologians' discussion of earthly paradise; and so on.Professor PETER BI