example.42 e most extravagant use of the medical model in English sources is the Livre de Seyntz Medicines (Book of sacred medicines), a penitential work compiled by Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster in 1354, which made use of the Fasciculus morum and the Dominican work of spiritual and physical counsel, La Somme le roi.43 is work on holy medicines by Duke Henry shows the extent to which the medical model had already been absorbed in aristocratic circles, and was soon to be reproduced in many other devotional works aimed at the laity. Carole Rawclie’s Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England concludes with examples which bear out this observation.44 e authors of all these religious works drew on medical authorities for their characterisation of diseases and remedies, but usually indirectly, often relying for example on the encyclopedic work of the English Franciscan Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum (On the properties of things). A good understanding of the procedures of medical diagnosis, the nature and dierence of illnesses, and of medical and surgical treatment, is assumed on the part of the preacher and of his audience, if the medical model is to work as a preaching device.

hope of future relief.46 Counsel directed at lay readers, both religious and medical, was not just a matter of oral preaching or telling stories to patients. Friars were heavily involved with two complementary areas of advice to lay people in written form, spiritual guidance and bodily regimen and diet. Roger Bacon’s edition of pseudo-Aristotle, Secretum secretorum of the 1270s, which took the form of advice from the philosopher Aristotle to Alexander the Great, combined advice on conduct with medical regimen in the same text. is conduct of princes genre found a ready readership among aspirational lay folk more generally. Such was the case with the Dominican La Somme le roi, already mentioned, and with its various spin-os in translations or adaptations in Middle English. Moral or spiritual guidance was a necessary partner to advice on regimen and diet, as the aim was to encourage spiritual and bodily control on the part of the individual in their daily life. is topic will be explored in Chapter 5.

highlighted the signicance of medicine in this eld.49 e work of Maaike Van der Lugt, particularly in her book Le ver, le demon et la vierge, has shown what may be done to elucidate the role of medicine by focussing on the topic of generation as it played out in theological arguments from the 1230s onwards. She demonstrates that Dominican and Franciscan theologians chose to incorporate explanatory ideas drawn from Aristotle and Galen on the topic of generation according to their theological priorities. Franciscans tended to favour a Galenic approach to embryology in discussing the virgin birth of Christ, because it espoused an active maternal role in generation and tted best with their particular reverence for the virgin Mary. Aristotelian denial of an active role to the maternal seed in generation was favoured more by Dominican theologians, who were more interested in emphasising an instantaneous formation of Christ’s human nature at conception.50 Individual theologians in all orders of friars might nevertheless take positions on these questions, which diered from others of their own brethren, and Van der Lugt ’s discussion of these debates shows how deeply the friars entered into naturalist theories of human generation, while always prioritising theology.51 In contrast with their dierent handling of medical issues in theological discussions, I will be arguing that the four orders of friars in England shared a similar outlook in writing about practical medicine (see Chapters 3 and 4).