Bald'sLeechbookand cultural interactions in Anglo-Saxon England

Abstract

The Old English medical records are rich in materials which contain evidence for contacts between the Anglo-Saxons and other cultures. For example, in 1945 Howard Meroney collected the various loan translations of Irish words found in the medical charms in theLeechbook, Lacnungaand other Old English texts. It is an interesting exercise to speculate on how Irish charms such as these, in Old Irish, got into the Old English medical repertory in their pristine form, whereas most of the Latin medical charms were translated straightway into English. It is customary to suppose that the Anglo-Saxons picked them up from Irish teachers in their monasteries, but there may be other explanations. Recently, while I was reading theHisperica famina(in Michael Herren's translation), I came across references to young ‘visitors’, students who wandered about the Irish countryside begging for food and shelter among the country people, with whom they had difficulty communicating; as one of them is made to say:Who will ask these possessorsto grant us their sweet abundance?For an Ausonian chain binds me;hence I do not utter good Irish speech.