Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice

Abstract

Although it is well-known that charms and prayers were employed as healing therapies during the medieval period, it has generally been assumed that these practices were mostly confined to folk practitioners, herbalists, midwives, or other 'lay' practitioners, who might resort to 'magical cures'. In contrast, this article calls attention to the charms and prayers recorded by four medical writers with academic credentials, Gilbertus Anglicus, John Gaddesden, John Arderne, and Thomas Fayreford. It locates the rationale for the inclusion of verbal therapy as acceptable forms of experimenta and empirica within the scholastic medical discourse of the period. Complex and widely-ranging attitudes toward such cures are found in the works of medieval authorities. Finally, the article surveys the charms and prayers found in Gilbertus, Gaddesden, Arderne, and Fayreford, with a view to describing the genre, considering the types of medical conditions for which they are prescribed, and identifying motifs employed in the formulae. An appendix lists the verbal cures found in these four writers, indicates whether each contains a charm, prayer, or other ritual, and notes the motifs utilized for each one.