Health and sickness

For most men and women, life was hard. For many, it was short. A lot of children died young, and at fifty a man or woman was old. Lack of food was often the basic cause of sickness and death. But impure water and dirty houses with no proper drains played their part. When disease struck, death soon followed.

Only the rich could call in a doctor when they were ill. But doctors often did more harm than good. (They used to bleed patients to get rid of fever.) Their knowledge came mainly from the ancient Greeks. It had been passed on to Arab scholars in the Near East and Spain. From them, it reached the west. But this knowledge came only from books. No-one knew much about how the body really worked.

Doctors did know about infectious and contagious diseases. Leprosy was the most feared of them. Lepers were made to live apart, in 'lazar houses'. They had to wear special cloaks, and carry bells or clappers to warn that they were coming. They could not even go to church. In a way, this cruel treatment worked. By 1500, there were only a few lepers in England.

Monasteries and hospitals gave clean beds and decent food to some of the sick and old. And monks made medicines from the herbs they grew in their gardens. As a rule, though, families looked after their own. Women kept 'cures' (part fact, part magic) among their recipes. But they, and most others, had more faith in prayers to the saints than in medicine.

Walter Robson: Medieval Britain; Oxford University Press, 1991/2000, page 85 f.