Medicine, computus and quadrivium in English manuscripts of the 11th and early12th centuries. (360G-Wellcome-099299_Z_12_Z)

This project forms part of a larger study of scientific and medical learning in England in the 11th and 12th centuries, focussing on the nexus between change in the mathematical sciences (quadrivium) and computus (time-reckoning), and change in medical science. In the 200 years straddling the Norman Conquest and the reception of Greco-Arabic learning, England was actively participating in new trends in both domains. Recent scholarship on medicine has confirmed England's openness to Salerno's "theoretical turn", but has neglected medical materials lodged in quadrivium/computus manuscripts, especially those written after 1100. My hypothesis is that reception of new medicine cannot be detached from reception of other kinds of scientific learning which share the same manuscript context. Two manuscripts written shortly around 1100, Durham Hunter 100 and Oxford St John's College 17, contain a distinctive mix of both old and new materials about both medicine and quadrivium/computus. This project aims to analyse the sources of their medical texts, and compare them to contemporary English manuscripts of similar character, in order to situate medical learning in a process of intellectual and cultural transition. It will result in an article, which will be expanded into a chapter in the projected monograph.