International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2008 Abstracts

In this paper I will examine the habit of blood-letting in medieval monastic communities.  Based upon much evidence, we know that in late-antique societies blood-letting was already a fairly wide-spread method of medical treatment and health care, particularly among the upper-classes.  Accordingly, the procedure is often mentioned in the medical treatises of that time. On the other hand, only a very small number of sources about blood-letting have come down to us from the earlier and central middle ages. As a result, it is very difficult to determine whetherblood-letting continued to be similarly popular and to what extent it was known and accepted as medical treatment by early medieval society.

Among the small range of early medieval documents which mention blood-letting are Bede’s ‘De minutione sanguinis sive De phlebotomia’ (before 735), the Salernitan ‘Regimen sanitatis’ (before 1250) and the famous St. Gall Plan (before 830), which contains the drawing of a complete early medieval monastery. The Plan also includes some 330 explanatory inscriptions, including one which clearly indicates a separate ‘House for blood-letting’ among its buildings. This Houseis situated in the left upper corner of the Plan, next to the ‘House of the physicians’ and the infirmary, the monks’ hospital.

Obviously, the scarcity of documents on blood-lettingand theintriguing building on the Carolingian St. Gall Plan pose quite a number of problems and questions, some of which will be investigated in this paper. I will primarily focus upon the monastic aspects of the question, but I will also try to examine blood-letting as a phenomenon of medieval feudal society in general.