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Social History of Medicine Vol. 16 No. 3  The Society for the Social History of Medicine 2003, all rights reserved.

Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and

Practice
By LEA T . OLSAN *

S U M M A R Y . Although it is well-known that charms and prayers were employed as healing

therapies during the medieval period, it has generally been assumed that these practices
were mostly confined to folk practitioners, herbalists, midwives, or other ‘lay’ practitioners,
who might resort to ‘magical cures’. In contrast, this article calls attention to the charms and
prayers recorded by four medical writers with academic credentials, Gilbertus Anglicus,
John Gaddesden, John Arderne, and Thomas Fayreford. It locates the rationale for the
inclusion of verbal therapy as acceptable forms of experimenta and empirica within the
scholastic medical discourse of the period. Complex and widely-ranging attitudes toward
such cures are found in the works of medieval authorities. Finally, the article surveys the
charms and prayers found in Gilbertus, Gaddesden, Arderne, and Fayreford, with a view to
describing the genre, considering the types of medical conditions for which they are
prescribed, and identifying motifs employed in the formulae. An appendix lists the verbal
cures found in these four writers, indicates whether each contains a charm, prayer, or other
ritual, and notes the motifs utilized for each one.
KEYWORDS: magic, medicine, charm, prayer, experimenta, empirica, Gilbertus, Gaddesden,
Arderne, Fayreford

In England, during the period from 1200 to 1500, a person suffering from a
medical problem might consult one or more kinds of healer in the hope of relief or
certainty in the face of death. If he or she were wealthy and had social connections,
a physician with academic credentials (perhaps a priest) could be summoned, and
the best current medical theories would be brought to bear in the case. The patient
might choose to consult a specialist: a physician, surgeon, or midwife with exper-
tise in the medical procedure that was needed. Alternatively, especially if one were
not rich or lived away from a city, there might be a visiting physician available,
whose services were known to produce good results. One could also seek out
a local healer who, although without professional titles or academic credentials,
knew ‘leechcraft’. This latter sort of healer would most likely provide a medicinal
remedy made of herbs, or, for certain conditions (fever, bleeding, eye problems),
supply prescriptions involving charms, prayers, or amulets. This rough typology of
healers might seem to imply a social and intellectual hierarchy, with élite physi-
cians at the top dispensing university medicine, while at the bottom we find local
leeches only prescribing charms and prayers; but, in fact, we find physicians who
deal in charms too. Do these learned men recognize that their medicine breaks
down when it comes to certain areas of practice? Are charms and prayers examples
of medicine of last resort, or can such prima-facie ‘folkloric’ practices actually be
justified in terms of Galenic medicine itself?

* Department of English, University of Louisiana, Monroe, 700 University Avenue, Monroe, LA

71209, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

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344 Lea T. Olsan

By examining the medical writings of selected doctors who practised during the
late Middle Ages, or whose books of medicine were widely known during this
period in England, we can look for the rationale of such remedies in the light of the
rational precepts of medicine and religious beliefs. To this end, it will also be useful
to consider the comments of certain continental authorities, namely Bernard of
Gordon, Guy de Chauliac, and Nicholas of Poland, who addressed the practice of
using empirica and charms. Guy and Bernard (who continued to use charms himself)
might be viewed as offering a sort of critique of English authors (especially since
Gaddesden is personally attacked). These continental writers exposed the intellec-
tual assumptions that lay behind the use of empirica. The last section of the article,
with the appendix, illustrates which medical complaints were considered by English
doctors to be amenable to charms and prayers and which formulae were recom-
mended for specific medical conditions. The English authorities whose writings
have been consulted for this paper are Gilbertus Anglicus (writing between 1200
and 1250) and John Gaddesden (c.1280–1349), both of whom became famous
medical authorities; John Arderne (1307–77), primarily known as a surgeon; and
Thomas Fayreford (writing between 1420 and 1460), a successful practitioner who
recorded his cases and treatments. These representatives of late-medieval medical
practice belonged to different arenas of medicine, but they all produced books on
medicine in Latin. They were loosely connected to one another by a few charms
held in common and some others that were passed along in their books with the
appropriate attribution to the previous authority. I begin with a brief account of
each of these medical authorities.

I
Gilbertus, cleric and physician to King John, wrote a Compendium medicinae that
became a standard reference for physicians for centuries.1 Completing it before
1240, Gilbertus utilized the most learned authorities available: Hippocrates, Galen,
‘Haly’, Avicenna, Averroes. It is a teaching text rather than a practitioner’s guide,
although Gilbertus does not seem to have taught at a university himself. Each
chapter is devoted to a part of the body, a disease, or a trauma. Each entry begins
with the classification of the varieties of problems associated with the part of the
body under consideration. Signs (signa) and causes (causae) are then explained,
followed by multiple cures (curae). Cures include dietary regimens, pills, powders,
ointments, plasters, herb waters for baths, liquid medicines and syrups, surgical
procedures, and cautery. Charms and prayers are rare in this book which, in the
printed edition of 1510, comes to over 300 folios. Medical historians have cited
1
On ‘Gilbertus de Aquila, Anglicus’, see F. Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages (Princeton,
1998), pp. 39–41, and her Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle English Translation of the
Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus (Madison, 1991), pp. liii–lvi. See also C. H. Talbot and
E. A. Hammond, The Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register (London, 1965),
pp. 58–60; R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout,
1997), p. 144 lists 22 Latin manuscripts of the Compendium medicinae dating from 1271 to 1400. I have
used the printed edition, Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510).
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 345

this paucity as indicative of its ‘freedom from superstition’.2 On the other hand, the
Montpellier surgeon, Guy de Chauliac, claims that empirical remedies and charms
(empericas et incantaciones), which he himself ‘has taken little of’, can be found in
abundance (copia invenitur multa) in Gilbertus and the Thesaurus pauperum.3 We will
look at what Gilbertus himself has to say about his acceptance of such remedies.
John Gaddesden studied theology and medicine at Oxford.4 He held religious
posts at Chipping Norton, St Paul’s, London, and Chichester.5 By 1320 he was
practising medicine while a fellow of Merton College.6 He wrote his book, which
he entitled the Rosa medicinae, while at Oxford, probably between 1304 and 1317.7
Records of the 1330s and 1340s indicate that he was physician to various members
of the royal family. He had evidently once cured Edward III of smallpox by
wrapping him in a red cloth.8 In 1346, the Black Prince gave him a rose of gold as
a New Year’s gift. He establishes himself as a medical authority by virtue of his
book when, in the Preface to the Rosa, he writes, ‘Just as the rose excels all flowers,
so this book excels all books on practice (practicas), because it will be useful for poor
and rich surgeons and doctors who will have little need to consult other books—
because here, indeed, will be seen enough about curable sicknesses, both specific
and general.’9 Gaddesden’s book became widely known and maintained its
authority through the rest of the fourteenth century and into the sixteenth. After
1380, Chaucer mentions him (along with Gilbertus and Bernard) among the
authorities known to his learned fictional physician:
Wel knew he the olde Esculapius,
And Deyscorides, and eek Rufus,
Olde Ypocras, Haly, and Galyen,
Serapion, Razis, and Avycen,
Averrois, Damascien, and Constantyn,
Bernard, and Gatesden, and Gilbertyn.10

12
Talbot and Hammond, Medical Practitioners, p. 60.
13
See Getz, Medicine, p. 112, n. 41. The Middle English translation reads ‘I haue taken litel of
emperykes and of charmes, of the which thinges plente is founden in Gilbertyn and in Thesauro
Pauperum’, in M. Ogden (ed.), The Cyryrgie of Guy de Chauliac (London and New York, 1971),
pp. 533–4.
14
F. M. Getz, ‘The Faculty of Medicine before 1500’, in The History of the University of Oxford, vol.
II, J. Catto and R. Evans (eds), Late Medieval Oxford (Oxford, 1992), 373–405, pp. 390–1.
15
A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to 1500, 3 vols, vol. II (Oxford,
1958), p. 739.
16
Talbot and Hammond, Medical Practitioners, pp. 148–50.
17
An exact date of completion has not been determined. Gaddesden says in his introduction to the
Rosa medicinae, ‘quia omnia hic dicta ego Johannes de Gatisden septimo anno lecture mee compilavi’, as quoted
in T. Hunt, Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-century England: Introduction and Texts (Woodbridge, 1990),
p. 28.
18
Talbot and Hammond, Medical Practitioners, p. 149.
19
‘Et sicut rosa excellit omnes flores, ita iste liber excellit omnes practicas medicine, quia erit pro pauperibus et
divitibus sirurgicis et medicis, de quo non oportet multum recurrere ad alios libros, quia hic videlicet satis de morbis
curabilibus in speciali et videbitur in generali’, in the earliest printed edition, Johannes de Gaddesden, Rosa
Anglica practica medicinae (Pavia, 1492), fol. 1r. [This printed edition is cited hereafter as ‘Gaddesden,
Rosa Anglica’.]
10
L. D. Benson (ed.), The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn (Boston, 1987), p. 30.
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346 Lea T. Olsan

At least thirteen manuscripts of the Rosa have survived and, beginning in 1492,
four printed editions extended its life in print for a hundred years.11
In contrast to Gaddesden, John Arderne was primarily a practising surgeon and
was not connected with any university.12 Nevertheless, he wrote medical books in
Latin that cite the best surgical authorities available during the second half of the
fourteenth century. He is thought to have served under the first Duke of Lancaster,
Henry, Earl of Derby, between 1338 and 1347. He was practising surgery in
Newark from 1349 and in London from 1370. His reputation rests on his surgical
Practica, which describes fistula in ano and related conditions. The so-called Liber
medicinalium is not a medical counterpart to the surgical work, but represents a
mixture of surgical and ‘internal’ medical remedies for a variety of ailments.13 His
last treatise, De cura oculorum, was composed in 1377. Two Arderne manuscripts
were examined for the purposes of this article.14 Both of these Latin manuscripts
include the same charms and prayers.15
Thomas Fayreford was ‘a provincial practitioner with no university qualification
or status as a retainer’, although he attended the University of Oxford.16 His book,
written in his own hand, contains a list of patients and their illnesses under the
title ‘Concerning the cures done by T. Fayreford in various locations’, some short
treatises, an alphabetical herbal, a medical commonplace book, and a surgical
commonplace book. Presumably, Fayreford recorded the collection of remedies
for his own use and to establish a record of successful cures. After examining some
of the remedies requiring charms, ligatures, or prayers, Peter Jones concludes that
‘It does not seem that Fayreford thought of charms as a last desperate resort, but as
a legitimate part of the armamentarium of the medical practitioner.’17 Fayreford’s
practice is enhanced by scholastic medicine and directed toward patients from a
variety of social and occupational classes. Of the medical writers studied for this
article, Fayreford records the most charms and prayers. The number and variety of

