La médecine dans le monde nord-atlantique médiéval

Medicine in the Medieval North Atlantic World

Interdisciplinary conference

19–21 March 2020

Maynooth University, Ireland

This interdisciplinary conference explores the reception and transmission of medical knowledge between and across England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Scandinavia during the medieval period, and will draw on history, literature, philosophy, science, religion, art, archaeology and manuscript studies. It will interrogate medical texts and ideas in both Latin and vernacular languages, addressing questions of translation, cultural and scientific inheritance and exchange, and historical conceptions of health and of the human being within nature.

Confirmed speakers: Dr Debby Banham (University of Cambridge); Prof. Guy Geltner (University of Amsterdam); Prof. Charlotte Roberts (Durham University)

Organising committee: Dr Sarah Baccianti (Queen’s University Belfast); Dr Siobhán Barrett, Dr Bernhard Bauer & Dr Deborah Hayden (Maynooth University)

THURSDAY 19 MARCH 

Registration 12.00 – 13.00 Opening address 13.00

Session 1: 13.05 – 14.35 John Hume 4 Chair: TBA

David Stifter (Maynooth University)

The Old Irish healing charms in the Stowe missal and the protective spell in the Karlsruhe book cover

Katherine Leach (Harvard University)

Originality and innovation in medieval and early modern Welsh medical charms

Ciaran Arthur (Queen’s University Belfast)

Liturgical sources in nonsensical ritualised remedies

Coffee 14.35 – 15.00

Posters 15.00 – 15.30

Catrin Fear (University of Nottingham)

The impact of lead on health in medieval Britain: Did they know it was poisonous?

Siobhán Barrett (Maynooth University) & Deborah Hayden (Maynooth University)

MIMNEC: Medieval Irish Medicine in its North-western European Context

Session 2: 15.30 – 16.30 John Hume 4 Chair: TBA

Axel Christophersen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), University Museum, Trondheim, Norway) Were they all pigs? From individual to public health care in medieval Trondheim, Norway

Ole Georg Moseng (University of Southeast Norway) & Erik Opsahl (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)) Medieval environmental responsibility. Public initiatives in Trondheim in the late middle ages

Coffee 16.30 -17.00

Keynote 1: 17.30 – 18.30 Renehan Hall

Guy Geltner (University of Amsterdam)

Public health and the environment in Galenic practice 

Chair: TBA

Reception 18.30 – 20.30 Renehan Hall

 

FRIDAY 20 MARCH 

Session 3: 9.30 – 10.30 John Hume 4 Chair: TBA

Ranke de Vries (St. Francis Xavier University)

Afflictions of the head in the Acallam na Senórach 

Christine Voth (University of Göttingen)

The Veronica and female healing authority in medieval England

Coffee 10.30 – 11.00

Session 4: 11.00 – 12.30 John Hume 4 Chair: Elizabeth Boyle

Niamh Wycherley (Maynooth University)

The placebo effect in medieval Ireland

Marie Novotná (Charles University, Prague)

Old Norse concept of health in the perspective of body-soul relation

Victoria Krivoshchekova (Maynooth University)

Early Irish literature and the embodied mind

Lunch 12.30 – 13.30 Phoenix Restaurant

Session 5: 13.30 – 15.00 John Hume 4 Chair: Siobhán Barrett

Brigid Mayes (Independent Scholar)

The Materia Medica of Gaelic physician Tadhg Ó Cuinn (1415): at the interface of theory and practice

Li Parrent (McGill University/Université d’Avignon)

Nordic landscapes as agents of pharmaceutical possibility

Conan Doyle (Independent Scholar)

Old English cures from the Ireland of Solinus and Bede

Coffee 15.00 – 15.30

Session 6: 15.30 – 17.00 John Hume 4 Chair: TBA

Laura Poggesi (University of Pavia - University of Bergamo) Medical knowledge in two middle English manuscripts: their use and users

Claudio Cataldi (Università degli Studi di Palermo)

Anatomical catalogues in Anglo-Saxon England

Emily Kesling (University of Oslo)

Female book production and medical texts in the eighth century

Coffee 17.00 – 17.30

Keynote 2: 17.30 – 18.30 John Hume 4

Debby Banham (University of Cambridge)

Chair: TBA

The beginnings of English medicine: editing the oldest medical compendium from England

Conference Dinner 19.30 Glenroyal Hotel

SATURDAY 21 MARCH

Session 7: 9.30 – 11.00 John Hume 4 Chair: TBA

Gwendolyne Knight (Stockholm University)

Locating the mind with monsters in early English medicine

Christina Lee (School of English, University of Nottingham) Singing to sanity

Anna Matheson (Centre d'études supérieures de la Renaissance, Université de Tours)

How to Identify Fools: Instructions from a middle Irish legal commentary

Coffee 11.00 – 11.30

Keynote 3: 11.30 – 12.30 John Hume 4

Charlotte Roberts (Durham University)

Chair: TBA

Palaeopathology: what can it tell us about the history of disease and medicine?

Lunch 12.30 – 13.30 Phoenix Restaurant

Session 8: 13.30 – 15.00 John Hume 4 Chair: TBA

Sunny Harrison (University of Leeds)

Greaselamps, frankincense, and dragon’s blood: The stable as medicalised environment in late medieval England

Elisa Ramazzina (Queen’s University Belfast)

“And bathis are goode to be visid in tyme of colde”: Therapeutic baths in medieval English medicine

Matteo Tarsi (University of Iceland)

Lexical pairs in the old west Norse medical manuscript tradition

Coffee 15.00 – 15.30

Session 9: 15.30 – 17.00 John Hume 4 Chair: TBA

Eystein Thanisch (Faclair na Gàidhlig, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, University of the Highlands and Islands)

The scientific terminology of the Beaton medical manuscripts

Joseph Flahive (Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources)

Medical vocabulary in early mediaeval Celtic latinity

Sharon Arbuthnot (University of Cambridge)

Late medieval Irish medicalese and its European context