The sources of medical knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England

Abstract

Early English medicine, including that of Anglo-Saxon England, has been frequently described as a backwater in which superstition flourished until the mainstream of more rational and advanced Salernitan practices flowed into the country in late medieval times. This view has been strongly countered by C. H. Talbot, who has shown, convincingly I think, that works usually attributed to Salernitan writers were in use in England at least as early as they were at Salerno, and that, far from being backward, English medicine in Anglo-Saxon times may have been in the forefront of contemporary practice.