MEDICINE AND RELIGION
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loginT his book is a revised version of a D.Phil. thesis, which was submitted into the Faculty of Modern History, Oxford University, but whoseorigins lie further back in time. A brief history of its evolution will explainits present form and illuminate the odd, unexpected ways in which ideasdevelop. Aware of my particular interest in scholastic culture, it was thelate Amos Funkenstein who in first suggested that I concentrate myresearch on academic heresy and more specifically on Masters’ trials.‘Academic condemnations c.–c.’ was the research topic whichbrought me to Oxford in . I wanted to examine the procedure of thecondemnations, to uncover the characteristics and intellectual profilescommon to the condemned masters, and to analyse the impact of the con-demnations on scholastic culture. Soon after plunging into extensive read-ing on the various cases of university masters whose ideas were sup-pressed, I realized that the topic I had chosen was far too ambitious if itwere to be completed within three to four years. I had to narrow it down,despite the disappointment which such a change would cause: for thismeant abandoning my attempt to engage the general phenomenon of con-demnation. Four of the fifteen cases of condemned university masterswho were on my list (Arnau de Vilanova, Pietro d’Abano, Cecco d’Ascoliand Marsilio da Padova) had a medical background—a fact which drewmy attention. T his sub-group introduced an intriguing question: whatrole, if at all, did their medical background play when they produced ideasinimical to Christian orthodoxy? Was there around 300a direct relation-ship between medicine and academic heresy? Or, more generally, whatwas the relationship between medicine and religion at that time?
