Добавил:
Sekretar
kiopkiopkiop18@yandex.ru
t.me/Prokururor I Вовсе не секретарь, но почту проверяю
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:Ординатура / Хирургия / Библиотека им академика М.И. Перельмана / Книга_5249_Библиотеки_им_академика_М_И_Перельмана.pdf
Friars Practising Medicine 43
I make a humble request on behalf of our dearest brother W., commended
by the prominence of his merits and much praise, who is burdened by a
troublesome daily sickness, that out of regard for Christ you would send
him brother N., so that with God’s favour he may be able to counsel the said
W. to alleviate his illness.
16
Brother N. is not otherwise identiable, but the minister general was asked
to send him to Oxford to provide advice to brother W. on his health. Adam’s
letters favoured one Franciscan medicus above all others. is was Brother
Adam of Bechesoveres. Adam wrote to Brother John of Stamford, custodian
of the Oxford convent:
I humbly appeal to your constant generosity, father, with a pressing request
to undertake the matter of the brother [Ralph of Multon]’s health and ask
that you would, out of sole regard for our Saviour, allow the said brother to
go in person for a remedy to the said brother Adam de Bechesoveres, who
he feels, as he says, has been of considerable help to him, so that he may, by
the grace of God, receive the comfort of the medical treatment begun by the
said Brother Adam with more eective application.
17
Ralph of Multon was expected to travel to the convent of the medicus for
treatment, and would have been happy to do so, as treatment by Adam de
Bechesoveres had previously been of great help for his aiction. In November
1249, Adam Marsh writes to Robert Grosseteste suggesting how the bishop
might be able to consult Adam de Bechesoveres.18 About the year 1250, Adam
de Bechesoveres was in France with the minister general, since a letter of
Adam Marsh promised the provincial that the physician friar would soon
return to England and submit once more to regular discipline.
19
16
Letter 165. Letters, ed. Lawrence, II, pp. 394–5: Ceterum pro karissimo fratre W.,
quem plurime meritorum laudabilium commendant eminentie, languoris diuturni
molestia pregrauato, humiliter supplico, quatinus ob Christi contemplationem uelitis mittere N., ut diuinitate propitia dicto W. consilium mitigande ualetudinis
impendere ualeat.
17
Letter 219. Letters, ed. Lawrence, II, pp. 530–1: uestre paternitatis inolite liberal-
itati suppliciter obsecro, rogans obnixius quatinus fraterne salutis negotium salutari suscipientes pietate, propter solum Saluatoris intuitum permittere uelitis, ut
memoratus scolaris ad dictum Fratrem Adam de Bechesoueres, quem sibi, ut dicit,
non mediocriter profuisse sentit, ad remedium personaliter accedens, per diuinitatis
gratiam ab eodem Fratre Ada inchoatum medele solatium propensiore percipere
ualeat ocio. Adam de Bechesoveres is in Talbot and Hammond, Medical Practi-
tioners, pp. 4–5. Little, Greyfriars, p. 187.
18
Letter 35. Letters, ed. Lawrence, I, p. 103.
19
Letter 186. Letters, ed. Lawrence, II, p. 445; Little, Greyfriars, p. 187.
44 The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England
More usually, there was a request for Adam de Bechesoveres to be sent to
help one of the brothers at Oxford. Adam Marsh wrote to Brother Robert of
ornham (warden of friars at Lynn, but then custodian at Cambridge):
a humble entreaty from your subject that you would not consider it
unsuitable to send the aforesaid Brother Adam of Bechesoveres back to
Oxford without delay in accordance with the brothers’ desire, to restore the
health of the venerable father, Brother John of Reading…
20
On one occasion, Adam Marsh wrote directly to Adam de Bechesoveres
asking for his assistance for a relation of one of the friars at Stamford:
Roger de Kirkby, brother of our Brother Richard de Kirkby of the Stamford
convent…with an earnest request for you to be so good as to extend to him
your helping hand as is, so far as God favours it, necessary and demanded
by his dangerous illness
21
is shows that the healing activity of a Franciscan medicus like Adam de
Bechesoveres could extend to those who were not friars or senior ecclesiastics
like Grosseteste.
