Medieval Herbal Remedies : The Old English Herbarium and Anglo-Saxon Medicine

This book presents for the first time and up-to-date and easy-to-read translation of a medical reference work that was used in Western Europe from the fifth century well into the renaissance. Listing 185 medicinal plants, the uses for each, and remedies that were compounded using them , the translation will fascinate medievalist, medical historians and the layman alike. "Translated into Anglo-Saxon around the year 1000, a collection of medicinal remedies known as the Old English Herbarium enjoyed wide popularity throughout Western Europe from the fifth century well into the Renaissance. Its history was later abandoned in the mid-nineteenth century when it fell into the hands of Oswald Cockayne, an eccentric antiquarian whose quaint translation of the Herbarium presented it as a literary curiosity rather than a serious reference on healing." "Anne Van Arsdall challenges the distortions of Cockayne and later scholars by offering a new translation of the Herbarium, which underscores its importance to the medieval world as well as its remarkable similarities to modern herbal medicine. Illustrated with drawings based on the original manuscript, this work restores our appreciation of a fascinating and most revealing medieval text."--Jacket Medieval herbal remedies......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 8 Foreword......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 1. Oswald the Obscure: the Lifelong Disappointments of T. O. Cockayne ......Page 18 2. Cockayne’s Herbarium ......Page 52 3. The Old English Herbarium in a Larger European Context ......Page 85 4. The Herbarium: Manuscripts, Illustrations, and the Need for a New Translation ......Page 118 Herbarium: Contents......Page 136 Herbarium: Remedies ......Page 155 References ......Page 248 Index of Plant Names ......Page 260 Index of Medical Complaints ......Page 270 General Index ......Page 274 Medieval herbal remedies 4 Copyright 5 Contents 8 Foreword 10 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 14 1. Oswald the Obscure: the Lifelong Disappointments of T. O. Cockayne 18 2. Cockayne’s Herbarium 52 3. The Old English Herbarium in a Larger European Context 85 4. The Herbarium: Manuscripts, Illustrations, and the Need for a New Translation 118 5. A New Translation of the Old English Herbarium 136 Herbarium: Contents 136 Herbarium: Remedies 155 References 248 Index of Plant Names 260 Index of Medical Complaints 270 General Index 274 This book presents the first updated, readable translation of medical reference work that was used in Western Europe from the 5th century well into the Renaissance. In a listing of Anglo-Saxon scholars by importance, somewhere toward the end, but certainly present, would be the Rev. T. Oswald Cockayne (1807-73).