11
For a list of 13 MSS containing the Rosa medicinae, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, p. 349, n. 181. He
lists four printed editions of the Rosa in 1492, 1502, 1517, and 1595.
12
Few facts are certain. See P. M. Jones, ‘Four Middle English Translations of John of Arderne’, in
A. J. Minnis (ed.), Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Cambridge,
1989), 61–89, p. 64; idem, ‘John Arderne and the Mediterranean Tradition of Scholastic Surgery’, in
L. García-Ballester et al., Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death (Cambridge, 1994), 289–321.
H. E. Ussery, Chaucer’s Physician: Medicine and Literature in Fourteenth-Century England, Tulane Studies
in English, XIX (New Orleans, 1971), pp. 60–9, weighs the evidence for earlier speculations.
13
See Jones, ‘Four Middle English Translations’, pp. 65–7, on the contents distinguished by these
titles.
14
British Library (hereafter BL), MS Sloane 56 and BL, MS Additional 29,301. For a list of 14
manuscripts containing the Liber and the Practica, see Sharpe, Handlist, pp. 202–4.
15
Two charms against bleeding and one against thieves added on the last folio of BL, MS Additional
29,301 are not Arderne’s, but are added to his book. The charms against thieves are printed in S. E.
Sheldon [Parnell], ‘Middle English and Latin Charms, Amulets, and Talismans from Vernacular
Manuscripts’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Tulane University, 1978), pp. 133, 135.
16
For a full account of Fayreford’s book, see P. M. Jones, ‘Thomas Fayreford: An English Fifteenth-
century Medical Practitioner’, in R. French, J. Arrizabalaga, A. Cunningham, and L. García-Ballester
(eds), Medicine from the Black Death to the French Disease (Aldershot, 1998),156–83, and P. M. Jones,
‘Harley MS 2558: A Fifteenth-Century Commonplace Book’, in M. M. Schleissner (ed.), Manuscript
Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays (New York and London, 1995), 35–54.
17
Jones, ‘Thomas Fayreford’, p. 178.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 347

such remedies in Fayreford’s book are comparable to what we find in vernacular

collections of remedies. For example, Cambridge University Library, MS Addi-
tional 9308, is a vernacular collection of remedies, often referred to as a ‘recipe
book’.18 In this book, among its herbal recipes, we find charms and prayers for
some of the same conditions as those found in Fayreford’s book, although fewer in
number. 19
The English authors chosen for study in this article are represented by texts that
probably relate to actual medical practice in different ways.20 Gilbertus Anglicus’
book reads like an academic textbook written by a doctor who may or may not
have practised. John Gaddesden seems to have been a compiler, not necessarily a
practitioner with a broad base of patients. John Arderne was a learned surgeon who
practised, while Thomas Fayreford was a practitioner who recorded his cases
and cures, perhaps with a view to his successor.21 Academic authorities, such as
Gilbertus Anglicus, prescribed few verbal cures (ten), while a doctor such as
Thomas Fayreford, whose active practice is known through his own reports,22
prescribed forty-one verbal remedies. John Gaddesden, who intended that his Rosa
Anglica become an authoritative text for other doctors, records twenty charms and
prayers. John Arderne, sought after for his surgical procedures, records only nine
verbal forms of healing in that part of his work, the Liber medicinalium, which
represents his knowledge of both medical and surgical conditions.
None of these authors offered a direct justification of verbal healing or the use of
amulets in terms of theory. What they typically did was add them to other cures.
Gilbertus and Gaddesden, who adopted the more scholastic organization, added
charms and prayers on the very end of the list of curae, under the diseases against
which they might be effective. Where the inclusion of such remedies is explained
at all, it is by citing an authority who had recommended them previously, or by
reference to their own experiences, or those of other practitioners. When they
wanted to classify such things, they used the terms empirica and experimenta.

II
In learned medical writings, the terms empirica and experimenta categorize certain
remedies that differ from the cures prescribed in accordance with the main tenets

18
Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 9308 is dated 1400 by Jayne Ringrose of the
Cambridge University Library.
19
For various kinds of fevers, the ‘Leechcraft’ includes 5 remedies with prayers or charms, while
Fayreford includes 2; for toothache, ‘Leechcraft’ gives 2, Fayreford, 6; to stop various kinds of bleed-
ing, ‘Leechcraft’ gives 4, Fayreford, 7; for difficulties in childbirth, ‘Leechcraft’ gives 1, Fayreford,
3; for epilepsy/falling sickness, ‘Leechcraft’ gives 1, Fayreford, 5, etc. ‘Leechcraft’, unlike Fayreford,
does not give charms or prayers for poison, spasm, or gout, but offers charms for sleep, ear worm, and
against thieves.
20
On how various kinds of medical books relate to the theory and practice of medicine, see
J. Agrimi and C. Crisciani, Edocere Medicos: Medicina scolastica nei secoli XIII–XV (Napoli, 1988), ch. VI.
21
P. M. Jones suggested that Fayreford may have written his book for his heir (e-mail, 1 August 2002).
22
On the variety in the genre of scholastic texts produced between the twelfth and fifteenth
centuries, see C. Crisciani, ‘History, Novelty, and Progress in Scholastic Medicine’, Osiris, 2nd ser., 6
(1990), 118–39.
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348 Lea T. Olsan

of scholastic medicine. Experimenta worked without relation to natural causes that

were explicable, and therefore treatable, according to the principles of Galenic
medicine. The existence of such cures was accounted for by the principle of
‘particular forms’ (formae speciales).23 That is, some curative substances were
understood to be imbued with hidden powers that could not be accounted for by
their natural qualities, and these powers might have specific curative effects. Given
the unique and specific nature of such healing powers, the only means of knowing
them was by experience or sense perception.24 As a result, the legitimacy of any
experimentum depended on the attestation of an acute observer. Under best condi-
tions, the witness was a learned master of medicine, either the scholastically trained
academic himself, or some other expert judge, such as one of his revered
authorities. Because cures of the type called experimenta were unique by definition
and followed no general laws, they were commonly authenticated in academic
writings as ‘proven’ or ‘tested’ or ‘seen’. Formal attestations of this sort do not
appear where such remedies are listed in non-academic recipe collections, such as
the ‘Leechcraft’ mentioned above, but they are a common feature of the writings
of university-trained writers.
Because the singular and extraordinary events represented by experimenta fell
outside of the course of nature, they might be regarded as mirabilia or miracula. A
mirabile, or ‘marvel’, is an intervention from outside nature but does not necessarily
require that the power derives directly from an act of God. Strictly speaking, the
power to heal deriving from the virtus of a substance might be the result of some
combination of causes or the influence of the stars which, through their rays,
became an effective part of an earthly substance. In describing these instances, the
word mirabile carries a minimum of theological weight. Miraculum, on the other
hand, witnesses to a direct intervention from God, and whether or not a miraculum
has occurred depends to a large extent on the perceptions of a Christian observer.
The common denominator among these terms (experimentum, mirabile, miraculum),
as Agrimi and Crisciani and others have pointed out, is wonder—admiratio.25
Wonder results from recognition of the rarity of ‘particular forms’ and often assigns
their effects to the glory of God or, in other observers, motivates a deep interest in
the techniques of their operation. Thus, Agrimi and Crisciani, who have examined
this topic carefully, identify a rather wide range of terms that are semantically
related to the concept of experimentum as used by medieval medical writers—
empiricum, mirabilie, miraculum, magicum, secretum, and exemplum in one sense.26 Their
work demonstrates that medical (and philosophical) authorities viewed the
question of experimenta from various perspectives. What experimentum means in any
23
For a good general explanation of this concept, see L. Daston and K. Park, Wonders and the Order
of Nature 1150–1750 (New York, 1998), p. 127.
24
For a detailed analysis of the relationship of the ‘particular’ to experimentum, see J. Agrimi and C.
Crisciani, ‘Per una ricerca su experimentum-experimenta: Riflessione epistemologica e tradizione medica
(secoli XIII–XV)’, in P. Janni and I. Mazzini (eds), Presenza del lessico greco e latino nelle lingue contemp-
oranee: ciclo di lezioni tenute all’Università di Macerata nell’a.a. 1987–8 (Macerata, 1990), 9–49, pp. 11–12.
25
Ibid., p. 27; Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 122–6, discuss the theological and philosophical
problems related to ‘wonder’.
26
Agrimi and Crisciani, ‘Per un ricerca su experimentum-experimenta’, p. 13.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 349

