Extra-Medical Elements in Anglo-Saxon Medicine

Abstract

lfric (writing about ad 1000) decries the use of enchantments and witchcraft in healing; our hope should be in God. Each of the six extant medical texts in Old English contains elements which are not strictly medical, which I refer to as ‘extra’. I concentrate on the differing use of amulets, incantations, rituals and special exotic ingredients in the texts, ranging from the two translations from Latin in the Apuleius Complex, to the compilation in two books which we call Bald's Leechbook, extant in the same mid-tenth-century manuscript as the brief Leechbook III, and finally to the ‘medical commonplace book’ usually called Lacnunga, ‘Remedies’, dating from about ad 1000. The Lacnunga has the most folkloric elements, but also the most intensive use of Christian references, in about a quarter of its remedies. The rest of the texts have fewer ‘extra’ elements, but in different proportions.

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