Next week several of our team members will be presenting at the annual conference for ANZAMEMS or the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies. See the programme here. See below for details of our researchers’ papers, which will be presented across three panels. Presenters include both chief investigators of the ARC-funded Discovery Projecy Pursuing Public Health in the Preindustrial World 1100-1800, and their former and current students.
Presenting Wednesday 3 December
Session 1.D, 10:00-11:30, Room 556, Level 5
Medicine and Care
Chair: Andrew Brown
Elizabeth Burrell, “Sounds, Smells and Touches: The Sensory Experience of Caregiving in Middle English Medical Texts.”
Abstract: To care for an ailing person was to be in their space, touching their skin, hearing their breathing and smelling for any indication of infection or sickness. Likewise, the application of remedies was a sensory experience. The preparation of medicine involved handling, crushing and brewing pungent or sweet-smelling ingredients. The performance of a curative charm filled the space with the sound of the healer’s voice. Cleaning, bandaging and soothing all necessitated physical closeness and had an innate tactility.
This essay analyses sensory cues to perceive and treat ill health in a range of late-medieval
medical texts. Guidance could be gleaned from learned writings such as Middle English
translations of Gilbertus Anglicus’ Compendium medicinae and Bernard de Gordon’s Lilium medicinae. At the same time, vernacular remedies copied into medical notebooks and recipe collections were valuable sources of advice. This essay also investigates the tension between text and embodied knowledge, reconstructing how different kinds of healers could incorporate medical learning into their caregiving regimes. Medical intervention was built upon labour-intensive acts, many of which first depended on healers interpreting symptoms they could hear, smell and feel. At the same time, the courses of action that healers pursued generated unique sensory experiences specific to their patients’ needs and ailments.
Bio: Elizabeth Burrell received her PhD in Historical Studies from Monash University in
Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on the confluence of religion, science and
philosophy in late-medieval medical practice. Her PhD was supervised by Guy Geltner.
Presenting Friday 5 December
Session 6.B, 9:30-11:00
Public Health and the Premodern World: Affordances and Constrictions I
Chair: Elizabeth Burrell
Aydogan Kars, “Hearing and Healing: Public Health in Light of Sonic Cultures of Learning.”
Abstract: As a distinctly Islamic literature that combines medicine and piety, prophetic medicine has been vastly influential in informing public health practices in Muslim Afro-Eurasia. This presentation approaches prophetic medicine from the perspective of medieval popular culture. It argues that various sonic books with different or competing perspectives of medicine and piety were recited in scholarly and non-scholarly gatherings between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, and they shaped public health practices and policies. Through this case study of Muslim Afro-Eurasia, the presentation invites us to consider soundscapes as an essential dimension of the global histories of popular culture as well as public health.
Bio: Aydogan is a member of the History Program at Monash University. He specialises on
Islamic intellectual history, with a focus on theology, philosophy, and mysticism. His current research focuses on medieval popular cultures of learning, and the roles played by female scholars in Islamic intellectual history. He is a Chief Investigator for the ARC-funded Discovery Project, Pursuing Public Health in the Preindustrial World, 1100-1800.
Guy Geltner, “Under(mining) Public Health Histories: Anthropogenic Change and Preventative Action in Europe, 1200-1550.”
Abstract: This paper explores the impact of Europe’s first (“medieval”) mining boom on landscapes and community health across several extractive districts. It argues two points. First, despite a modest energy regime, manual mining precipitated biological, social and cultural processes that remain poorly understood, and which collectively challenge traditional distinctions between the preindustrial and industrial eras, as well as the origins of the Anthropocene. Secondly and relatedly, miners and their employers not only acknowledged the threats to environmental health that their labor increased, but also developed mechanisms to reduce risk and harm. Both aspects underscore the significance and flexibility of the era’s prevalent natural philosophical paradigm of Galenism.
Bio: Guy Geltner is Professor of History at Monash University. His interests range across social and environmental-health history, and often grounded in sites and archives in Italy. His recent focus has been on “preindustrial” mines and miners. He is a Chief Investigator for the ARC-funded Discovery Project, Pursuing Public Health in the Preindustrial World, 1100-1800.