one context is often determined by the mental framework of the observer—his

philosophical or theological training, his religious faith, his professional interests,
or personal needs.
How, then, does empirica, a word which is sometimes used synonymously with
experimenta, but at other times incurs the disdain of authoritative theorists, fit into
this picture?27 Since observation or sense perception was of crucial importance as
the test of the remarkable and unique possibilities for curative effects, first-hand
knowledge (not scientia) of these kinds of curative effects was accessible to ordinary
people. The vulgati or turba might observe and report such remarkable cures. There
was no universally accepted theoretical argument against such cures. However,
from the perspective of academic medical writers, any practitioner who relied
solely on such remarkable cures could never claim to know science (scientia) as a
master, or to be considered knowledgeable in the art (ars) of medicine. Yet there
was a place for empirical cures in academic treatises, as things outside the ordinary
course of nature were part of man’s experience of the world. Because they were not
theoretically based on the causes that were fully rationalized in Galenic medicine
(whether natural, non-natural, or unnatural), empirical cures were handled as
exceptional and inexplicable. In highly theoretical contexts they were marginalized.
For that reason, they are usually cited near the end of an array of cures for any
specific ailment, often with caveats attached; however, the vital point is that they
were not altogether excluded except by the most rigorously academic of theorists—
in fact, complete condemnation of empirica is very much a minority position.
Charms (or incantations) and prayers travel with experimenta and empirica in
medical texts. ‘Charms’, as used in this article, indicates verbal formulae (not objects
themselves) employed for healing or remedial purposes.28 Opinions varied among
physicians and surgeons regarding the use of these kinds of remedies. For example,
the famous surgeon, Guy de Chauliac, condemns Gaddesden’s Rosa Anglica for its
inclusion of empirical remedies, which he labels ‘mere tales’ (fabulas).29 Specifically,
27
In the texts under consideration, the discrimination between experimenta and empirica is not so
careful as that described in Crisciani, ‘History, Novelty, and Progress’, p. 130.
28
‘Charm’ translates carmen, which is the usual heading found in Latin medical recipe books, house-
hold miscellanies, commonplace books, and medical compendia for treatments employing words.
They may be spoken as in a performative speech act, written on the body, on foods or over drinks, or
on amuletic objects, or parchment carried by the patient. Often they are accompanied by ritual
gestures and prayers. For a general discussion of charms and magic in the late medieval period, see
R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 56–90; for a recent survey of English
charms, see G. R. Keiser, ‘Charms’, in A. E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of Writings in Middle English
1050–1500, x, Works of Science and Information (New Haven, 1998), pp. 3669–76, 3863–82; for charms
from English manuscripts, see Hunt, Popular Medicine, and Sheldon [Parnell], ‘Middle English and
Latin Charms’. On Latin charms, see E. Bozoki, ‘Mythic Mediation in Healing Incantations’, in
S. Campbell (ed.), Health, Disease, and Healing in Medieval Culture (New York, 1992), 84–92 and
L. Olsan, ‘Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition’, Oral
Tradition, 7 (1992), 116–42. On charms from Eastern Europe, see W. R. Ryan, The Bathhouse at
Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (Stroud, 1999), pp. 164–216.
29
‘Ultimo nunc insurrexit una fatua Rosa anglicana que michi mandata et visa; credidi in ea invenire odorem
suavitatis, et inveni fabulas Yspani, (V3rb) Gilberti, et Theoderici’. Gaddesden’s presumed sources here are
Petrus Hispanus, Gilbertus Anglicus, and Theodoric Borgognoni. Guigonis de Caulhiaco (Guy de
Chauliac), M. R. McVaugh (ed.), Inventarium sive Chirurgia Magna, 2 vols, vol. I (Leiden, New York,
Köln, 1997), p. 7, lines 7–10.
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350 Lea T. Olsan

he rejects the charms and conjurations of Nicodemus (incantationibus et coniuriis

Nicodemi) for removing an arrow point, which Gaddesden cited from Theodoric
and Gilbertus.30 Guy’s rejection of charms and other empirica seems to represent
one end of a spectrum of opinions. At the other end, Nicholas of Poland, who, like
Guy, had been educated at Montpellier, loudly acclaimed the opposite view.
Nicholas, a preaching friar, declares that remarkable (mirifice) remedies are possible
through empirica, which work at a distance through a power (virtus) which is not
diminished by being utilized.31 Ingredients of empirica recommended by Nicholas
include snakes, green frogs, moles, mice, vultures, flies, and weasels. In addition,
he recommends the power of amulets ([R]es extra corpora pendit) to relieve sickness,
and a ring which encloses the powers of the heavens for curing weakness, warding
off fevers, settling pain, and more.32
In his versified treatise, Antipocras, Nicholas argues, that ‘great miracles abide in
the lowliest of things’, and that the miraculous powers residing in snake’s flesh, for
example, cannot and should not be held subject to rational explanations, which
would diminish the revelation of God’s power in the world.33 According to him,
the effectiveness of such cures can be discovered only through experience and is
typically manifest among the humble poor. He argues that this trait corresponds to
the truth that secret virtues are most often hidden in worthless substances.34 The
idea that the lowliest substances produce the strongest curative results is a key to
Nicholas’ prescriptions and at the centre of his anti-scholastic position.35 Further-
more, he explains that divine power (Virtus sublimis) flows down, ‘marries’, and is
united to an earthly element at the same time that it is buried and hidden.36 Keil
and Eamon see this anti-scholastic stance as deriving from his religious belief that
God’s curative powers are hidden in natural substances to be revealed in miraculous
healing.37 Pursuing this line of argument that his medical theory is indeed
grounded in Christian thinking, we recall that the best-known archetype for the
pattern of God’s power revealed in ‘the lowliest’ is the doctrine of Mary, the
lowliest handmaid, becoming the vehicle of God’s presence in the world.38
Along the same lines, Nicholas insists that miraculous cures are more likely to
occur among the poor, rather than the rich, a claim consistent with the Christian
30
‘De illis incantacionibus et coniuriis Nicodemi quod ponit Thidericus et Gilbertus non curo’. Thidericus is
Theodoric Borgognoni. Ibid., vol. I, p. 143, lines 1–2, and vol. II, pp. 126–7.
31
‘Dicitur empiricum, cui uirtus insita sic, cum/ Se procul effundit, nec se minus inde refundit/Subiecto
proprio’, R. Ganszyniec (ed. and trans.), Brata Mikol aja z Polski Pisma Lekarskie (Krakow, 1920), p. 50.
/

32
‘[R]es extra corpora pendit/ Vasis conclusas, inscribratas neque tusas,/ Que pendendo foris intus sunt cura
doloris:/ Nam miro tractu tollunt morbos sine tactu’. The ring speaks for itself, ‘Curo langores, fugo febres, sedo
dolores,/ Sum senibus sompnus, pueris sum fons et alumpnus’, ibid., pp. 62 and 64, respectively.
33
W. Eamon and G. Keil, ‘“Plebs amat empirica”: Nicholas of Poland and His Critique of the
Mediaeval Medical Establishment’, Sudhoffs Archiv, 71 (1987), 180–96, p. 187.
34
‘Plus sublimatur, plus et uirtute beatur’, Ganszyniec, Brata Mikol aja z Polski, p. 56.
/

35
‘Spiritus hoc nequam dat nec complexio quequam./ Sed uirtus diua mirabilium genitiva/Semper amans
humiles. Non spernens visere viles,/ Rem vilem visit, in ea manet, et quod ibi sit / Hoc patet effectu’, ibid., p. 58.
36
‘Virtus sublimis, que desuper influit imis,/ A firmamento condescendens, elemento/ Nubit et vnitur simul,
in re cum sepelitur/ Et manet occulta. Res ex uirtute sepulta/ In se formalem vim concipit et specialem: . . . Nuptu
iuncta rei pro dote sue speciei/ Vim tribuit virtus sibi, que foris astet et intus’, ibid., p. 58.
37
Eamon and Keil, ‘“Plebs amat empirica”’, p. 188.
38
This element of faith in the lowly might also be deduced from the humility of Christ’s status as an
infant child or, equally, of the crucified man as the manifestation of God in the world.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 351

narrative of the incarnation, birth, and life of Jesus among the poor. He stresses that
empirical remedies, being miraculous and, as such, inexplicable in terms of the
causes and signs of academic, scientific medicine, are for that reason despised by
doctors. He thus situates empirical cures among the poor on the religious grounds
that among these, God’s power is most likely to be revealed. Therefore, one reason
that empirica are strongly associated with the poor is this theological one, as
conveyed in Nicholas’ writings. The association of empirical cures with the poor
cannot be accounted for solely by the idea that they represent an acquiescence to
popular superstitions and ignorance by certain academic physicians.39
In addition to these theologically grounded beliefs, other forces evidently moti-
vate medical writers and practitioners to include empirical remedies. Gaddesden,
for instance, may have incorporated empirical remedies in his book written for
poor and rich practitioners (pauperibus et divitibus sirurgicis et medicis) because they
were more accessible than costlier treatments.40 Fayreford’s extensive collection of
empirical remedies, employed in a practice that included people from various
social classes, may have resulted from economic considerations as well. He endorses
the Three Good Brothers charm on the basis of its being ‘a good empiricum proven
on the wounds of the poor’ (Empiricum bonum expertum in vulneribus pauperum).41
This claim may reflect one or more of the following possibilities: a charitable aspect
of his practice, a string of his own successful cures, or the popularity of the formula
among the poor. Fayreford’s comment resonates with Nicholas’ idea that ‘the poor’
represent the very population in which such an empiricum might best be proved,
especially as a miracle. Nevertheless, for some practitioners empirica probably
recommended themselves because they were easy to apply and cost nothing to
dispense.
In medical contexts, charms and prayers can be considered a special case of
empirica. As we have seen, empirica can be justifiably included in authoritative
medicine, but not every doctor approved of them and, even when they did, not
every sort of empirica is found acceptable. Bernard of Gordon distinguished
between therapies that worked through specific divine power (virtus), which could
not be strictly rationalized in Galenic terms, and magical remedies. He lists a
number of strongly rejected empirica, yet utilizes therapies that appear to be viola-
tions of his own principles of exclusion.42
For Gilbertus, empirica are rarely the treatment of choice. He says that, however
much he himself rejects their use, it is good to include them in his book lest
what the ‘ancients’ said be omitted.43 Gilbertus’ rationale for including empirical
remedies reflects the academic emphasis on citing sources during the thirteenth
century. According to Cornelius O’Boyle: ‘Medicine itself was defined not in
39
The assumption on the part of twentieth-century scholars and physicians that such cures are
indeed superstitious complicates historical attempts to contextualize the medieval doctors’ theoretical
position.
40
See above, n. 9.
41
BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 64v.
42
See L. E. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon: Professor and Practitioner (Toronto, 1980), p. 157.
43
‘Empirica. Quamuis ego declino ad has res par[andum?], tantum est bonum scribere in libro nostro vt non
remaneat tractatus sine eis quae dixerunt antiqui’, Gilbertus, Compendium medicinae, fol. 327r.
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352 Lea T. Olsan