e pattern of writing about health and healing in Adam Marsh’s letter
is dictated by his wide range of connections, both within and outside the
Franciscan order, and his busy administrative life. Health comes up as a
problem facing friars and non-friars. It is imperative to take proper advice and
maintain health, and to get the best possible treatment when health breaks
down, as it does so frequently. Adam Marsh recommends treatment by a
skilled medicus within the order because the illnesses of friars and the care of
the sick is a work of charity for any friar, just as it is to look after one’s socius
when travelling. Health must be restored so that the friar or other cleric can
exercise his true vocation, the cure of souls – whether it be through teaching,
preaching or administering confession. Nor does Adam neglect the potential
for spiritual development through the experience of bodily aictions. Writing
to one of his Franciscan brethren, he reects:
20
Letter 176. Letters, ed. Lawrence, II, pp. 422–3: subiectam humilitatis obsecrationem,
uidelicet ut sine more dispendio ad reformandam plenius uenerabilis patris Fratris
Iohannis de Rading sanitatem, que per diuinitatis gratiam in proximo prouentura
speratur, sepe dictum Fratrem Adam de Bechesoueres Oxoniam iuxta fratrum desid-
erium remittere. For John of Reading, see Little, Greyfriars, pp. 180–1.
21
Letter 238. Letters, ed. Lawrence, II, pp. 558–9: Rogero de Kirkeby, fratris nostri
Ricardi de Kirkeby conuentus de Stanford germano …rogans attentius quatinus
eidem, secundum periculose ualetudinis requisitionem necessariam, quantum fuerit
propitia diuinitas, subuentionis manum adhibere.
Friars Practising Medicine 45
On this account I have an undoubting condence that the sharper trial of a
long illness expiates for a devout soul to make it pure, and illuminates it to
make it glorious, and elevates it to make it holy
22
Illness will have a benecial eect if regarded as a test of one’s faith, an
opportunity to submit to God’s will and an occasion to undergo whatever
chastisement is required. Adam Marsh endorses this clerical response to
illness, but his letters suggest that the friar should also follow St Francis in
ministering to the sick. e responsible administrators of the order must do
their best to ensure the health of the friars, as they pursue their calling to the
cure of souls. Whether nursing his socius or seeing to the dispatch of the skilled
friar practitioner Adam of Bechesoveres, Adam Marsh placed the care of the
sick friar at the centre of his responsibilities as brother and administrator.
Confessors and Healers:
Two Dominican Practitioners at Court
As well as ministering to lay men and women of all stations, as mandated by
the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, the missions of preaching and confession
of the friars were targeted at private service to royalty and the nobility. In
return the patronage of this order of society favoured the institutional
consolidation of the friars in England. Royal confessors after Nicholas of
Farnham, bishop of Durham (d. 1257), were drawn from the Dominican
order in the case of kings of England, and from the Franciscans in the case of
queens, almost without exception until the end of the fourteenth century. e
rst Dominican confessor to Henry III was John of Darlington, although the
exact date of his appointment, probably in the 1250s, is not known.23 Robert
Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, was already employing friars as spiritual (and
medical, as we shall see) advisers by this time. Where the royal household
22
Letter 244. Letters, ed. Lawrence, II, pp. 572–3: Propter quod indubitanter condo
quod acerbior examinatio diuturne ualetudinis et expiauit ut sit pura, et illuminauit
ut sit clara, et sublimauit ut sit sancta.
23
C. H. Lawrence, ‘Darlington, John of (d. 1284), archbishop of Dublin.’ ODNB,
September 23 2004, accessed 14 April 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/7159; J. Röhrkasten, ‘Dominicans in England and their Relations with the
Crown’, in A Companion to the English Dominican Province: From its Beginnings
to the Reformation, ed. E. G. Giraud and J. C. Linde (Leiden, 2021), pp. 42–50; J.
