Description: A consideration of the allegory of Christ the Divine Physician in medical and religious writings.
Discourses of physical and spiritual health were intricately entwined in the Middle Ages, shaping intellectual concepts as well as actual treatment. The allegory of Christ as Divine Physician is an example of this intersection: it appears frequently in both medical and religious writings as a powerful figure of healing and salvation, and was invoked by dissidents and reformists in religious controversies. Drawing on previously unexplored manuscript material, this book examines the use of the Christus Medicus tradition during a period of religious turbulence. Via an interdisciplinary analysis of literature, sermons, and medical texts, it shows that Wycliffites in England and Hussites in Bohemia used concepts developed in hospital settings to press for increased lay access to Scripture and the sacraments against the strictures of the Church hierarchy. Tracing a story of reform and controversy from localised institutional contexts to two of the most important pan-European councils of the fifteenth century, Constance and Basel, it argues that at a point when the body of the Church was strained by multiple popes, heretics and schismatics, the allegory came into increasing use to restore health and order.Brief description: Patrick Outhwaite is Assistant Professor of Medieval English Language and Culture at the University of Groningen.
Review Quotes: Patrick Outhwaite offers a timely and engaging contribution, tracing the figure of Christus medicus in the context of religious disputes during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The strength of his study lies in its ability to combine broader perspectives with individual cases and everyday realities, whether the harsh conditions of hospital care, the peculiar practices of wandering doctors, or the devotional lives of women.-- "GERMAN HISTROICAL INSTITUTE LONDON BULLETIN"