Megan Cassidy-Welch, “Holy Land Landscapes and the Health of Medieval Travellers, 1100-1400.”
Abstract: This paper analyses representations of health and wellness in the specific environment of the medieval holy land during the central Middle Ages. Water, elevation and air (among other environmental factors/attributes) were all represented as stimulating health for travellers to the region, while the deeper histories and associations of environmental features and conditions rendered particular landscapes as health-giving in more abstract ways. Overall, the paper raises an argument for both the dynamism and multi-temporality of health for pilgrims, crusaders and other travellers during the medieval period.
Bio: Megan Cassidy-Welch is Dean of Research Strategy and Professor at the University of
Divinity in Melbourne. She works on cultural and social history, particularly histories of
memory, violence and the history of the crusades, while a new project considers the history of homelessness in premodern contexts. She is a Chief Investigator for the ARC-funded Discovery Project, Pursuing Public Health in the Preindustrial World, 1100-1800.
Session 7.B, 11:30-13:00, Venue: Room 356, Level 3
Public Health in the Premodern World: Affordances and Constrictions II
Chair: Guy Geltner
Hamza Surbuland, “Public Health in Mughal India (c.1707-1719).”
Abstract: Drawing from an eighteenth-century Persian language governance manual titled Hidayat ul-Qawaid (Guidance of the Principles), this paper will explore how public health regulations were envisioned and theoretically presented in Mughal India (c.1707-1719). Specifically, the paper will look at what was expected of a state administrator/officer in the maintenance and promotion of public health and what this implied about the relationship between state and the public.
Bio: Hamza Surbuland is a PhD candidate in Muslim political thought and practice at Monash University. With a focus on Mughal India, his research is on formations of state power in the regulation of public behavior (Hisba) in pre-modern Muslim societies. His PhD is supervised by Aydogan Kars.
Lola Digard, “Between Salvation and Corruption: The Ambiguity of Medieval Cemeteries, 1250–1600.”
Abstract: The crystallization of rites of consecration of cemeteries from the tenth century onwards delimited sacred spaces within the city, which opened possibilities of salvations to the dead and the living alike. Yet, from the thirteenth century onwards, municipal governments of the Low Countries started to project health concerns on cemeteries, by rather focusing on the opportunities for corruption, both physical and moral, embedded in these places. References to the stench and miasma emanating from buried corpses raised concern for the physical health of city dwellers. Similarly, the asylum function of consecrated space led to their use as places of debauchery, from where the moral corruption of gambling and prostitution could spread through the city. Using the charters of Bruges, Antwerp and Ypres, this paper explores how late medieval town councils endeavored to limit the risks associated with cemeteries, by navigating environmental challenges and policing behaviors.
Bio: Dr. Lola Digard is lecturer at the university of Utrecht. She defended her dissertation entitled “Healing the Civic Body: Forensic Investigation and Biopolitical Strategies in Flemish Towns,1250-1500” in 2024. Her research interest focuses on premodern medical history, and the interaction between legal and medical practice in the urban context. She was a PhD candidate for the 2017-2021 ERC-funded project, Healthscaping Urben Europe, 1200-1500.
Rose Byfleet, “Reassessing the Use of Scent in Plague Prevention Practices in Sixteenth-Century Italy”
Abstract: The image of the plague-doctor’s mask, its beak theoretically stuffed with scented herbs, is inextricably associated with plague prevention in the collective historical imagination. Likewise, pomanders (scented balls) have been assumed to function as a personal method of defence. However, contemporary evidence for the use of these techniques is scant. This paper breaks down the use of perfume in health-related practices in sixteenth-century Italy to consider the role of fragrance beyond moments of crisis. It offers an alternative theory for the use of pomanders and it aims to cast doubt on the historical existence of the iconic beaked mask as a means of preventative healthcare.
Bio: Rose Byfleet is a third year PhD researcher at Monash University and the ARC-funded
project “Pursuing Public Health in the Preindustrial World, 1100 -1800”. Her research
focuses on the cultural history of perfume and preventative health care practices in sixteenth century Grand Ducal Tuscany.
