Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus

by active 13th century Anglicus Bartholomaeus

Madness cometh sometime of passions of the soul, as of business and of great thoughts, of sorrow and of too great study, and of dread: sometime of the biting of a wood hound, or some other venomous beast: sometime of melancholy meats, and sometime of drink of strong wine. And as the causes be diverse, the tokens and signs be diverse. For some cry and leap and hurt and wound themselves and other men, and darken and hide themselves in privy and secret places. The medicine of them is, that they be bound, that they hurt not themselves and other men. And namely, such shall be refreshed, and comforted, and withdrawn from cause and matter of dread and busy thoughts. And they must be gladded with instruments of music, and somedeal be occupied.

Our Lord set a token in Cain, that was quaking of head, as Strabus saith in the gloss: "Every man (saith Strabus) that findeth me, by quaking of head and moving of wood heart, shall know that I am guilty to die."

Among all the passions and evils of the wits of feeling, blindness is most wretched. For without any bond, blindness is a prison to the blind. And blindness beguileth the virtue imaginative in knowing; for in deeming of white the blind deem it is black, and ayenward. It letteth the virtue of avisement in deeming. For he deemeth and aviseth, and casteth to go eastward, and is beguiled in his doom, and goeth westward. And blindness over-turneth the virtue of affection and desire. For if men proffer the blind a silver penny and a copper to choose the better, he desireth to choose the silver penny, but he chooseth the copper.

The blind man's wretchedness is so much, that it maketh him not only subject to a child, or to a servant, for ruling and leading, but also to an hound. And the blind is oft brought to so great need, that to pass and scape the peril of a bridge or of a ford, he is compelled to trust in a hound more than to himself. Also oft in perils where all men doubt and dread, the blind man, for he seeth no peril, is secure. And in like wise there as is no peril, the blind dreadeth most. He spurneth oft in plain way, and stumbleth oft; there he should heave up his foot, he boweth it downward. And in like wise there as he should set his foot to the ground, he heaveth it upward. He putteth forth the hand all about groping and grasping, he seeketh all about his way with his hand and with his staff. Seldom he doth aught securely, well nigh always he doubteth and dreadeth. Also the blind man when he lieth or sitteth thereout, he weeneth that he is under covert; and ofttimes he thinketh himself hid when everybody seeth him.

Also sometimes the blind beateth and smiteth and grieveth the child that leadeth him, and shall soon repent the beating by doing of the child. For the child hath mind of the beating, and forsaketh him, and leaveth him alone in the middle of a bridge, or in some other peril, and teacheth him not the way to void the peril. Therefore the blind is wretched, for in house he dare nothing trustly do, and in the way he dreadeth lest his fellow will forsake him.

Universally this evil [leprosy] hath much tokens and signs. In them the flesh is notably corrupt, the shape is changed, the eyen become round, the eyelids are revelled, the sight sparkleth, the nostrils are straited and revelled and shrunk. The voice is hoarse, swelling groweth in the body, and many small botches and whelks hard and round, in the legs and in the utter parts; feeling is somedeal taken away. The nails are boystous and bunchy, the fingers shrink and crook, the breath is corrupt, and oft whole men are infected with the stench thereof. The flesh and skin is fatty, insomuch that they may throw water thereon, and it is not the more wet, but the water slides off, as it were off a wet hide. Also in the body be diverse specks, now red, now black, now wan, now pale. The tokens of leprosy be most seen in the utter parts, as in the feet, legs, and face; and namely in wasting and minishing of the brawns of the body.

To heal or to hide leprosy, best is a red adder with a white womb, if the venom be away, and the tail and the head smitten off, and the body sod with leeks, if it be oft taken and eaten. And this medicine helpeth in many evils; as appeareth by the blind man, to whom his wife gave an adder with garlick instead of an eel, that it might slay him, and he ate it, and after that by much sweat, he recovered his sight again.

The biting of a wood hound is deadly and venomous. And such venom is perilous. For it is long hidden and unknown, and increaseth and multiplieth itself, and is sometimes unknown to the year's end, and then the same day and hour of the biting, it cometh to the head, and breedeth frenzy. They that are bitten of a wood hound have in their sleep dreadful sights, and are fearful, astonied, and wroth without cause. And they dread to be seen of other men, and bark as hounds, and they dread water most of all things, and are afeared thereof full sore, and squeamous also. Against the biting of a wood hound wise men and ready used to make the wounds bleed with fire or with iron, that the venom may come out with blood, that cometh out of the wound.

Then consider thou shortly hereof, that a physician visiteth oft the houses and countries of sick men. And seeketh and searcheth the causes and circumstances of the sicknesses, and arrayeth and bringeth with him divers and contrary medicines. And he refuseth not to grope and handle, and to wipe and cleanse wounds of sick men. And he behooteth to all men hope and trust of recovering of health; and saith that he will softly burn that which shall be burnt, and cut that which shall be cut. And lest the whole part should corrupt, he spareth not to burn and to cut off the part that is rotted, and if a part in the right side acheth, he spareth not to smite in the left side. A good leech leaveth not cutting or burning for weeping of the patient. And he hideth and covereth the bitterness of the medicine with some manner of sweetness. He drinketh and tasteth of the medicine, though it be bitter: that it be not against the sick man's heart, and refraineth the sick man of meat and drink; and letteth him have his own will, of the whose health is neither hope nor trust of recovering.

The veins have that name for that they be the ways, conduits, and streams of the fleeting of the blood, and sheddeth it into all the body. And Constantine saith, that the veins spring out of the liver, as the arteries and wosen do out of the heart, and the sinews out of the brain. And veins are needful as vessels of the blood to bear and to bring blood from the liver, to feed and nourish the members of the body. Also needly, the veins are more tender and nesh in kind than sinews. Therefore that they be nigh to the liver may somewhat change the blood that cometh to them. And all the veins are made of one curtel, and not of two, as the arteries and wosen. For the arteries receive spirits, and they keep and save them. And the veins coming out of the liver, suck thereof, as it were of their own mother, feeding of blood, and dealeth and departeth that feeding to every member as it needeth. And so the veins spread into all the parts of the body, and by a wonder wit of kind, they do service each to other.