The Sacred Art: Medicine in the Carolingian Renaissance

Abstract

This article argues that beginning around the turn of the ninth century Carolingian intellectuals engaged in a sustained effort to confirm medicine’s status as a sacred art. It examines the theological justifications for medicine’s utility contained in the Lorscher Arzneibuch. It likewise analyzes how scribes manipulated visual illustrations, metaphors, biblical citations, and histories of medicine in other ninthcentury medical manuscripts in an effort to absorb classical medical knowledge within a Christian tradition. The convergent aims of different compilers suggest that the Lorsch apology should not be seen as a anomaly but as part of a broader agenda to establish medicine’s orthodoxy within a reformed Christian society. That this took inspiration from the close links between conceptions of physical and spiritual health is illustrated by the language used to describe the medicus and the powers accorded to his work. The article challenges the characterization of early medieval medicine as Monchsmedizin...