Röhrkasten, ‘Londoners and London Mendicants in the Late Middle Ages’, e
Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47 (1996), 446–77 (p. 452); D. A. Carpenter, Henry
III: e Rise to Power and Personal Rule, 1207– 1258 (New Haven, 2020), pp. 273,
281–98.
46 The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England
and Bishop Grosseteste led, other noble and episcopal households followed.24
e duties of the royal confessor sometimes required him to give medical
assistance, even when he does not seem to have been medically qualied.
Walter of Winterbourne OP, confessor to Edward I, and his companion friar
(socius) were paid for expenses in attendance on Alban, the king’s page, who
lay sick; they spent four days out of the royal court in Guienne. In August
1297, Winterbourne carried alms of 11s 5d to Friar Walter de Glemmesford,
to pay for various medicines provided in the treatment of Walter’s inrmities.
In 1304, John de Lenham OP, successor to Winterbourne, was required to
accompany Elizabeth, countess of Hereford and Edward I’s daughter, in her
connement.
25
By its nature, confession of individual sinners was a private aair, and the
precise transactions between confessor and penitent remain unknowable –
because of the seal of the confessional.26 However, the area of potential overlap
between confession and medical advice, between prescriptions for the salvation
of the soul and for the health of the body, was one that the friars were able to
exploit better than other clerics. In her book on Health, Sickness, Medicine and
the Friars in the irteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Angela Montford drew
attention to two Dominican friars who acted as both spiritual advisors and
physicians to their patients.
John of St Giles OP (d. 1259/60)
e rst of these friars was the University of Paris regent master, John of
St Giles, who dramatically left the pulpit while giving a sermon at the
University to take the habit of the Dominican Order in 1230.27 John of
24
See J. Röhrkasten, ‘Die englischen Dominikaner und ihre Beziehungen zur Krone
im 13. Jahrhundert’, in Vita religiosa im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Kaspar Elm, ed.
F. J. Felten and N. Jaspert (Berlin, 1999), pp. 483–502, for a general discussion of
friars and the royal household, citing individual Dominican confessors.
25
C. F. R. Palmer, ‘e King’s Confessors’, e Antiquary 22 (1890), 116, 119; Röhr-
kasten, ‘Dominicans’, pp. 47–54; C. H. Lawrence, ‘Winterbourne, Walter of [Gual-
ter Wynterburn] (c. 1230–1305), cardinal’, ODNB, 23 September 2004, accessed
14 April 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29774.
26
A. Murray, Conscience and Authority in the Medieval Church (Oxford, 2015), chaps.
3 and 4; Reinhardt, Voices, p. 10: ‘Given that sacramental confession is secret by
denition, research in the eld has concentrated on manuals and treatises linked to
the burgeoning eld of moral theology, and that is also a fundamental approach in
this book’.
27
D. Jacquart, ‘St Giles, John of (d. 1259/60), Dominican friar and physician’, ODNB,
23 September 2004, accessed 14 April 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:od-
nb/14851. is account gives an excellent summary of what is known of John’s
Friars Practising Medicine 47
St Giles probably belonged to the entourage of Grosseteste from the time
of his return to England in 1235. In a letter to the provincial prior of the
English Dominicans, Grosseteste had expressed the wish that, when John
returned, he would assist him in his episcopal duties. In another letter,
addressed in 1237 to Jordan of Saxony, prior general of the Dominicans,
Grosseteste requested that John be allowed to stay constantly by his side in
order to advise him in his religious duties, for he did not know any assistant
so ecient.28 St Giles seems to have remained in Grosseteste’s entourage
until the latter’s death in 1253.29 He was summoned by the bishop in his
last hours and heard the latter’s severe words denouncing the mendicants.30
John of St Giles died a few years after Grosseteste, probably in 1259 or
1260. According to Matthew Paris, John of St Giles also acted as a skilled
physician. Before the time of Grosseteste’s last illness, John is reported
to have treated him in 1237 when he was the victim of poisoning. He is
likewise said to have treated the earl of Gloucester, allegedly poisoned in
1258; the earl recovered, though his teeth and nails fell out.31 ese are our
only chronicle references to John of St Giles as medical practitioner. Two
manuscripts contain experimenta or cures attributed to John of St Giles:
Oxford, Bodley MS 786, fols. 170–1v, and Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 222,
fols. 142–3. ere are also one or two other scattered references to John of St
Giles as a medical practitioner, as we shall see below.
