Medicine on Trial: Regulating the Health Professions in Later Medieval England

Abstract

Given the hurdles one faced in trying to stay healthy in later medieval England, it should come as no surprise that the medieval English placed a premium on competent medicine. As Carole Rawcliffe has argued, “medieval life was beset by constant threats to health arising from poor diet (at both ends of the social spectrum), low levels of hygiene, high rates of infant mortality, the risks of childbirth and repeated pregnancies, accidents and injuries.” Add to this the episodic dangers of war, epidemics, and famine, as well as the lack of antibiotics, and we have a world in great need of medical expertise. Because of the prohibitive cost of professional medicine, men and women in late medieval England insisted that medical practitioners be held to high standards. Swindlers and frauds who posed as physicians but had no real medical credentials felt the full wrath of medieval society. One of the best-known, and most revealing, cases is that of Roger Clerk of Wandsworth, indicted before the mayor’s court of London in May of 1382. Claiming that “he was experienced and skilled in the art of medicine” when really he “knew nothing of either of the arts [of medicine and surgery] nor understood anything of letters,” Clerk undertook to cure Johanna, wife of Roger atte Hacche of London, of “certain bodily infirmities.” After receiving a payment of 12d, Clerk gave Johanna’s husband “an old parchment, cut or scratched across, being the leaf of a certain book, and rolled it up in a piece of cloth of gold, asserting that it would be very good for the fever and ailments of the said Johanna.” The talisman did nothing for Johanna. Feeling deceived, Hacche took Clerk to court. The parchment itself was entered into evidence before the mayor and aldermen of the city. When asked to read the words on the parchment, the illiterate Clerk responded, “Anima Christi, sanctifica me; corpus Christi, salva me; in isanguis Christi, nebria me; cum bonus Christus tu, lava me.” But officials examining the parchment found none of these words inscribed thereon, and the court concluded that Roger Clerk was both an infidel and a fraud. As punishment, he was to be “led through the middle of the City, with trumpets and pipes, [. . .] the said parchment and a whetstone, for his lies, being hung about his neck, an urinal also being hung before him, and another urinal on his back.” The public display with urine flasks symbolizing the medical profession adorning the culprit’s neck was intended to mock him. Public ridicule of this nature was a popular approach to dealing with sinners and miscreants in late medieval England; the courts intended the public punishment to act both as humiliation and as a deterrent to others who might contemplate engaging in the same fraudulent activities. That the court regarded Clerk’s attempts to heal his patient with an old talisman as heresy demonstrates just how reprehensible his actions were thought to be. The very public and degrading punishment of Roger Clerk indicates a low tolerance for deception in the business of medicine in later medieval England.