The mandrake plant and its legend: a new perspective
As a specialist in German mediaeval studies, until the time Peter Bierbaumer introduced me to Old English plant names and approached me with the idea of republishing and updating his Der botanische Wortschatz des AltenglischenI had no idea how fascinating Old English could be.
Natural remedies for impotence in medieval Persia
In recent years, some experimental studies have evaluated medieval Persian natural therapies using modern scientific methods. These investigations raised the possibility of revival of traditional treatments
A note on the origins of syphilis
The name syphilis came into common usage. It came from a Latin epic poem Syphilis, sive Morbvs Gallicvs, written by Girolamo Fracastoro or Hieronymus Fracastorius(1483–1553). In his work De contagione et contagiosis morbis, he discussed the nature and the spread of infectious diseases, foretelling the germ theory of disease.
Islamic astronomy
Although the story of how Greek astronomy passed to the Arabsis comparatively well known, the history of its transformation by Islamic scholars and subsequent retransmission to the Latin West is only now being written
The Origin of Quarantine
A similar strategy was used in the busy Mediterranean sea- port of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia). After a visitation of the black death, the city’s chief physician, Jacob of Padua, advised establishing a place outside the city walls for treatment of ill townspeople and outsiders who came to town seeking a cure. The impetus for these recommendations was an early contagion theory, which promoted separation of healthy persons from those who were sick.
The concept of quarantine in history: from plague to SARS
The concept of ‘quarantine’ is radically embedded in local and global health practices and culture, attracting heightened interest during episodes of perceived or actual epidemics. The term, however, evokes a variety of emotions, such as fear, resentment, acceptance, curiosity and perplexity, reactions often to be associated with a lack of knowledge about the origins, meaning, and rel- evance of quarantine itself.
Diagnostics in Late Medieval Sources
Medieval medicine as a scientific discipline was constituted generally in the 11th and 12th century on the basis of Latin translations of Arabic and Greek medical texts.
Technology and Alchemical Debate in the Late Middle Ages
The medieval world view was marked by a deep division between art and nature. Stemming partly from Aristotle, and partlyfrom other Greek, Latin, and Arabic sources, this view placed strict boundaries on the conceptual limits of technical innovation.
Early medieval science: the evidence of Bede
The Venerable Bede used observable proofs and mathematical calculations in his early 8th-century treatise De temporum ratione to teach the astronomical principles that inform the calculation of the date of Easter. This suggests that the seeds of the modern scientific method might be found before the 12th century in the educational practices of the early medieval monasteries.
Cultural Uses of Magic in Fifteenth-Century England
I aim to demonstrate that magic freely co-mingled with non-magical texts in manuscripts. Furthermore, this mixing of magical and non-magical texts is a vital part of understanding magic’s role in the shaping of people‟s identities, both public and private.
Could Vikings have navigated under foggy and cloudy conditions by skylight polarization?
There is archaeological evidence that the Vikings did not possess magnetic compass, and they navigated on the open sea with the help of a sundial composed of a wooden disc with a perpendicular gnomon in its centre.
Anatomy during the Italian Renaissance: A Brief History of How Artists Influenced its Development
The earliest dissections took place in the homes of the wealthy and became quite common by the 1400’s. However, dissections were still only performed on criminals of low birth and were regarded as a great humility.
The science of love in the Middle Ages, the romantic period, and our own time
I begin with a number of fascinating and difficult questions. Why did man originally create, and why does he continue to create, works on the “science of love”?
Biological Exchange and Biological Invasion in World History
For millions of years, most species stayed home. Geographic barriers, such as oceans and mountain chains, inhibited migrations and divided the earth into distinct biogeographical provinces. Only birds, bats, and flying insects bucked the trend consistently.
Herbs of the Field and Herbs of the Garden in Byzantine Medicinal Pharmacy
An interested student or scholar wishing to inquire about the essentials of herbalism in the Byzantine Empire likely will be led into the Greek texts on gardens, well illustrated by the Christian “dream garden” as published in Greek…
The Planetary Portent of 1524 in China and Europe
Events of 1524 in China and Europe in response to the planetary phenomenon offer insights into the divergent Chinese and Western responses to such “millennial” events.
The Biological Section of the Voynich Manuscript: A Textbook of Medieval Plant Physiology?
The Voynich manuscript, written in a mysterious cipher and illustrated in a herbal-like form with stylized paintings of bizarre, unidentifiable plants, remains to this day one of the most enduring enigmas of the medieval period.
Gregory of Tours, Monastic Timekeeping, and Early Christian Attitudes to Astronomy
If there was little scientific progress in the early Middle Ages, a rudimentary scientific activity was nonetheless essential to that later quest for learning.
Of Our Own Nation: John Wallis’s Account of Mathematical Learning in Medieval England
In A treatise of algebra both historical and practical, John Wallis wrote the first survey of the state of mathematical learning in medieval England, and discussed with particular care the arrival and significance of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system
Deplatonising the Celestial Hierarchy. Peter John Olivi’s interpretation of the Pseudo-Dionysius
These two different pedigrees could not be easily reconciled. The encounter of biblical and Neoplatonic angels produced one of the most crucial questions that theologians had to face in the second half of the thirteenth century…
Evidence and Intuition: Making Medieval Instruments
Evidence and Intuition: Making Medieval Instruments Adelman, Beth Early Music America (Fall 2005) Abstract The Atlakvida (The Lay of Attila), an 8th-or early 9th-century…
Medieval Music Literature
Medieval Music Literature Christensen, Thomas (University of Chicago) THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL MUSIC, March (2011) Abstract Literature on music in the Middle…
Conference on ‘Alchemy and Medicine from Antiquity to the Enlightenment’ taking place at University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is hosting an international conference – Alchemy and Medicine from Antiquity to the Enlightenment – which will include over…
Narratives of Technological Revolution in the Middle Ages
Narratives of Technological Revolution in the Middle Ages By Adam Lucas Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends, Vol. 2, edited by Albrecht…
Women Scientists of the Middle Ages and 1600s
Therefore, it is all the more remarkable that history yields to us several outstanding women of the Middle Ages and 1600s whose accomplishments in the fields of science and writing are still recognized today as valid and significant.