"In how mich it is more openly taghte": Henry Daniel and the Early Vernacularization of English Medicine
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Sarah Star
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Toronto
Presider Name
Sarah Star
Paper Title 1
The Vernacularization of Medical Discourse in Henry Daniel's Herbal
Presenter 1 Name
Jake Walsh Morrissey
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Trent Univ.
Paper Title 2
Henry Daniel and the Writing of Medical Case Histories
Presenter 2 Name
Jessica Henderson
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Toronto
Paper Title 3
Persuasion in Henry Daniel's Preface to Liber uricrisiarum: Metadiscourse Meets Medieval Medicine
Presenter 3 Name
Martti Mäkinen
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Hanken School of Economics
Paper Title 4
Respondent
Presenter 4 Name
M. Teresa Tavormina
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Michigan State Univ.
Start Date
16-5-2015 1:30 PM
Session Location
Schneider 1325
Description
Henry Daniel was a fourteenth-century Dominican friar who compiled a massive uroscopy treatise and an herbal in English and who has recently been identified as a translator of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’s De virtutibus herbarum. In addition to transmitting in English the specialist knowledge of his Latin sources, Daniel also writes much original medical material in the vernacular and is, as he states in the prologue to the uroscopy treatise, the first to convey such knowledge in English, at least in such encyclopaedic detail. In compiling and composing this medical material in the “vulgare, i.e. the comune tongue,” Daniel aimed, in turn, to profit the health of his readers by making such knowledge “more openly taghte.” Despite Daniel’s unique position not merely as a translator of Latin treatises, but also as a writer of original English medical material, his treatises have been largely overlooked in contemporary scholarship on medieval medicine in general and medieval medicine in England in particular. One reason for this critical oversight is that Daniel’s texts, though originally intended to reach many people, do not exist in complete critical editions and are thus largely inaccessible to modern scholars. This Special Session attempts to fulfil Daniel’s original aim: to make his works “more openly taghte” and to investigate his influence on the medical culture of late medieval England. To that end, this session showcases current scholarship on Daniel’s works—both uroscopic and herbal—and their specific medical, historical, and textual details.
--Sarah Star
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"In how mich it is more openly taghte": Henry Daniel and the Early Vernacularization of English Medicine
Schneider 1325
Henry Daniel was a fourteenth-century Dominican friar who compiled a massive uroscopy treatise and an herbal in English and who has recently been identified as a translator of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’s De virtutibus herbarum. In addition to transmitting in English the specialist knowledge of his Latin sources, Daniel also writes much original medical material in the vernacular and is, as he states in the prologue to the uroscopy treatise, the first to convey such knowledge in English, at least in such encyclopaedic detail. In compiling and composing this medical material in the “vulgare, i.e. the comune tongue,” Daniel aimed, in turn, to profit the health of his readers by making such knowledge “more openly taghte.” Despite Daniel’s unique position not merely as a translator of Latin treatises, but also as a writer of original English medical material, his treatises have been largely overlooked in contemporary scholarship on medieval medicine in general and medieval medicine in England in particular. One reason for this critical oversight is that Daniel’s texts, though originally intended to reach many people, do not exist in complete critical editions and are thus largely inaccessible to modern scholars. This Special Session attempts to fulfil Daniel’s original aim: to make his works “more openly taghte” and to investigate his influence on the medical culture of late medieval England. To that end, this session showcases current scholarship on Daniel’s works—both uroscopic and herbal—and their specific medical, historical, and textual details.
--Sarah Star