Medicine and hagiography in Italy c. 800-c. 1000.

Abstract

A vast range of sources, from chronicles, hagiography and the liturgy to medical manuscripts and charters, is at our disposal for the study of health and healing in Italy between the ninth and eleventh centuries. What is needed in order to exploit this material is a methodology for the careful examination of sources in their regional, social and political context. I focus on what hagiography can contribute to the study of medicine and disease, discussing in detail two ninth-century episcopal hagiographies, the Milanese second Vita Ambrosii, and the Vita Barbati from Benevento in southern Italy. At the same time, however, I stress the limitations of studying texts in isolation, given that one region, city, or community could be simultaneously producing a number of different kinds of evidence, with possibly more than one view of sickness and healing. There is great potential for medical history in further investigation of the archaeological, liturgical, and charter evidence from early medieval Italy. The study of all surviving manuscripts from this period, not just medical words, can provide a bridge between the detailed examination of a particular text and a discussion of the wider literary and cultural traditions into which they fitted.