270 Pages
    by Routledge

    270 Pages
    by Routledge

    Wounds were a potent signifier reaching across all aspects of life in Europe in the middle ages, and their representation, perception and treatment is the focus of this volume. Following a survey of the history of medical wound treatment in the middle ages, paired chapters explore key themes situating wounds within the context of religious belief, writing on medicine, status and identity, and surgical practice. The final chapter reviews the history of medieval wounding through the modern imagination. Adopting an innovative approach to the subject, this book will appeal to all those interested in how past societies regarded health, disease and healing and will improve knowledge of not only the practice of medicine in the past, but also of the ethical, religious and cultural dimensions structuring that practice.

    Introduction Wounds in the Middle Ages, Anne Kirkham, Cordelia Warr; Part I A Medical Overview; Chapter 1 The Management of Military Wounds in the Middle Ages, Jon Clasper; Part II Miraculous Wounds and Miraculous Healing; Chapter 2 Changing Stigmata, Cordelia Warr; Chapter 3 Miracle and Medicine: Conceptions of Medical Knowledge and Practice in Thirteenth-Century Miracle Accounts, Louise Elizabeth Wilson; Part III The Broken Body and the Broken Soul; Chapter 4 The Solution of Continuous Things: Wounds in Late Medieval Medicine and Surgery, Karine van’t Land; Chapter 5 Medicine for the Wounded Soul, M.K.K. Yearl; Part IV Wounds as Signifiers for Romance Man and Civil Man; Chapter 6 Christ’s Wounds and the Birth of Romance, Hannah Priest; Chapter 7 Wounding in the High Middle Ages: Law and Practice, Jenny Benham; partV Wound Surgery in the Fourteenth Century; Chapter 8 Medicines for Surgical Practice in Fourteenth-Century England: The Judgement against John le Spicer, Ian Naylor; Chapter 9 The Medical Crossbow from Jan Yperman to Isaack Koedijck, Maria Patijn; partVI the Modern Imagination; Chapter 10 The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination, Lila Yawn;

    Biography

    Dr Anne Kirkham is a research associate at the University of Manchester. She obtained her PhD in 2007 and has published an article on St Francis of Assisi in Revival and Resurgence in Christian History (Studies in Church History, vol. 44, 2008). Since 2008, she has taught in the department of Art History and Visual Studies and researched, with Cordelia Warr, medieval wounds and has also co-supervised medical students researching dissertations in the history of medieval medicine. Dr Cordelia Warr is senior lecturer in Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Manchester. She has published on Dressing for Heaven (2010), has co-edited two books on art in Naples with Janis Elliot (The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina, 2004, and Art and Architecture in Naples, 1266-1714, 2010), and is currently working on the representation of stigmata between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries.

    '... The work is documented with footnotes and end-of-chapter reference sources ... primary sources have been cited and used throughout, making this a useful work for those conducting studies on societal culture in the Middle Ages. Recommended. Medieval history library collections, graduate students and above.' Choice '... will provide stimulating reading for historians interested in medicine, surgery, the body, and religious materiality.' Medieval Review 'The editors should be applauded for including articles on a very broad range of topics related to wounds... all readers of Medical History will find chapters that educate and enlighten them.' Medical History