The Sururgia of Nicholas Neesbett: Writing Medical Authority in Later Medieval England

Abstract

Summary The surgical recipe book of Nicholas Neesbett, a fifteenth-century practitioner in northern Yorkshire, is a unique artefact in the history of medieval English medicine. Though Neesbett had little Latin and no formal training, his vernacular surgical manual bridges two distinct forms of expertise often at odds in medieval medicine, merging the traditions of the learned Latin surgery with the hands-on experiential knowledge of the empiric. This article publishes Neesbett’s manuscript, a portion of MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1438, contributing to a growing number of studies that focus on medical manuscripts as instruments of practice. The Section ‘The Surgical Manual in Medieval Medicine’ situates Neesbett’s ‘Sururgia’ within the context of learned and vernacular medical manuscripts in later medieval England. The Section ‘A Medical Man Makes His Mark’ reveals both Neesbett’s textual influences and the everyday practices of exchange, manufacture and collection that generated medical knowledge among rural practitioners. The Appendix contains a full diplomatic transcription of the previously unpublished manuscript.