Main description:

Henry Daniel, fourteenth-century medical writer, Dominican friar, and contemporary of Chaucer, is one of the most neglected figures to whom we can attribute a substantial body of extant works in Middle English. His Liber Uricrisiarum, the earliest known medical text in Middle English, synthesizes authoritative traditions into a new diagnostic encyclopedia characterized by its stylistic verve and intellectual scope.

Drawing on expertise from a range of scholars, this volume examines Daniel's capacious works and demonstrates their significance to many scholarly conversations, including the history of late medieval medicine. It explains the background for Daniel's uroscopic and herbal work, describes all known versions of the Liber Uricrisiarum and traces revisions over time, analyses Daniel's representations of his own medical practice, and demonstrates his influence on later medical and literary writers.

Both a companion to the recently published reading edition of the Liber Uricrisiarum and a work of original scholarship in its own right, this collection promotes a wider understanding of Daniel's texts and prompts new discoveries about their importance.

Contents:

Preface
Sigils of Witnesses

Introduction: Reading Henry Daniel
Sarah Star

Part One: Contexts

1. Latin Traditions of Uroscopy
Faith Wallis

2. Translation, Comparison, and Adaptation: Latin Verse Herbals in the Aaron Danielis
Winston Black

3. Henry Daniel and His Medical Contemporaries in England
Peter Murray Jones

Part Two: Texts and Legacy

4. Textual Layers in the Liber Uricrisiarum
E. Ruth Harvey

5. The Heirs of Henry Daniel: The Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Legacy of the Liber Uricrisiarum
M. Teresa Tavormina

6. "Her ovn self seid me": The Function of Anecdote in Henry Daniel's Liber Uricrisiarum
Hannah Bower

7. The "almost-Latin" Medical Language of Late Medieval England
Sarah Star

Appendix: Liber Uricrisiarum Content Guide
Manuscript Index
Works Cited
List of Contributors
Index