terms of a knowledge of particular drugs or practical techniques, but in terms of a

knowledge of books. To know medicine was to know its authoritative sources.’44
Under this rubric, some remedies that had appeared in authoritative texts could be
included, and sometimes they complemented other treatments based on learned
theory.
The empirica that Gilbertus lists immediately following his apologetic statement
above are ligatures for gout—the foot of a green frog, the shoe of an ass, the foot of
a turtle, or a magnet.45 These remedies rely solely on the virtues of natural ingre-
dients, whereas he says a ritual with a charm to assure the conception of a child is an
empiricum ‘that never fails’ (quod numquam fallit). The ritual requires silent collection
of a herb on the vigil of the feast of John the Baptist at the third hour, accompanied
by three recitations of the Lord’s prayer (orationem dominicam), extraction of the
juice, and writing words with the juice. The charm itself involves writing words,
some uninterpretable, some biblical, on a parchment to be hung around the neck
of the man or woman during intercourse.46 If it is hung around the man’s neck, a
son will be conceived, if around the woman’s, a daughter. The two reasons stated
explicitly by Gilbertus for including such empirica in his book are the precedent of
the authorities and the expectation of effectiveness based on previous experience.
Gilbertus is silent on the subject of whether he considers such remedies magical.
In theory, Bernard of Gordon strongly rejects empirical remedies. In his brief
tract of ten essentials for the curing of diseases, he supplies a comprehensive list
of practices to be avoided in favour of the physician’s practising the art according
to the rules of Hippocrates, Galen, and the other ‘wise ones’.47 The practices he
condemns are soothsaying (ars augurandi), prophecy (vaticinandi), and divination
(divinandi), of which the latter must be distinguished from astrological prognosti-
cation, which can be approved. Other condemned practices are geomancy (ars
geometrica), herbal amulets (suspendendi herbas ad collum), and all ‘empirical remedies’
(omnia empirica), sorceries (sorticinia), binding spells (fassina48), and ‘many other
practices best not to reveal because of those who, having neglected their con-
sciences, use magical things (magicis) and clever contrivances (ingeniis fatuis)’.49 It is
significant for this study that the word carmina, which is the usual label for incan-
tations recommended in medical books, does not occur in Bernard’s list of illicit
practices. For Bernard, evidently, the use of a carmen is not an unacceptable,
44
C. O’Boyle, The Art of Medicine: Medical Teaching at the University of Paris, 1250–1400 (Leiden,
1998), p. 266.
45
Gilbertus, Compendium, fol. 327r.
46
‘Dixit dominus crescite .+. Uthihoth .+. et multiplicamini .+.thabechay .+. et replete terram .+. amath .+’.
Gilbertus, Compendium, fol. 287vb.
47
Bernardus de Gordonio, ‘De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum’, in Practica, seu Lilium
medicinae, De ingeniis curandorum morborum, De regimine acutarum aegritudinum, De prognosticis, De urinis,
De pulsibus (Venice, 1498).
48
J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Leiden, 1984), gives ‘fascium, fascius, fassis, fassus,
fassius = fascis’. The Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1994) etymology compares fascis to Irish basc,
‘neckband’. The word may also be related to fas, ‘what is right according to divine law’, and for, fari,
fatus, ‘to speak’ especially authoritatively, whence fatum, ‘what has been spoken, fate’.
49
Bernardus de Gordonio, De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum, fol. 1, in Practica as in n. 36.
Quoted in Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 157, n. 117, from Vatican MS Pal. 1083, fol. 283v
with variants noted.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 353

magical practice, although as a form of empirica we would expect him to condemn

it.
Evidence that Bernard did not consider charms among condemned magical
practices is the inclusion of the Three Kings charm for epilepsy in his major work,
the Lilium, a compendium of knowledge for the practice of medicine.50 The
incantation is to be spoken in the ear of someone who has fallen in a ‘paroxysm’;
or, in another remedy, written down and hung around the neck of a child to
prevent seizures. Additional instructions involve the parents taking the child to
church where a priest (sacerdos fidelis) will say the verses of Mark 9.17–28 over the
child’s head. A perfect cure is expected (curatur perfecte procul dubio).51 The Three
Kings charm with the scriptural passage works toward the same purpose, to prevent
attacks of the ‘falling sickness’. The cause, whether viewed as medical, as in the case
of paroxysm, or spiritual, as in the case of a demon, is not decided, but the possi-
bility of the illness having a spiritual cause is implied by this treatment. Both the
charm and the ritual at church fit into learned medicine because of their religious
character.52 Elsewhere in the Lilium, the recitation of the Pater Noster accom-
panies the collection of herbs—scolopendria for relief of fistula and agrimonia for an
amulet to help a woman in labour.53 Since these prayers fall within the domain of
Christian beliefs, they would not be considered ‘magical’, and therefore can be
included in Bernard’s collection.
In addition, the Lilium incorporates certain empirica that work holistically (a tota
specie)—for example, cures for quinsy (squinancia),54 which are the droppings of a
swallow or some other (a child, a dog eating bones, or a wolf) or a strangled viper
suspended by a thread around the neck, none of which Bernard says he has tried.55
The metaphorical links between these materia and an illness that causes difficulties
in swallowing are not difficult to find. All the prescribed droppings have
successfully coursed the digestive tract of ravenous eaters. The efficacy of these
ingredients may be that they work rhetorically, since the basis for the cure is the
link between the patient’s difficulty in swallowing and what the bird or child, dog
or wolf has successfully swallowed.56 The viper ligature ties, quite literally, the
50
Bernardus, Practica, fol. 34r–v. Cf. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 158, especially n. 120.
51
Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 158, n. 124. The care offered to the child corresponds to the
recommendations of Vincent of Beauvais, as reported by Thorndike, ‘that incantations may be used to
enchant the sick or children or animals, provided . . . only licit prayers adjurations, and such symbols as
the sign of the cross are used’. Furthermore, ‘Vincent believes that men and women who introduce
many useless and superstitious ceremonies should be forbidden to continue these practices, which
should be confined to priests, and to laymen and women of excellent life and proved discretion’. L.
Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols, vol. II (New York, 1964), pp. 466–7.
52
A string of individual remedies follow the charm, which employ mistletoe, peony (both common
for epilepsy), rue, gum, and animal extracts such as a lace of wolf’s pelt, curdled hare’s milk, weasel’s
blood, and the ashes of a cuckoo. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 158, points out that ‘Most of
these were presumably based on the occult or sympathetic qualities of such ingredients . . . and thus
they might fall either into the category of empirica or into that of experimenta’.
53
Bernardus, Practica, fols.12va, and 93va, respectively. Also, Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p.
157, nn. 118 and 119.
54
‘Quinsy’ nowadays is a ‘peritonsillar abscess’.
55
Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon, p. 131.
56
On rhetoric and metaphor in medicine, see D. Harley, ‘Rhetoric and the Social Construction of
Sickness and Healing’, Social History of Medicine, 12 (1999), 407–35.
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354 Lea T. Olsan

snake’s throat to the painful throat of the patient. As in the other cures, the model
from nature will, at the least, serve as a mental cue for the cure of the specific
complaint.57
Like Gilbertus, Bernard records these remedies as reputed to be helpful accord-
ing to ‘masters’. Previous authority warrants their inclusion. Whether or not that is
the only reason for his granting them space remains uncertain. Bernard clearly says
that he himself has never employed them in practice. Yet their inclusion (rather
than exclusion as ‘magical’) confirms his acceptance of a type of cure that relies on
the resources of language for medicinal purposes. Thus, although Bernard certainly
rejects all remedies which he views as magical—a view also held by certain non-
medical ‘masters’ like Augustine—he does not necessarily reject language as a
possible source of cures when the language adverts to the divine, as in prayers or
charms, or to events in nature, as in the cures for quinsy. That he had tried none of
the latter remedies does not seem surprising. The humble, if not disgusting, ingre-
dients fit the predictive principle of Nicholas of Poland that the more disgusting,
repugnant, and well-known the ingredients, the more they possess power to heal
(quanto res sunt turpiores et abhominabiliores et bene notiores, tanto magis participant de hac
virtute).58
John Gaddesden illustrates a more pragmatic view of empirica: ‘But empirica may
be used which sometimes cure at the beginning’ (Modo fiant emperica quae aliquando
curant in principio).59 As examples, he offers the root of apium suspended from the
neck to lift a toothache as (he says) does the root of pilosella major and minor and the
root of diptamus.60 Gaddesden recommends a wealth of amuletic and ritual thera-
pies, including charms and prayers. This is the material identified as ‘fabulas’ by the
surgeon, Guy de Chauliac.61 The range of empirica that Gaddesden records to cure
toothache, for example, is extensive enough to suggest that he took some trouble
to collect these kinds of cures. In fact, he claims to have made a profit (bonam
pecuniam) from the ‘barbitonsoribus’ to whom he sold an empirical method for
extracting teeth, that employed the flesh of a green frog on account of its tendency
to leap from one tree to another.62 Its flesh, held to an aching tooth, will cause the
tooth ‘to leap out’ immediately. To interpret this another way, one effect of grip-
ping a tooth with the skin of a tree frog is that it enables the toothdrawer to pull
more easily. Whether the good effect works more in the minds of the toothdrawer
and his patient than on the tooth itself is a thought we are more likely to entertain
than were Gaddesden or his patients. We know it worked well enough for
Gaddesden to make money from it.
57
For a broader cultural view of how language operates in healing and other rituals, see S. J. Tam-
biah, Culture, Thought, and Social Action: An Anthropological Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 1985), ch. 2.
58
Ganszyniec, Brata Mikolaja z Polski, p. 60. Cf. Eamon and Keil, ‘“Plebs amat empirica”’, p. 187,
/

n. 35.
59
Quoted in H. P. Cholmeley, John of Gaddesden and the Rosa Medicinae (Oxford, 1912), p. 49.
Also, Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 153rb.
60
‘Radix apii collo suspensa dolorem dentis tollit. Idem facit radix piloselle maioris et minoris et radix diptami’,
Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 153va.
61
See above, n. 29.
62
BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 250, ‘Sed illud quod non fallit. Et est de meis secretis pro quo habui bonam
pecuniam a barbitonsoribus’. Also, Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 154va.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 355

