Main description:

The important and ever-shifting role of medicinal plants in medieval science, art, culture, and thought, both in the Latin Western medical tradition and in Byzantine and medieval Arabic medicine, is the focus of this new collection. Following a general introduction and a background chapter on Late Antique and medieval theories of wellness and therapy, in-depth essays treat such wide-ranging topics as medicine and astrology, charms and magical remedies, herbal glossaries, illuminated medical manuscripts, women's reproductive medicine, dietary cooking, gardens in social and political context, and recreated medieval gardens. They make a significant contribution to our understanding of the place of medicinal plants in medieval thought and practice, and thus lead to a greater appreciation of how medieval theories and therapies from diverse places developed in continuously evolving and cross-pollinating strands, and, in turn, how they contributed to broader ideas concerning the body, religion, identity, and the human relationship with the natural world.

CONTRIBUTORS: ALAIN TOUWAIDE, LINDA EHRSAM VOIGTS, PETER DENDLE, TERENCE SCULLY, MARIA AMALIA D'ARONCO, PHILIP G. RUSCHE, MARIJANE OSBORN, PETER MURRAY JONES, GEORGE R. KEISER, EXPIRACION GARCIA SANCHEZ, DEIRDRE LARKIN

Contents:

The Legacy of Classical Antiquity in Byzantium and the West - Alain Touwaide
Plants and Planets: Linking the Vegetable with the Celestial in Late- Medieval Texts - Linda Ehrsam Voigts
Plants in the Early Medieval Cosmos: Herbs, Divine Potency, and the Scala natura - Peter Dendle
A Cook's Therapeutic Use of Garden Herbs - Terence Scully
The Jujube-Tree in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Case Study in the Methodolo gy of Textual Archaobotany - Alain Touwaide
Gardens on Vellum: Plants and Herbs in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts - Maria D'Aronco
The Sources for Plant Names in Anglo-Saxon England and the Laud Herbal Glossary - Philip Rusche
Anglo-Saxon Ethnobotany: Women's Reproductive medicine in Leechbook III - Marijane Osborn
Herbs and the Medieval Surgeon - Peter Murray Jones
Rosemary: Not Just for Rememberance - George R. Keiser
Utility and Aesthetics in the Gardens of al-Andalus: Species with Multiple Uses - Expiracion Garcia Sanchez
Hortus Redivivus: The Medieval Garden Recreated - Deirdre Larkin