ecclesiastical and scholarly career, which I follow here; T. Kaeppeli and E. Panella,
Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii aevi, 4 vols. (Rome, 1970–93), II, pp. 536–7;
Montford, Health, Sickness, p. 126. is sermon and others, preached in the years
1230–31 by John of St Giles, have been preserved in two manuscripts (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS nouv. acq. lat. 338, fols. 9–11v, 43–5, 84–7v, and
MS lat. 12418, fols. 98v–101, 106v–7, 207v–10), and edited by M. M. Davy, Les ser-
mons universitaires parisiens de 1230–1231: contribution à l’histoire de la prédication
médiévale (Paris, 1931), pp. 134–5, 271–98.
28
For Grosseteste’s enlistment of both Dominican and Franciscan friars in his work
as bishop of Lincoln, see Hoskin, Robert Grosseteste, pp. 102–15; J. McEvoy, Robert
Grosseteste (Oxford, 2000), pp. 51–61.
29
Roberti Grosseteste episcopi quondam Lincolniensis epistolae, ed. H. R. Luard, RS 25 (Lon-
don, 1861), pp. 59–63, 70, 131–3; Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, ed. and
trans. F. A. C. Mantello and J. Goering (Toronto, 2010), pp. 91–3, 102, 159–60.
30
Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols. (London, 1872–83), V, pp.
400–7. Matthew Paris’s evolving views on the friars are explored in W. R. omson,
‘e Images of the Mendicants in the Chronicles of Matthew Paris’, Archivum
franciscanum historicum 70 (1977), 3–34.
31
Paris, Chronica, V, pp. 705, 747; Annales de eokesberia, ed. H. R. Luard, Annales
Monastici 1, RS 36 (London,1864), pp. 165, 167. See M. Altschul, A Baronial
Family in Medieval England: e Clares, 1217–1314 (Baltimore, 1965), p. 131.
48 The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England
ese experimenta records of John of St Giles throw considerable light on
the healing practice of a Dominican treating senior prelates and noble patients.
Who were John’s patients? Matthew Paris tells us about his treatment of
Grosseteste and Richard de Clare, 6th earl of Gloucester (1222–62).32 Among
the twenty experiments attributed to John of St Giles in the list in Bodley
MS 786, we encounter only one which mentions a patient, the last. is
experiment names the earl of Gloucester again. It species no illness, and the
remedy is an electuary, a paste mixed with honey or syrup, with many possible
uses. In Peterhouse MS 222, we nd names of both healers and patients
attached to experiments or remedies. e writer of these names seems likely to
have been attached to the household of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey
(1231–1304), since the earl is mentioned several times, as is his wife Alice,
who died in 1256. One of those who treated the earl was John of St Giles,
who is recorded as the author of a treatment for the earl’s deafness (a disability
for which we have no other evidence). Another Dominican friar is responsible
for a remedy for coughing, ‘W. de Bristoll’.33 John of St Giles was consulted
by important people like bishops and earls, and no doubt belonged, at least
on a temporary basis, to their intimate household sta.34 He would have been
able to act as confessor as well as healer, as was the case in his relations with
Grosseteste. Practice amongst people of lower status is not mentioned. Only
elite patients would have appeared in such experimenta, for the prestige of the
remedy would have depended on the status of the patient.
John of St Giles oered treatments for the illnesses outlined in medical
Practica texts, for instance that of the Salernitan author Johannes Platearius.35
A Practica often began with consideration of fevers, illnesses marked by
unnatural overheating of the body and signied by changes in the urine. Of the
twenty experimenta in the Bodley manuscript, three are treatments for fevers.