Unlike many of the charms and prayers for toothache that appear in late-medieval
collections of remedies, Gaddesden’s were reputed to relieve pain immediately,
rather than prevent future occurrences. We might expect that the main use of
certain empirical cures—charms, prayers, amulets—would be prevention of poten-
tially recurring complaints such as toothache, earache, seizures, and fevers. In fact,
we do often find charms and prayers employed as preventatives. But his own state-
ment shows this is not the way such cures were expected to work so far as
Gaddesden was concerned. Gaddesden combines in his list of cures for toothache
various empirica, prayers, and charms. Among these he makes no particular distinc-
tions by use or type. His string of seven remedies for toothache has the following
order: (1) writing the powerful ‘names’ (rex pax nax, etc.) on the cheek of the
patient; (2) a prayer (orationem) in honour of St Apollonia and mentioning St
Nigacius [Nicasius]; (3) a certain ‘character’ to be written on parchment, while the
patient touches his hurting tooth with his finger; (4) a little worm with many feet,
that rolls up when touched, pricked with a needle, and the needle applied to the
tooth; (5) the beak of a magpie (rostrum pice) carried around the neck; (6) whenever
the gospel is read in mass, a man may ‘sign’ the head and hurting tooth, say a Pater
Noster and an Ave Maria for the souls of his father and mother and St Philippe, and
thus prevent future pain as well as stop the present; and, finally, (7) moistening the
mouth two or three times a month with the root of titimalus or ebulus (Hunt
amends to efele) cooked in wine.63
In this list, we find a charm (the first item is named a carmen), a prayer or saints’
cure, a drawing, two animal cures, a ritual signing of the cross with prayers, and a
herb remedy.64 Although modern scholars may distinguish between charms,
prayers, herb remedies, and magic like the magpie amulet, it seems evident that
neither Gaddesden, if he is responsible for all of them, nor the users of his books,
thought about the differences in this way. All these remedies are presented as if
they were thought to be proven by experience to work; they were practical and
effective. Michael McVaugh’s definition of the term experimentum, as applied to
medical collections made at Montpellier during the mid-1330s, applies here:
The word [experimentum] did not carry its modern sense in the Middle Ages; it referred not
to an event planned to illustrate the rational order of nature, but to an event lying outside
that rational order. An experimentum was an event which was purely contingent, which
could be known only by directly experiencing it and which could not be rationally fore-
seen. Labeled experimenta, these Montpellier recipe collections must be understood as
claiming to assemble fortuitous practical discoveries of the profession.65
This definition strikes the chord that Gaddesden seems to have responded to, the
argument that these cures may on one level be taken as ‘fortuitous practical dis-
coveries of the profession’.
63
BL, MS Sloane 1067, fols. 247r–248v. The list from the 1492 printed edition as reported by
Cholmeley is comparable, but Cholmeley omits the herb remedy on the verso. Hunt, Popular Medicine,
p. 28, prints the charms and prayers exclusively.
64
Cf. Bernard’s empirica for epilepsy, above n. 52.
65
M. McVaugh, ‘Two Montpellier Recipe Collections’, Manuscripta, 20 (1976), 175–80. See also
M. McVaugh, ‘The Experimenta of Arnald of Villanova’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1
(1972), 107–18.
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356 Lea T. Olsan

A remedy that appeared irrational in the light of the usual Galenic causes and
cures might be accepted as unique if it had been proven to work in a previous case.
If the details of the case or the name of the physician were known, then the certainty
of the cure would be enhanced. Gilbertus’ charm to stop bleeding, caro cum calice
confirma sanguinem Israelite (the flesh with the cup, confirm the blood of the Israelite),
is introduced by Gaddesden as the ‘experimentum Gilberti’.66 In the same manuscript,
what became Arderne’s famous charm to prevent spasm, + thebel + Guth + Guth-
any, has the word experimentum cancelled; the heading reads, ‘charm (carmen) against
cramp’.67 Fayreford records the ‘experimentum according to Gilbertus Anglicus’—
being careful to give a precise location for it in Gilbertus’ Compendium. On
Arderne’s charm, Fayreford remarks that it has been proved in many places overseas
as well as in England by ‘Henry’ Arderne.68 Fayreford follows Arderne’s lead in
saying that ‘this medicine is kept secret before all others’, and repeats his directions
to write it down but keep it folded (clausum) in the manner of a letter so the words
may not become common knowledge and thereby lose their power.69
Other entries emphasize that empirica and experimenta are capable of proof: ‘If
you want to test [this amulet inscribed with letters for conception], suspend it over
a tree that has never produced fruit and it will bear.’70 Likewise, ‘If you do not
believe this to be true, write the aforementioned [letters] on the handle of a knife
and kill a pig or shoat with it and blood will not run out.’71 Expressions such as
expertum est and multotiens probatum est certify that a formula is known to have
worked in the past.72 The range of remedies belonging to the categories of experi-
menta or empirica in addition to verbal charms and prayers include amulets—items
attached to the body that have inscriptions, ligatures, or things attached without
writing—and ritual practices, both ecclesiastical and folkloric. We have observed
that Gaddesden, for example, did not carefully distinguish among these types.
Confining this study to charms and prayers—remedies employing speaking or
writing formulae—runs the risk of distorting the evidence relevant to empirical
remedies generally. Yet focusing on these two kinds of verbal remedies makes it
possible to investigate how language functions as a medium of medical therapy
alongside the traditional categories of herbs, minerals, and animals.73
In sum, the evidence suggests that experimenta and empirica were included in
authoritative medical texts for a number of different reasons. They were acceptable

66
BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 19v. Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 10r, a, supplies the attribution
‘experimentum Gilbertini ad omnem fluxum sanguinis’.
67
BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 219r (Appendix B.4). Also Gaddesden, Rosa Anglica, fol. 134v, a.
68
BL, MS Harley 2558, fols. 125v and 139v.
69
On the ideology of secrets, see W. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in
Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton, 1994), pp. 80–90.
70
BL, MS Additional 33996, fol.153v.
71
BL, MS Sloane 56, fol. 2r. A shoat is a young pig.
72
Ibid., fol. 79r and BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 117r respectively.
73
Pliny, Natural History, Vol. VIII, Libri XXVIII–XXXII, trans. W. H. S. Jones (Cambridge, MA,
1963), XXVIII.iii.10, p. 8, conceives words as the medicine derived from man: ‘Ex homine remediorum
primum maximae questionis et semper incertae est, polleantne aliquid verba et incantamenta carminum?’ (‘Of
remedies derived from man first there is the greatest and always unsettled question: do words and
incantations of charms affect anything?’) My translation.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 357

under the doctrine of ‘particular forms’ and supported by the doctrine of ‘occult
virtues’. Hidden virtues and divine (astral and planetary) influences, as well as
action at a distance might, in some authors, have resonated with Christian belief in
God’s healing power and benevolent gifts of cures. Practical cures recorded by
previous authorities complemented cures based on strong theoretical grounds. As
we saw in Bernard, general pronouncements about the proper ways for the
medical profession to act give way to treatments appropriate to specific symptoms
of patients. In such circumstances, empirical remedies find a place. Among these
we find rituals, amulets, charms, and prayers.
With varying degrees of confidence, Gilbertus, Gaddesden, Arderne, and
Fayreford all inscribed selected charms and prayers into their writings along with
other empirical cures. The inclusion of such remedies was evidently deliberate,
based on such immediate considerations as precedents for use within the profession
and personal experience of successful results. But, underlying these surface claims,
there seem to have been theological, economic, and professional motives at work
as well. It is unlikely that such remedies represent merely the concession of a few
learned practitioners to popular magical beliefs (even though some of their critics
claimed just that).74 To some extent, experimenta and empirica were an acceptable
part of scholastic medicine, and these categories accommodated charms and
prayers. In the next section, we will look at these particular empirical remedies in
more detail.

