Medieval Magic and Medicine (Review)

In a medical manuscript of the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale that was written at about 800, probably somewhere in the Loire Valley, there is a curious one-page treatise that has escaped the attention of historians, paleographers, medievalists, medical historians, and folk-lorists. (pg 494) “An Unpublished Treatise on Medicine and Magic from the Age of Charlemagne” is an article written by Loren C. MacKinney and was published by The Medieval Academy of America in October of 1943. The article is about a mysterious page of magical recipes that has been misplaced and the origin of this page is debated due to its resemblance to similar work in both the first and sixth centuries.
Medieval medicine was a mixture of superstition, and folklore, of potions and magic. Disease literally plagued the middle ages and with such a large number of strange diseases there were equally strange cures. Although the subject of true remedies can be debated, it is widely known that physicians were in short supply and true medicine for most diseases wasn’t discovered yet. Medical advances would come with the advancement of technology and knowledge of the human body.
Due to the fact that Christianity believed that one must possess all organs of the body in order to get to heaven, dissection was strongly discouraged by the church. Researching on dead bodies was reserved to a very secretive few and one could be excommunicated from the church or killed for doing so.
The medical manuscript recently found contains “The Letter of the Vulture.” According to the letter, the human race does not know how much virtue the vulture has in it and how much this animal contributes to healing. (pg 495) The Epistula Vulturis comprises seventeen medical and magical recipes compounded from portions of vulture and other substances, including other animals and wine. (pg 496)
The recipe calls for specific instructions on how to dissect the vulture and use its inners as a source of healing. It is very important to cut open the bird within the hour of killing it or finding it dead. The bones wrapped in deerskin will cure every pain and migraine of the head. (pg 495) Blood could be used to cure itchy skin and a mixture of wolf skin and vulture eyes would expel all pain away from the eyes. My favorite would have to be to dry and beat the vulture’s little kidneys and testicles and to consume with wine, to help him who is unable to have intercourse with his wife. (pg 496)
The wording of most of the magical recipes resembles passages in the “Natural History” of a first-century Roman, Pliny the Elder, that obviously were derived from his work. (pg 494) Pliny the Elder would be a reference point for many and later miracle workers would add to the similarities between the magical recipes.
The wording of most of the recipes, however, is closer to that of a sixth-century work by Sextus Placitus Papyriensis, which was itself derived largely from Pliny. (pg 494) The result would be that it was originally Pliny’s work, but interpreted and published by Sextus at a later time.
There were nine other recipes that would be included in Sextus’ Book of Medicine from Animals, Cattle, Beasts, and Birds. (pg 494) In most of the work, the recipes for these potions rely on magic rather than true medicine. The medicine and magic from the age of Charlemagne would be something that Church would approve of and usually entail some superstitious ritual or remedy. Later on in a fifteenth-century version, in a manuscript of Italian origin, there are fourteen additional recipes, practically all of which are magical in character. (pg 494)
The strengths of MacKinney in this article would be the manuscript itself. One could find the humor associated with magic recipes that include vultures, deer, and wolf parts. The weakness would be in the lack of information associated with the manuscript. MacKinney could give better background information in terms of actual phrasing used by Sextus and Pliny the Elder. It would have been more convincing to show examples side by side rather than just listing numbers of recipes that were similar. (Example: numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 being similar to numbers 3, 4, 7, 14) Overall, this article is important to those interested in paleographic material, medieval medicine, medieval magic, and history because it shows that even a misplaced manuscript that does belong to a historical era can be used to explain a certain time period. The debate still exists on what time period it does come from, because it is important for us as historians to find its origin to help understand the magic from the age of Charlemagne.

Mackinney, Loren C.. "An Unpublished Treatise on Medicine and Magic from the Age of
Charlemagne." Speculum 18.4 (1943): 494-496.