Sickness and Healing
Peregrine Horden
Abstract How should a medieval monk behave when sick? Must submission to divine test or judgement be the only response, is resort secular as well spiritual medicine allowed? What role of infirmary in monastery and, for individual monk, what are benefits and disadvantages staying it? The chapter traces answers such questions through case studies drawn from earliest phase monasticism late antiquity, Carolingian Europe, twelfth century, later Middle Ages, concluding with an outline set topics further research.
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