III
Few distinctions separate charms from prayers in the medical books considered
here, probably because both charms and prayers operate under the assumption that
words have the power to heal and that this power ultimately derives from God, just
as the ‘virtues’ of plants do. Generally, the content of charms is religious, consisting
of powerful words (for example, rex + pax + nax) or traditional Christian names
(for example, The Three Kings), liturgical phrases (for example, agios agios agios) or
biblical characters and saints. Some formulae that might appear exotic today
are known to have had Christian meanings in the medieval period, as, for example,
the word ananizapta for the treatment of epilepsy.75 Of the 80 verbal remedies
presented here, only four are not ostensibly Christian.76 Prayers are sometimes
74
For a different model found in early modern Italy, compare D. Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in
Early Modern Italy (Manchester, 1998). Gentilcore demonstrates how medical, ecclesiastical, and popular
systems of healing overlapped and competed. F. Wallis, in a subtle and important reconsideration of the
state of medical manuscripts and their textual contents from the early medieval period, concludes that
non-religious and religious medicine ‘were not seen as incompatible kinds of practice’. See ‘The
Experience of the Book: Manuscripts, Texts, and the Role of Epistemology in Early Medieval
Medicine’, in D. Bates (ed.), Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions (Cambridge, 1995), 101–26.
Early negotiations between the ‘two medicines’ may have opened a channel that allowed the flow of
religious medicine (at times only a trickle) into serious medical practice, even at its most rigorously
rational and scientific moments.
75
On ananizapta, see P. M. Jones and L. T. Olsan, ‘Middleham Jewel: Ritual, Power, and
Devotion’, Viator, 31 (2000), 249–90.
76
Appendix, B.17, C.2, C.5, D.37, D.40 (same as C.5).
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358 Lea T. Olsan

straightforwardly intercessory, as are the ‘oryson of S. Apolonya’, invocation to St

Blaise, and Dominus, Iesus Christe.77 Nevertheless, they are intended to be used as
remedies for specific complaints (toothache, something caught in the throat, a sore
throat) and therefore function as targeted curative formulae. Frequently, charms
and prayers are combined, as when the name Veronica (Beronica) is to be written
on the forehead of a woman with chronic menstrual bleeding, accompanied by a
prayer of petition beginning ‘God who alone by the touch of the hem of your
garment healed the woman in a flux of blood’.78 Charm formula types are limited
to powerful words or names, narratives, commands, signs such as Tau (written) and
the gestured ‘sign of the cross’, and ‘characters’ which are mostly letters. Powerful
names and ‘characters’ may be written on parchment and tied to the body as an
amulet. Of this type are charms to assure the conception of a child, prevent ‘spasm’
or cramp, and stop or prevent nosebleeds.79 Words may also be written on
consumables and ingested periodically like other medicines. Communion wafers
inscribed with holy words were prescribed to be taken over three days to abate
fever.80
It is important to stress that not every medical condition was amenable to
therapy with charms and prayers. Also, cures usually targeted specific complaints.81
Most of the problems for which charms or prayers are prescribed in these texts are
chronically remitting or episodic conditions whose recurrence a sufferer would want
to take steps to prevent. Such are toothache, migraines, fevers, seeing ‘spots’, spasms,
cramps and temporary paralysis, nosebleeds (and other intermittent bleeding),
insomnia, epileptic seizures, and gout. Gaddesden’s idea that empirica sometimes
help initially (above p. 354) for toothache suggests that ‘lifting’ pain was some-
times a significant effect. Acute conditions can also be found. These include
bleeding, difficult childbirth, certain fevers, a seizure in progress, poisonous bites,
and puncture wounds. Wounds, although traumatic and acute initially, probably
caused much long-term chronic suffering that required extended application of
herbs and may have killed many people in the long term rather than the short.
Fayreford’s notation of the ‘Three Good Brothers’ charm under the heading ‘For a
fresh wound’ (Pro vulnere nova) clarifies one usage as directed to the acute stage.82
Less threatening conditions also called for purposeful words. Formulae are listed to
promote conception of a child, to speed delivery of a child, and to secure some-
one’s release from prison.83
A non-clinical occasion that required prayers was the gathering of medicinal
herbs. Spoken words were a part of rituals intended to enhance the power of herbs

77
Appendix, D.12, 13, 14.
78
Appendix, B.3,14, D. 17.
79
Appendix A.5, B.17; B.4, C.5, D.39, D.40; C.2, D.37.
80
BL, MS Sloane 56, fol. 79v (Appendix C.8) and BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 123v (Appendix
D.29). Fayreford also prescribes words inscribed on communion wafers for a woman suffering a
difficult delivery, ibid., fol. 117v (Appendix, D.21).
81
Appendix, D.42 is an exception.
82
Appendix, D.2.
83
Appendix, A.5, B.17, C.6, D.19, C.7.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 359

before the Christian era. A prayer (precatio) for gathering herbs that survives in a
twelfth-century manuscript made in southern Italy seems to echo a pre-Christian
ritual. The opening of the prayer honours all herbs as possessing ‘divine majesty’
(maiestatem) which was bestowed by their parent earth (parens tellus) and given to all
people by way of a gift of medicine (dono medicinam sanitatis). The gatherer placates
the herb (fauente herba) which he has been permitted by the divinity to collect. He
begs that it produce its special ‘virtue’ to enable him to provide its excellent effect
for the benefit of soldiers.84 Gaddesden, Arderne, and Fayreford, who may be
thought of as actually carrying out or overseeing the collection of medicinal herbs,
all include rituals to accompany the activity. Fayreford gives explicit directions in
English:
Whan th[o]u85 gederest ane herbe to mannes helpe, go thryes aboute hym and sey this: ‘Y
take the herbe yn the name of the fader and the sone and the holy gost. And Y pray to my
Lord God that thys herbe be god and virtues to the medicine that Y have ordeyned hym to.’
And sey thre pater nosters & iii ave marias. And whan thou hast gedred thyn herbys al the
yer or a sesonne, gyfe thys blessynge upon hem and sey thus.86

The blessing itself is in Latin.

Almighty, you who have granted virtue to various herbs, deign to bless and sanctify all these
herbs. And just as you gave to your apostles the power to trample upon serpents and
scorpions, so wherever medicine from these herbs will be provided, let every infirmity and
weakness be expelled and your benign grace be given to sicknesses. (My translation)87

The pagan and Christian rituals reflect the same concern that the strength (‘virtue’)
of the herbs be preserved for healing, and both the pagan and Christian rituals
acknowledge the divine powers that provide the herbs as a medicinal benefit to
human beings. Entries for how to gather one specific herb are also found in these
texts.88 Arderne has a note on an experimentum against cancer in which the herb
filipendula, gathered before sunrise on a Thursday while reciting the Lord’s Prayer
(oracione dominica), should be suspended from the patient’s neck.89 Gaddesden intro-
duces directions for gathering sanguinaria for a patient’s bleeding with the note: ‘Let
us see [how to do this] in the manner of empirics.’90 According to Gaddesden’s
instructions, one must approach the herb, genuflect and say a Pater Noster and Ave
Maria, then the following line: ‘Therefore we ask you to provide relief for your
servants whom you have saved with your precious blood.’ In the pagan and the
Christian rituals, the herb-gatherer maintains an attitude of reverence toward both
84
Medicina Antiqua: Codex Vindobonensis 93, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (London,
1999), f.13r.
85
Fayreford regularly writes open thorns, which are transcribed here as ‘th’. This pronoun appears
in the manuscript as a thorn with a superscript ‘u’.
86
Capitalization and punctuation are editorial.
87
BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 63v. Omnes [for Omnipotens?] qui variis herbis virtutem concessisti has herbas
benedicere et sanctificare dignare. et sicut apostolis tuis dedisti potestatem calcandi super serpentes et scorpiones sic
ubicumque medicina ex hiis fuerit exibita. omnis infirmatis et langor expellatur et gratia tua benyngna
infirmitatibus tribuatur p. d. (Appendix, D.1).
88
Appendix, B.1, 12, C.1.
89
BL, MS Sloane 56, fol. 1v (Appendix, C.1).
90
‘Modo de empiricis videamus’. BL, MS Sloane 1067, fol. 19v (Appendix, B.1).
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360 Lea T. Olsan

the creating divinity and the herb itself, which must be collected with ritual defer-
ence. Three of these four doctors think it important to include directions for
gathering the herbs needed to cure specific illnesses. In each one’s book, the pre-
cise formula addressed to the herb differs slightly from the others. The formulae are
‘Y take the[e] herbe yn the name, etc.’, the Lord’s Prayer, and Gaddesden’s ‘Te ergo
quesimus’. To what extent these represent significantly different formulae for herb-
gathering rituals is hard to say. A large collection of such rituals would tell us more.
As shown in the Appendix below, the same motifs tend to be used in both charms
and prayers.91 This phenomenon is typical of charms for healing in medical contexts.
The symptom or type of illness commonly functions as an index to the motifs or
formulae that relieve it. In these texts, for toothache we find Apollonia and Rex,
Pax, Nax (or Vax); for spasm—Thebel + Guth; for bleeding—Caro (Gilbertus
version), Zacharius, Veronica, River Jordan,92 and Longinus; for wounds—Three
Brothers, Five Wounds, and Longinus; for insomnia—Ishmael? (Exmael); for
epilepsy—Three Kings and Ananizapta; for childbirth—‘te vocat Christus, Lazarus
[sic]’, ‘Quando Christus natus est’,93 and Sator;94 for something caught in the
throat—Blaise. This article is not the place to explore the semantic relationships
between purposes and formula motifs. The relatively small number of illnesses for
which charms or prayers are found and the predictability of motifs for specific
problems suggest that memory and oral circulation are integral to the genre. If this
is the case, then academically trained physicians and surgeons may well have
received and passed on specific charms and prayers orally within the professional
community. Their medical knowledge may be less confined to textual transmission
than has been thought.
Some charms (besides those explicitly attributed to another practitioner) evidently
circulated freely among professionals. The ‘Three Good Brothers’ (Tres Boni Fratres)
commonly appears as a therapy for wounds. Often it has another narrative charm
linked to it, the Longinus charm, which is especially useful to stop bleeding or
remove a bit of iron from a wound left by a sharp point. Among the four medical
writers, only Arderne omits the ‘Three Good Brothers’ for wounds as he does all
narrative charms.95 In the ‘Three Good Brothers’, monks or friars were searching
for ‘good herbs to treat wounds’, so the healer (in this case the doctor or someone
under his direction) places himself in the same role, adding words—those that
Christ uses in the charm—to his other ministrations. In this manner, the charm
speaker commands (conjuro/coniurate) infections and other bad outcomes of
wounds through the ‘virtue’ of Christ’s wounds.
91
This is not a hard and fast rule, but even when popular formulae are employed for two or three
complaints, as when the dialogue between St Peter and Jesus (not found in our texts) is used for tooth-
ache but also fevers, a formula will not be used indiscriminately for just any purpose. For a preliminary
list of purposes and narrative motifs, see Olsan, ‘Latin Charms of Medieval England’, p. 130.
92
The River Jordan motif appears near the end of the charm and prayer in BL, MS Additional
33996, fol. 149r–v (Appendix, B.10).
93
This, and the previous Lazarus motif, appear in Arderne’s charm for a woman in labour, which
begins as a statement of faith. BL, MS Sloane 56, fol. 9v (Appendix, C.6).
94
I take the letters written on a lead rectangle, ‘os. a. acori. sa. t. p. .ii.N.d.’, to be a garbled form of
the Sator word square plus two Nomina Dei. In BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 118v (Appendix, D.22).
95
Appendix, A.1, B.11, D.2.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 361

