Sights for Sore Eyes: Vision and Health in Medieval England
By Joy Hawkins
On Light, eds. K. P. Clarke and S. Baccianti (The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, 2014)
Introduction: In his celebrated Chirurgia, Henri de Mondeville (d. c.1320), surgeon to King Philip the Fair of France, noted that:
The eye being the noblest and most frail of the external organs, a single grain of corrosive matter is more harmful to it than a hundred would be to feet or jaws; thus we must operate on the eye and such like organs much more carefully.
Henri’s work was quickly translated into a number of vernacular languages, and became popular amongst English medical practitioners who recognised that damage to the eyes caused more pain and discomfort than other physical injuries. It is not surprising, therefore, that the number of remedies focusing on ocular complaints in medical books and herbals was particularly high. In one single fifteenth-century manuscript entitled ‘A Litel Boke of Medicyns’, now bound in British Library MS Sloane 405, there are just over 250 recipes for bodily ills, of which 32 concentrate on ailments of the eyes, a number only equalled by cures for digestive problems. Together, these two types of disorder account for over a quarter of the entries in the ‘Litel Boke’, suggesting that the health of the eyes, alongside that of the digestion, caused the greatest concern. The eye was, of course, an easily accessible part of the body, which could often be treated effectively with comparatively simple preparations, which helps to explain the profusion of remedies in these pages. Loss of sight was profoundly debilitating in both physiological and economic terms and thus to be avoided at all costs. Furthermore, as we will see, visual impediments caused additional anxiety amongst medically-informed patients because of the threat they posed to the well-being of the entire body. It must be noted that blindness could be equally regarded as a gift from God, conferring inner wisdom and providing the opportunity for personal redemption. Good Christians who accepted their infirmity with humility hoped that they would be spared a far worse ordeal in purgatory.
This article will explore the effect that sight was thought to have on the whole physiological system. As we shall see, looking upon beautiful objects, such as colourful flowers and green grass, fortified the spirits and kept them healthy, while disgusting or disturbing images could corrupt the body, and, in extremis, threaten life itself. Through an examination of two of the commonest causes of ophthalmic complaints – old age and performing close, detailed work in poor light – we will consider how far the introduction of spectacles helped long-sighted craftsmen and scribes. None the less, it will be suggested that, whatever the physical cause, blindness had grievous consequences for a person’s spiritual well-being, confining the individual to a private world of darkness, and preventing him or her from witnessing the elevation of the Host or benefiting from the therapeutic influence of religious iconography. The eyes were thought to present a physical manifestation of the state of the soul, which meant that any inner spiritual deformity would reveal itself in them. Red, sore, cloudy or weeping eyes, for instance, could signify a sinful soul that needed purgation.
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