One shows the renement of John’s diagnostic skills, since he distinguishes a
notha quartan fever (‘untrue’ quartan, intermittent and unpredictable), from
the standard quartan (lasts twenty-four hours followed by forty-eight hours
32
See p. 47 above.
33
A Dominican, Walter of Bristoll, was ordained at Highclere chapel, Hants, by the
bishop of Winchester 18 February 1307, although this candidate may be a little
late to be a candidate for the W. de Bristoll OP, cited here. See R. M. omson, A
Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in the Library of Peterhouse, Cam-
bridge (Cambridge, 2016), p. 138, for the names and some identications of those
mentioned in the fth booklet of MS 222.
34
Payments to friars who acted as royal confessors and thus attended at court are re-
corded by Palmer, ‘King’s Confessors’, (1890), 114–20, 159–61, 262–6; (1891), 24–6.
35
La Practica de Plateario, ed. V. R. Muñoz (Florence, 2010).
Friars Practising Medicine 49
intermission). A further three of the twenty experimenta of John of St Giles
listed in Bodley MS 786 have to do with women’s medicine. e Dominican
vow of chastity required that friars remove themselves from proximity to
women’s bodies and shun knowledge of sexual reproduction. is was clearly
not the case for a healer like John of St Giles – and indeed most of the other
friar practitioners studied in this chapter. If John of St Giles was operating
as a healer and confessor within noble households, he would have found
these experimenta useful in treating women there. While none of the four
experimenta dealing with surgical complaints require the surgeon to draw
blood, they clearly indicate that John of St Giles was as much a surgeon as a
physician, dealing with injuries, sores and discolorations of the skin.
36
ere are indications that John tailored his remedies to the social status of
his patients. An expensive electuary was prescribed for the earl of Gloucester,
Electuarium comitis gloc’ quod dicitur rosata nouella (earl of Gloucester’s electuary,
known as rosata novella). is recipe was based closely on the electuary of
that name in the Antidotarium Nicolai, the most widespread text of compound
medicines. It contained roses, sugar, liquorice, gums and various aromatic
spices, and was used to restore health and strength after a long illness. John
of St Giles may have thought this a good restorative for the earl after the
poisoning episode described by Matthew Paris.37 One of the experimenta
has more of the character of an ‘occult’ remedy than something likely to be
encountered in the Antidotarium Nicolai. is is supposed to be eaten by an
epileptic patient. First, blood must be extracted from a crow or raven and then
dried in an earthenware jar. en the epileptic must consume the dried powder.
No other details are given of quantity or preparation. Epilepsy was a condition
described at length by medical authorities in the Practica genre, and remedies
were often based as much on extraordinary substances and rituals, as on herbal
concoctions designed to operate by managing the humours. Anecdotes from
practice weighed more than causal rationale in remedies for epilepsy.38 I have
not found elsewhere the use of raven or crow’s blood as prescribed by John of St
Giles, although Platearius in his Practica does recommend the eating of raven’s
36
For more detail on the experimenta of John of St Giles, see P. M. Jones, ‘English
Dominicans at Court: Confessors and Healers’, in Popes, Bishops, Friars, and Schol-
ars: Studies in Medieval History, ed. P. Clarke and M. J. P. Robson (forthcoming).
37
See note 30 above. e Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, ed.
and trans. M. H. Green (Philadelphia, 2001), p. 199: ‘it gets rid of vomiting and
upset stomach’ (Antidotarium Nicolai).
38
See L. E. Demaitre, Medieval Medicine: e Art of Healing from Head to Toe (Santa
Barbara, 2013), pp. 141–51.
50 The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England
egg along with blood drawn from the patient’s shoulder and recommends this
as an experiment used by his own father.
