Before the development of independent hospitals in the later Middle Ages, some of the best medical care could be found in monastic infirmaries, where monks and nuns provided natural remedies and spiritual support for patients, the elderly, pilgrims, and orphans. The Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, England, was one of the largest monasteries in medieval Europe, and was renowned for its medical care, but historians know little about actual healing practices there.
In this lecture, Dr. Winston Black will discuss the recent discovery of a twelfth-century medical and religious handbook produced at Bury St Edmunds and use it to reconstruct the healing practiced there in a transitional period of medical history.