Two narrative charms that occur repeatedly in our list seem worth attention.
One is the Veronica charm for chronic bleeding, which is especially appropriate
for menstrual problems, since the narrative recalls the woman who was healed of
a ‘flux of blood’ by touching the hem of Christ’s garment (Matthew 9.20, Mark
5.25, Luke 8.44).96 The other is the widely-known prayer for relief of toothache
addressed to St Apollonia, who was martyred after being tortured by having her
teeth extracted.97 In these charms, the saints’ sufferings correspond to those of the
patient (bleeding and pain from teeth, respectively), but the saints successfully
overcame the problem with divine help. In each case, the patient’s symptom is
linked to the motif of the narrative or historiola in the charm. From the perspective
of medieval medicine, the saints’ stories might appear to be precedent cases that
prove the cure, functioning somewhat in the same manner as proofs of experimenta
do, since the scriptural and apocryphal stories were accepted as true instances of
past events. On the other hand, from a theological approach, they derive their
power from the remembrance of Veronica and Apollonia as favoured servants of
God whom the devout patient invokes with the hope of receiving relief through
their beneficence. In any case, it matters less whether the rhetorical pattern of the
verbal formula commands or entreats, than that the motif be specific to the com-
plaint. Since the Veronica narrative is less well-known than the other formulae
mentioned here, it seems worthwhile to quote it in full, all the more since
Gaddesden’s version takes the form of a prayer and Fayreford’s that of a charm.
Gaddesden: Scribe hoc nomen Ueronica in fronte pacientis cum sanguine eius et dic
orationem istam. Deus qui solo tactu fimbrie uestmenti tui mulierem in fluxu sanguinis
constitutam sanare dignatus es te suppliciter exoramus Domine Iesu Christe qui solus
langores sanas ut fluxum sanguinis istius pro quo uel pro qua preces infundimus. restringere
et sistere facias dextera tue potencie pietatis98 extendendo. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus
sancti amen. cum pater noster et aue maria.99 [Write this name Veronica on the forehead of
the patient with his/her blood and say this prayer: God who deigned to cure the woman
presented with a flux of blood with only the touch of the hem of your garment, we humbly
entreat, Lord Jesus Christ, who alone heals illnesses, such as the flux of blood of this person,
for whom (man or woman) we pour out prayers. Cause it to staunch and stop by extending
the right hand of your power in compassion. In the name of the Father and Son and Holy
Spirit Amen. With a Pater Noster and Ave Maria.]
Fayreford: Pro fluxu menstruali restringendo. Ad fluxum sanguinis restringendum. In
nomine patris + filii + spiritus sancti amen. Sancta Vetonica fluxum sanguinis paciebatur + tetigit
fimbriam vestimenti christi + sanata est sic + mulier hac N. sanetur a fluxu sanguinis per nomen
domini nostri jesum christi Agyos. Agyos. Agyos. Ter dicatur et evangelium ubi legitur: sanata
est qui fluxum sanguinis paciebatur. Lege super eam certissime probatum et quod sanetur
evangelium penultimum ante adventum.100 [For stopping menstrual flow. To stop a flux of
blood. In the name of the Father + Son + and Holy Spirit Amen. Saint Ve[r]onica suffered

196
See above, n. 78.
197
J. Voragine, Legenda Aurea, ed. T. Graesse (Osnabrück, 1969), pp. 293–4. Appendix, B.6, D.8, 12.
198
pietatis] Followed by the letters ti cancelled.
199
Gaddesden in BL, MS Sloane 1067, f. 19v (Appendix, B.3). The line from ‘restringere . . .
extendendo’ may have originally been part of the directions for a physician to apply pressure, since this
charm staunches bleeding in a man or woman, not specifically menstrual.
100
Fayreford in BL, MS Harley 2558, fol. 115v (Appendix, D.17).
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362 Lea T. Olsan

a flux of blood + she touched the hem of Christ’s garment + she was thus cured. + May this
woman, N[ame], be healed of a flux of blood through our Lord Jesus Christ. Holy. Holy.
Holy. Let it be spoken three times and the gospel where it reads: ‘She was healed who
suffered a flux of blood.’ Read over her the most certainly proved case and that she may be
healed, the next to last gospel before advent.]
From these examples it is also apparent how medical charms and prayers are
typically embedded in ritual actions. Gaddesden’s prayer follows the act of writing
the name on the patient’s forehead in blood. Fayreford’s charm is to be recited
three times but the relevant gospel passage is also to be read over the head of the
patient. In both, religious devotion on the part of the patient and the physician is
required. In addition, the physician displays his literacy.
Among the eighty charms and prayers for healing found in these medical books,
narrative charms and prayers account for fewer remedies than do powerful names
and letters inscribed on objects. Fayreford prescribes holy names to be written on
communion wafers and ingested, characters written on a sheet of lead, and the
names of The Three Kings written with blood on a piece of parchment into which
one places gold, frankincense, and myrrh.101 Arderne prescribes several cures to be
written on various objects—on an amulet to be tied below the knee of a woman in
labour, on the hand in ink, on communion wafers to be ingested, and on parch-
ment to be worn around the neck.102 He reports that a woman’s ring with the
spasm charm (‘Thebel, etc.’) carved in the band was ineffective. He, in turn, wrote
it secretly in parchment and gave it to her folded up to wear, and she was freed of
the problem. Keeping the formula secret was thought to preserve its power.
Keeping it a secret might also have enhanced the reputation of the doctor by
calling attention to his learning and esoteric knowledge.
Among these professionals, the one who seems to have treated the most patients
includes the largest number of charms and prayers among his therapies. Fayreford’s
book supplies 42 of the 80 formulae in our list. The more conservative manuscripts
of Gilbertus, Gaddesden, and Arderne include ten or fewer charms, although the
charms added to Gaddesden’s book in British Library MS Additional 33996 were
interpolated by someone else.103 A reader who consulted that version of Gaddes-
den’s Rosa Anglica would find more than his original handful of verbal remedies
attached to the famous physician’s name, serving thereafter to authorize the cures.
Each of these doctors is inclined to recommend verbal healing for some
complaints in which either he had a special interest or, in the cases of Arderne and
Fayreford, found himself likely to need in his practice. Gilbertus alone provides
three remedies for poisonous bites. Gaddesden and Fayreford collect four and six
verbal remedies respectively for toothache, while Gilbertus and Arderne supply no
verbal cures for toothache at all. Gilbertus’ charm for bleeding, however, is
recorded by both Gaddesden and Fayreford and is duly attributed to Gilbertus.
Arderne’s long narrative about the successful use of his Thebel + Guth treatment
101
BL, MS Harley 2558, fols. 123r, 118v, 119r (Appendix, D.29, 22, 23).
102
BL, MS Sloane 56, fols. 9v, 79v, 7r (Appendix, C.6, 8, 9, 5).
103
Hunt, Popular Medicine, p. 29, calls attention to this. On how vernacular charms supplement
Latin texts, see T. Hunt, Anglo-Norman Medicine, Vol. II Shorter Treatises (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 1–16.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 363

to prevent spasm at the wedding parties in Milan gives him subsequent claim to
that remedy. Thus, the charm for spasm is recommended by Fayreford on the
authority of ‘Henry’ Arderne. Arderne’s narrative about the necessity of keeping
the charm private suggests that such experimenta were valued as professional secrets,
although he simply voices his concern to preserve the effect of the ‘virtue’ in the
words of power. Both this act of secrecy and its opposite—carefully providing
impressive attribution to a master such as Gilbertus or Arderne—argue that the
therapeutics of charms and prayers were considered by learned doctors a part of
their professional knowledge. Nevertheless, these doctors employ remedies with
Christian references when they do not incorporate Christian prayers, so the idea
that these were considered esoteric magic does not seem credible.
To conclude, then, although this investigation of the charms and prayers in four
English doctors’ books cannot be relied upon to represent a complete picture of
empirical practices among all professional physicians and surgeons contemporary
with them, we have seen that Gilbertus, Gaddesden, Arderne, and Fayreford
deliberately inscribed charms and prayers along with other empirica among their
cures. I have presented arguments (in Section II) to show how such cures could be
justified both from a scientific perspective and from a Christian perspective. These
are matters of theory. Matters of practice are represented by the professional choices
each doctor made regarding which complaints were amenable to treatment by
charms and prayers, the number of charms the academic physician recorded, and
the formula-types or delivery systems he preferred. For example, the surgeon,
Arderne, preferred amuletic remedies. The nature of the doctor’s practice or the
purpose of his book affected his attitude toward charms and prayers. The evidence
in the academic writers studied here, including Guy and Bernard, suggests that the
utility of charms and prayers within academic medicine expanded when doctors
were confronted in practice by specific needs in their patients.
The presence of charms and prayers in medieval academic medicine problema-
tizes the dichotomy between magic and medicine formulated within the period.
High-profile medical writers of the learned tradition were, for the most part,
adamant about not embracing magical cures, which could not be reconciled to the
best of rational medicine; nevertheless, they acceded to and promulgated experi-
menta that were reported to have worked in previous cases. Thus, the medical
rhetoric of the medieval doctors accommodated verbal modes of healing at the
margins of their therapies. David Harley and others have argued that the science
of medicine persists through its rhetorical constructs.104 Its theoretical paradigms
have historically been powerful, but limited, articulations of information about the
human body and disease. Whenever a highly trained doctor confronts human illness,
the doctor’s discourse must negotiate the current dominant paradigm, whether that
paradigm be humoral, anatomical, cellular, or genetic; however, when the doctor
or other healer is confronted with an individual patient’s distress, then one or more
therapies from a range of praxes related in various ways to the dominant discourse

104
Harley, ‘Rhetoric and the Social Construction of Sickness and Healing’, and L. Jordanova, ‘The
Social Construction of Medical Knowledge’, Social History of Medicine, 8 (1995), 361–81.
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364 Lea T. Olsan

may be applied. Whether or not such therapies are rejected as ‘magical’ will
depend on the shape of the discourse with which it competes or which it attempts
to augment. By contrast, in communities where a sick person credits ‘magic’ in a
positive sense with a cure, then magic is likely to constitute the preferred medical
discourse.

