Dun, Oxa and Pliny the Great Physician: Attribution and Authority in Old English Medical Texts

Abstract

Although English vernacular medicine of the late ninth to twelfth centuries draws heavily upon the classical and sub-classical tradition, classical authorities are almost never cited. In fact, citations of any kind are very rare, and the majority of authorities cited in texts compiled before the Norman Conquest are themselves English. Only in the twelfth century are Galen and Hippocrates mentioned for the first time. This suggests a rather self-sufficient medical community in England, with limited historical awareness or contact with wider developments, at least until new Latin medical texts came in from the continent in the eleventh century.

Old English, Anglo-Saxon medicine, citation, attribution, authority, Dun, Oxa, King Alfred, Elias (Patriarch of Jerusalem), Arestolobius, Pliny