The Germans believed in the magical properties of water hallowed at midnight of the day of baptism. Such water they called heilawâc. They believed it to have a wonderful power of healing diseases and wounds, and of never spoiling.[630] The salt which is added to holy water in the church will account for its keeping properties. But it is in medicinal springs, such as are called Heilbrunn, Heilborn, Heiligenbrunnen, that Teutonic faith has always exhibited the strongest devotion. Sacrifices, says Grimm, were offered at such springs. When the Wetterau people begin a new jug of chalybeate water, they always spill a few drops first on the ground. Grimm thinks this was originally a libation to the fountain sprite.[631] The Christians replaced water-sprites by saints.
Fire was regularly worshipped, and there are many superstitions still existing which point to this phase of Teutonic religion. “The Esthonians throw gifts into fire, as well as into water. To pacify the flame they sacrifice a fowl to it.”[632] Sulphur has always had an evil reputation. Murrain amongst cattle could only be got rid of by a Needfire. On the day appointed for banishing the pest, there must in no house be any flame left on the hearth, but a new fire must be kindled by friction after the manner of savages.[633]
Teutonic children born with a caul about their head are believed to be lucky children. The membrane is carefully treasured, and sometimes worn round the babe as an amulet. The Icelanders imagine that the child’s guardian spirit resides in it; midwives are careful not to injure it, but bury it under the threshold. If any one throws it away, he deprives the child of its guardian spirit.[634]
Anglo-Saxon Medicine.
It is difficult to discover what was the state of learning existing amongst the ancient Saxons before their conversion to Christianity. We know that soon after this event schools were established in Kent, with such good results that Sigebert (A.D. 635) established seminaries on the same plan in his own dominions. After this, as Bede informs us, there flourished a great number of learned men.[635]
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, came over into Britain A.D. 669, and did much to improve the learning of the country. He was accompanied by many professors of science, one of whom, the monk Adrian, instructed a great number of students in the sciences, especially teaching the art of medicine and establishing rules for preserving the health.[636] Aldhelm, who according to Bede was a man of great erudition and was “wonderfully well acquainted with books,” very greatly contributed to the spread of education.
The state of medicine in England in Anglo-Saxon times is said by Strutt[637] to have been very degraded. Medicine consisted chiefly of nostrums which had been handed down from one age to another, and their administration was usually accompanied with whimsical rites and ceremonies, to which the success was often in a great measure attributed. The most ignorant persons practised the profession, and particularly old women, who were supposed to be the most expert and were in high repute amongst the Anglo-Saxons. After the establishment of Christianity the clergy succeeded to the business carried on by the ancient dames, and it must be admitted that the superstitious element in their treatment of disease was not less prominent than in that of their venerable predecessors. Bede says[638] that Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, taught that “It is very dangerous to let blood on the fourth day of the moon, because both the light of the moon and the tides are upon the increase.” Before any medicine could be administered, fortunate and unfortunate times, the changes of the moon and appearance of the planets, had to be considered.
Many medicinal books were amongst those which Ælfred the Great caused to be translated into the Saxon tongue. Some of them were embellished with illustrations of herbs, etc., so that about the tenth century some knowledge of medicine was diffused, and Strutt thinks there may have been persons whose only profession was medicine and surgery, besides the ecclesiastics who practised these arts, before the close of the Saxon government.[639]
The Anglo-Saxons, even after their conversion to Christianity, retained much of the superstition of their ancestors; they placed faith in astrology, and had some acquaintance with astronomy, which they obtained from the Romans, from whom they learned most of the arts and sciences. They had a good knowledge of botany, and their MS. were embellished with excellent drawings of the herbs and plants.[640]
Theodore brought with him a large collection of books, and set up schools in Kent, where many students were instructed in the sciences and the knowledge and application of medicine and the rules for the preservation of the health.[641]