Acknowledgements
A preliminary version of this article was delivered at the Annual Meeting of the
Society for the Social History of Medicine in Southampton, 17 July 2000. I am
grateful to the reviewers for Social History of Medicine for their valuable comments
and suggestions.

Appendix
In Table 1 are listed, under each author’s name, all the charms and prayers found
in the particular sources examined. The first column lists the medical problem
(‘complaint’) or purpose for which each item is indicated. The second column iden-
tifies the type of content of the item, as ‘charm’, ‘prayer’ or ‘ritual’, as when direc-
tions for ritual acts accompany a prayer or charm. Where a charm is followed by
instructions to add prayers such as Pater Nosters and Ave Marias, ‘C’ precedes ‘P’.
The third column notes significant words (or titles) of the prayers and incantatory
words (as opposed to headings or instructions) of charms exactly as they appear
in the texts. From this column, one can adduce the motifs utilized for specific
purposes. The fourth column identifies the source text and the exact location of
the item in it.

T A B L E 1. Rituals (R), Prayers (P) and Charms (C)105

Complaint or purpose Type Ritual words Source

A. Gilbertus Anglicus
1 Wounds CP Tres boni fratres . . . Longeus Gilbertus (1510) 87r
2 Bleeding C Caro cum calice confirma Gilbertus (1510) 153v
3 Removing iron RP Pater Noster Gilbertus (1510) 180v
4 Bleeding CR Caro cum calice confirma Gilbertus (1510) 232r
5 Conception RP crescite + . . Uthiboth . . . Gilbertus (1510) 287r
6 Poisonous bites PC Pater Noster, Kyrie . . . Gilbertus (1510) 356r
Poto pota Zene Zebete
7 Poisonous bites C Caro carunce rampinice. seray Gilbertus (1510) 356r
8 Poisonous bites C zara. zara. zebte. porro pota Gilbertus (1510) 356r
9 Dog bite C bis binis dictionis bis Gilbertus (1510) 356r
10 Puncture C predictum carmen [above] Gilbertus (1510) 356v

105
Rituals unaccompanied by prayers and charms are not included. Charms include any words or
characters to be spoken or inscribed on objects. I am grateful to Peter Murray Jones for use of his trans-
criptions of Fayreford’s charms, especially, and his list of Arderne’s charms from BL, MS Sloane 56. I
have examined all the manuscripts listed; the readings supplied are my own.
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Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice 365

T A B L E 1. (Continued)

Complaint or purpose Type Ritual words Source

B. John Gaddesden
1 Gathering herb RP Pater Noster . . . Te ergo BL Sloane 1067, f.19r
2 Flux of blood106 C Caro cum calice confir[m]a BL Sloane1067, f.19v
3 Bleeding RCP Veronica . . . Deus qui solo BL Sloane 1067, f.19v
4 Cramp or spasm C thebel + Guth + Guthanay BL Sloane 1067, f. 219
5 Toothache C rex + pax + nax + in Christo BL Sloane 1067, f. 248
6 Toothache P Appolonie . . . Nigacio BL Sloane 1067, f.248
7 Toothache R caracteres BL Sloane 1067, f. 248
8 Toothache RP Pater Noster et Aue BL Sloane 1067, f. 248
9 Bleeding C Inter vestibulum . . . Beronixus BL Add. 33996, f.149r
10 Bleeding CP Longeus . . . O Maria BL Add. 33996, f. 149r–v
11 Wound C Tres boni frates BL Add. 33996, f. 149v
12 Gathering herb PC Pater Noster . . . Te ergo queso BL Add. 33996, f. 150v
13 Insomnia C Exmael iii adjuro BL Add. 33996, f. 150v
14 Bleeding CP Beronica . . . Deus qui solo BL Add. 33996, f. 151r
15 Bleeding CP Adjuro te, sanguis, BL Add. 33996, f.151r
16 Bleeding C Centorie, estaunche BL Add. 33996 f. 151v–152r
17 Conception C && ct a n e ae gc x + x +cth BL Add. 33996, f. 153v
18 Lunacy, etc. C Recede demon, quia effimploy BL Add. 33996, f. 169r
19 Epilepsy C Jasper fert mirram BL Add. 33996, f. 169v
20 Lunatic, etc. RP Hoc genus demonii non BL Add. 33996 f. 169v.

C. John Arderne
1 Gathering herb RP oratio dominica BL Sloane 56, f. 1v
2 Nosebleed or wound C p. x. b. c. p. o. p. x. a. b. q. a BL Sloane 56, f. 2r
3 Nosebleed or wound R signum . . . In nomine BL Sloane 56, f. 2r–v
4 Paralysis/Epilepsy RP oratio dominica BL Sloane 56, f. 6v
5 Spasm CP Thebel + Guthe + BL Sloane 56, f. 6v–7v
6 Woman in labour CP Sicut vere credimus BL Sloane 56, f. 9v
infans te vocat christus
7 Free a prisoner RCP Pater Noster et Ave BL Sloane 56, f. 79r
8 Fever RP on. alpha on. omega on. BL Sloane 56, f. 79v
9 Tertian fever RCP Increatus pater. increatus BL Sloane 56, f. 79v

D. Thomas Fayreford
1 Blessing herbs RP O[mnipoten]s qui variis herbis BL Harley 2558, f. 63v
2 Fresh wound C Ibatur tres boni . . . sicut Christus BL Harley 2558, f. 64v
3 Puncture wound C Sicut Christus fuit fixius BL Harley 2558, f. 64v
4 Migraine, etc. CR In nomine Patris quisivi te BL Harley 2558, f. 77r
Ecce cruce Domini fugite
5 Spot in the eye CR Nichasius BL Harley 2558, f. 79r
6 Toothache? P v Pater Noster et Ave Maria BL Harley 2558, f. 81r
7 Toothache CR Rex. pax. vax BL Harley 2558, f. 81r
8 Toothache RPC Sancta Appolonia . . . ilililr BL Harley 2558, f. 81v
9 Toothache RC mn . . . Machabeus BL Harley 2558, f. 81v
10 Toothache CR + [refers to 4 above] BL Harley 2558, f. 81v
11 Toothache CR rex + pax + vax BL Harley 2558, f. 82r
12 Toothache P oryson of S Apolonya or Nichasii BL Harley 2558, f. 82r
13 Throat P invocacio . . . Blasium BL Harley 2558, f. 87r
14 Sore throat P Dominus Iesus Christus BL Harley 2558, f. 87r
15 Poison RPC Caro caruce reddidit samen BL Harley 2558, f. 91v
16 Paralysis and Epilepsy PR oratio Dominica tribus vicibus BL Harley 2558, f. 99v
17 Menstrual Flux C sancta Vetonica . . . tetigit fimbriam BL Harley 2558, f.115v
18 Difficult birth RC vipera vim perdit sine vi BL Harley 2558, f. 117r
106
Gaddesden attributes the charm to Gilbertus (Experimentum gilberti ad omnem fluxum sanguinis).
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366 Lea T. Olsan

T A B L E 1. (Continued)

Complaint or purpose Type Ritual words Source

19 Speed delivery RC Dirupisti vinculam mea[m] BL Harley 2558, f. 117r

20 Difficult pregnancy RP v Pater Noster et V Ave et BL Harley 2558 , f.117v
21 Difficult birth RC In nomine patris, Lazare BL Harley 2558, f. 117v
22 Conception RC os. a. atori. sa.t.[r] BL Harley 2558, f. 118v
23 Epilepsy RCP Jasper + Melcheor + Balthasar BL Harley 2558, f. 119r
24 Epilepsy RCP ananizapta . . . iii misse trinitate BL Harley 2558, f. 119r
25 Epilepsy RC ananizapta BL Harley 2558, f. 119r
26 Herbs/Epilepsy RP vii Psalmos penitencialies BL Harley 2558, f. 119v
ananizapta
27 Lunatic or other C Recede demon quia Effimoloz BL Harley 2558, f. 120r
28 Fevers RC Seynt Architerclyn sour le BL Harley 2558, f. 122r
29 Fevers RC Pater + est + vita BL Harley 2558, f. 123r
30 Fevers P sana tuis precibus BL Harley 2558, f. 123v
31 Bleeding RC Whan oure Lord Jesus Crist BL Harley 2558, f. 125r
32 Wounds RCP Jesus nazarenus rex iudeorum BL Harley 2558, f. 125r
33 Bleeding RC charo BL Harley 2558, f. 125r
34 Nosebleed C Sanctus Helyas super crurum BL Harley 2558, f. 125r-v
35 Flux of blood107 RC Caro. ca.. calice confirma BL Harley 2558, f. 125v
36 Wounds CR z litteram [reference mark] BL Harley 2558, f. 125v
37 Bleeding CR G.k.B.x.k.2.l.o.x.a.o.l.R.o.l. BL Harley 2558, f. 125v
38 Burn or bite CP Ave Maria BL Harley 2558, f. 138r
39 Spasm C Gut + Got + but + but + A + BL Harley 2558, f. 139v
40 Spasm108 RC Thebel + Guthe + BL Harley 2558, f. 139v
41 Gout C signum + [refers to 4] BL Harley 2558, f. 145r
42 All infirmities P Invocatio Christi nomine BL Harley 2558, f. 151v

107
Fayreford attributes the charm to Gilbertus Anglicus (secundum gylbertum anglicum).
108
Fayreford attributes the charm to ‘hencricum [sic] Arderne’.