The Leechbook of Bald is an Old English medical text probably compiled in the ninth-century, possibly under the influence of Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

's educational reforms.

It takes its name from a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 verse colophon

Colophon (publishing)

In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...

 at the end of the second book which begins Bald habet hunc librum Cild quem conscribere iussit, meaning "Bald owns this book which he ordered Cild to compile."

The text survives in only one manuscript: London, British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, Royal 12, D xvii.

The Organisation of Bald's Leechbook

Both books are organised in a head-to-foot order, but the first book deals with external maladies, the second with internal disorders. Cameron notes that "This separation of external and internal diseases may be unique in medieval medical texts".

Cameron notes that "in Bald's Leechbook is the only plastic surgery

Plastic surgery

Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...

 mentioned in Anglo-Saxon records". The recipe in particular prescribes surgery for a hare lip, Leechbook i, chapter 13 (pr Cockayne p 56).

Cameron also notes that of the Old English Medical compilations "Leechbook iii reflects most closely the medical practice of the Anglo-Saxons while they were still relatively free of Mediterranean influences," in contrast to Bald's Leechbook which "shows a conscious effort to transfer to Anglo-Saxon practice what one physician considered most useful in native and Mediterranean medicine," and the Lacnunga

Lacnunga

The Lacnunga is a collection of miscellaneous Anglo-Saxon medical texts and prayers, written mainly in Old English and Latin. It is found, following other medical texts, in London, British Library Manuscript Harley 585, a codex probably compiled in England in the late tenth or early eleventh century...

, which is "a sort of common place book

Commonplace

Commonplace books were a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They became significant in Early Modern Europe....

 with no other apparent aim than to record whatever items of medical interest came to the scribe's attention".

Cures

One cure for headache was to bind a stalk of crosswort

Cruciata laevipes

Cruciata laevipes Opiz 1852, the Crosswort or in Gaelic Luc na croise, is an indigenous member of the madder and bedstraw group of plants. It is also known as Smooth Bedstraw.- Distribution :...

 to the head with a red kerchief

Kerchief

A kerchief is a triangular or square piece of cloth tied around the head or around the neck for protective or decorative purposes...

. Chilblains were treated with a mix of eggs, wine, and fennel

Fennel

Fennel is a plant species in the genus Foeniculum . It is a member of the family Apiaceae . It is a hardy, perennial, umbelliferous herb, with yellow flowers and feathery leaves...

 root. Agrimony

Agrimonia eupatoria

Agrimonia eupatoria is a species of agrimony that is often referred to as common agrimony, church steeples or sticklewort....

 was cited as a cure for male impotence - when boiled in milk, it could excite a man who was "insufficiently virile;" when boiled in Welsh beer it would have the opposite effect. The remedy for shingles comprised a potion using the bark of 15 trees: aspen

Populus tremula

Populus tremula, commonly called aspen, common aspen, Eurasian aspen, European aspen, trembling poplar, or quaking aspen, is a species of poplar native to cool temperate regions of Europe and Asia, from the British Isles east to Kamchatka, north to inside the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia and...

, apple

Apple

The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...

, maple

Maple

Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...

, elder, willow

Willow

Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...

, sallow, myrtle, wych-elm, oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

, blackthorn

Blackthorn

Prunus spinosa is a species of Prunus native to Europe, western Asia, and locally in northwest Africa. It is also locally naturalised in New Zealand and eastern North America....

, birch

Birch

Birch is a tree or shrub of the genus Betula , in the family Betulaceae, closely related to the beech/oak family, Fagaceae. The Betula genus contains 30–60 known taxa...

, olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

, dogwood

Dogwood

The genus Cornus is a group of about 30-60 species of woody plants in the family Cornaceae, commonly known as dogwoods. Most dogwoods are deciduous trees or shrubs, but a few species are nearly herbaceous perennial subshrubs, and a few of the woody species are evergreen...

, ash, and quickbeam.

Contents of the MS

• ff. 1-6^v Table of Contents to Leechbook i; pr. Cockayne vol. 2, pp. 2–16
• ff. 6^v-58^v Leechbook i; pr. Cockayne vol. 2, pp. 18–156
• ff. 58^v-65 Table of Contents to Leechbook ii; pr Cockayne vol. 2, pp. 158–174
• ff. 65-109 Leechbook ii; 68 recipes. pr Cockayne 176-298. Cockayne provides missing chapter between 56 and 64 from London, BL, Harley 55. Chapter 64 is glossed as having been sent along with exotic medicines from Patriarch Elias of Jerusalem to Alfred the Great, which is the basis for the book's association with the Alfredian court.
• f. 109 A metrical Latin Colophon naming Bald as the owner of the book, and Cild as the compiler.
• ff. 109-127^v "Leechbook iii." A collection of 73 medicinal recipes not associated with Bald due to its location after the metrical colophon.
• ff. 127^v-end De urinis ?

Published Editions

Cockayne, T. O., Leechdoms Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England Being a Collection of Documents, for the Most Part Never Before Printed Illustrating the History of Science in this Country Before the Norman Conquest, 3 vols., London: Rerum Britannicarum Medii Ævi Scriptores (Rolls Series) 35 i–iii, 1864–6 (reprint 1965) vol. 2.

Leonhardi, Kleinere angelsächsische Denkmäler I, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 6, Kassel, 1905.

Wright, C. E., ed., Bald’s Leechbook: British Museum Royal manuscript 12 D.xvii, with appendix by R. Quirk. Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 5, Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1955

See also

• Meaney, A. L. 'Variant Versions of Old English Medical Remedies and the Compilation of Bald's Leechbook, Anglo-Saxon England 13 (1984) pp. 235–68.

• Payne, J. F., English Medicine in Anglo-Saxon Times, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904.

• Pettit, E. Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library MS Harley 585: The ‘Lacnunga’, 2 vols., Lewiston and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. [Edition, with translation and commentary, of an Anglo-Saxon medical compendium that includes many variant versions of remedies also found in Bald's Leechbook.]