39
e most interesting account of a case treated by John of St Giles is preserved
in Peterhouse MS 222, fol. 142vb. It deals with the deafness befalling John de
Warenne, 6th earl of Surrey (1231–1304). Translated this case reads:
For deafness in the ears of the Earl. Instill one or two drops in each ear of
lukewarm nutmeg oil, either on its own, or mixed with a drop of the juice of
rue. Or the rue can be rubbed in lard and thus inserted warm in the ears. And
if an aposteme [a swelling formed of morbid matter] is feared, which can be
diagnosed by hammering and ringing in the ears, then make a maturative
plaster from agrimony and honey, and put that over the ears. e ears should
be stopped up rst with silk. Depending on the patient’s strength, he should
take in the evening three aloe pills, mixed in with myrobalans and rhubarb,
and blended with syrup of violet and white wine.
40
In general, this remedy for deafness resembles that given by Platearius in
his Practica, cap. 17 on illnesses of the ears, where warm nutmeg oil is also
recommended. It is likely that the earl’s deafness was not one from birth, nor
of long duration, for Platearius suggests that these are incurable. e diagnosis
was probably that the earl had suered damage to the auditory nerve, most
likely associated with cold since John of St Giles prescribed warm oils. If
the earl experienced hammering or ringing in the ears, then his deafness
was probably caused by an aposteme or tumour blocking the ear. is was to
be treated with a maturative plaster (emplastrum maturativum) designed to
encourage the aposteme to break. Aloe pills were not mentioned by Platearius
in connection with treating the ears, but how to make them was described in
the Antidotarium Nicolai.41 e use of rue and agrimony to treat deafness is
39
Plateario, ed. Muñoz, cap. 12.140: experimentum patris mei contra epilempsiam: iii
scrupuli sanguinis a scapulis per scaricacionem extracti cum ovo corvi dentur …
Ova corvorum comesta satis valent. See Demaitre, Medieval Medicine, p. 145.
40
Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 222, fol. 142vb: Ad surditatem aurium comitis. distilletur
una gutta vel due in aure olei muscellini tepidi per se. vel admisceatur ei una gutta
succi rute. vel frixetur ruta in sagimine et sic tepida auribus iniciatur Et si timeatur
de apostemate quod percipietur per martellacionem et pulsacionem in auribus; at
emplastrum maturativum ex agrimonia et melle et auribus superponatur. et obturentur
prius cum bombace, Item secundum vires pacientis accipiat in sero tres pillulas de aloe.
et mirobalanis et reubarbe ana. commixtis. et distemperatis cum sirupo viole. et vino
albo. For oleum muscellinum as nutmeg oil, see Norri, Dictionary, p. 733: B57, B58.
41
Eene middelnederlandsche vertaling van het Antidotarium Nicoläı: met den latijnschen
tekst der eerste gedrukte uitgave van het Antidotarium Nicoläı, ed. W. S. Van Berg
(Leiden, 1917), p. 117.
Friars Practising Medicine 51
not found in Platearius, and the specic diagnostic test for an aposteme, the
patient hearing hammering or ringing, is not found there either. ese touches
may reect John of St Giles’s acquired expertise in the treatment of deafness
rather than textual authority.
42
Our records of the experimenta of John of St Giles come from two thirteenthcentury manuscripts, but his name and remedies did not disappear from view
in England. In the Tabula medicine compiled by Franciscans in 1416–25, he
is credited with a remedy for quartan fever. On comparison of the texts, the
Tabula medicine remedy did not descend from either of the thirteenth-century
manuscripts examined here. It must have been transmitted from another early
source. In any case, John of St Giles continued to be regarded as a medical
authority amongst friars of the fteenth century.
Georey Launde, OP
e main source of information on Georey Launde’s career is the register
of letters of Raymond of Capua 1380–99, master general of the Dominican
Order.43 e rst we know of Launde is that he was assigned on 1 April 1393
to read the Sentences of Peter Lombard at the Cambridge convent for the
degree of Doctor of eology.44 At the end of December 1395, Launde was
evidently outside England, for he was given permission to go to the English
province, but afterwards to return to Cologne and also to present himself to
the procurator of the Order at the Roman curia. e following December
(1396), he was given licence to choose a brother confessor who would absolve
42
For literature on deafness as disability in the Middle Ages see https://medie-
valdisabilityglossary.hcommons.org/deafness/, accessed 20 April 2023. See also I.
Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: inking about Physical Impairment During
the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–1400 (London, 2006); Disability in the Middle Ages:
Reconsiderations and Reverberations, ed. J. Eyler (Farnham, 2010); e Treatment of
Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe: Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal,
Literary, Medical, and Religious Discourses of the Middle Ages, ed. W. Turner and T. V.
Pearman (Lampeter, 2011).
43
Registrum litterarum Fr. Raymundi de Vineis Capuani, magistri ordinis 1380–1399,
ed. T. Kaeppeli (Rome, 1937), pp. 175, 184, 189, 200. P. N. R. Zutshi and R. Om-
bres, ‘e Dominicans in Cambridge 1238–1538’, Archivum fratrum praedicatorum
60 (1990), 313–73 (p. 328). See also BRUC, p. 355.
44
For the background to Launde’s Cambridge career, see P. N. R. Zutshi, ‘e Men-
dicant Orders and the University of Cambridge in the Fourteenth and Early
Fifteenth Century’, in e Church and Learning in Later Medieval Society: Essays
in Honour of R. B. Dobson, ed. C. M. Barron and J. Stratford (Donington, 2002),
pp. 210–27; N. Morgan and R. Finn OP, ‘A Pipeline from Heaven: 800 Years
of Dominican Books’, https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/dominicans/case/pipe-
line-from-heaven/, accessed 20 April 2023.
52 The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England
him from any excommunication for having left the bounds of his province
with Raymond’s authority as master general. In February 1397, he was given
permission to spend time at any German convent, and to choose his own socius
and confessor. is permission was to last until the next general chapter of
the Order. So, Launde seems to have gone from Cambridge to Germany and
spent several years there, although his mission is never made clear. What is
clear is that on 18 October 1398
At the instance of Edward, Duke of Aumale, Georey Launde, master in
theology, is given permission to serve the Duke in spiritual and temporal
matters, as the Duke’s confessor. e master [Georey] is given licence to
travel with his socius throughout the province, and to reside in any convent
as long as he nds necessary. He can practice medicine on the person of
the lord Duke, and on his friends and household. is precept warns all
brothers and their households not to obstruct him, or they would incur a
penalty of loss of all privileges in the Order.
45
No other such permission to practise medicine is given in Raymond’s letters.
Georey was explicitly licensed to serve as both confessor and healer to the
duke of Aumale, wherever this service might take him. We do not know how
long Georey continued to serve in the duke’s household. Edward of Langley,
duke of Aumale, was the second son of Edmund the rst duke of York, himself
fth son of Edward III. Edward of Langley was a favourite of King Richard II
but managed to transfer his loyalty successfully to Henry IV when Richard was
dethroned. In 1402, he succeeded his father and became second Duke of York.
Edward died in 1415. As we shall see from Georey Launde’s appearances
as a medical practitioner in the pages of the Tabula medicine, Launde was not
mentioned there as the medicus of the duke of York, so it is probable that he
left the duke’s service before Edward’s death.
46
45
Registrum litterarum, ed. Kaeppeli, p. 200: ad instantiam domini Edwardi, ducis
de Aumarle, concessum fuit fratri Galfrido Lannde, magistro in theologia, quod
adsistat dicto domino duci in spiritualibus et temporalibus, qui eum assumpsit in
confessorem, et quod dictus magister cum socio sibi grato possit ire per provinciam et stare in quocumque conventu quamdiu sibi fuerit necesse. Item quod possit
practicare in medicina circa personam dicti domini ducis et suorum amicorum et
subditorum; et praeceptum factum fuit in forma sub poena privationis omnium
gratiarum ordinis omnibus fratribus, tam praesentibus quam subditis, quod nullus
in praemissis eum audeat impedire. e title of duke of Aumale was awarded to
Langley in 1397 by Richard II.
46
William Holme OFM is credited with healing an ulcer on the foot of the duke of
York in the Tabula medicine. Holme and Launde seem to have known each other and
were perhaps collaborators as healers despite being friars of rival orders. For Holme,