[Sca-cooks] Medieval Physicians

[Susan Lin]

Who needs historical accuaracy when you've got a good story! (sarcasm here!)
It's like going to see "The Other Bolyn Girl" and thinking that's what
really happened.

On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com> wrote:

>    In reference to "Charlemagne and the doctors," there were no 'doctors'
> in medieval history. The correct word is physician in this case. Barbers,
> who bleed patients, were another matter.
>    Changing the subject a bit,  I have a problem with my colleagues because
> they feel no book should be trashed. I disagree. I feel when a book is
> historical 'crap,' it should be trashed so as to not to let readers be
> mislead. I do not believe in the inquisition but when there is no foundation
> for facts presented as history they should not be admitted for publication.
>    Today I started reading Matt Cohen's Spanish translation of THE SPANISH
> DOCTOR. It is about a Jewish physician and his family who were persecuted by
> the "Spanish Inquisition." It starts out that the physician has completed
> his medical studies in Montpelier and returned to mama's house the Jewish
> Ghetto in Toledo, Spain. (Oh, the book cover has a painting of the royal
> fortress with towers added by Philip II in the latter part of the 16th
> Century.) Physician preforms a cesarean on a Christian woman of wealth! - No
> man was allowed to enter the room of a woman giving birth during the Spanish
> Middle Ages. IT WAS TOTALLY PROHIBITED, not even Hapsburg kings were allowed
> in! Then this Canadian author, I think, calls the woman by her husband's
> last name. Spanish women keep their last names for their entire lives. Now
> our 'doctor' has feline descendants cause he jumps over walls, out of the
> ghetto, at night to attend his patients. Ghettos, in Spain, had curfews
> during the Inquisition under Isabella and Ferdi, not before. The only Jewish
> community that I know of that was able to flee from Ferdi was in Madrigal
> (de las Torres today), Avila by using tunnels. Finally the husband of the
> patient and the doctor toast to a drink. The author says Jews were not
> allowed to drink. So now we have Jews governed by Islamic laws?
>    Oh yeah, Mama was violated by soldiers of Henry I of Castile which takes
> us back to the late 14th Century. Then so called "Cardinal Rodrigo
> Velazquez" starts the inquisition from what seen on the cover. The
> Inquisition did not start until 16th Century. when Cisneros goes full force.
> Mendoza, who was not cardinal until Isabel and Ferdi, kept things on a low
> pitch the last 4th of the 15th century. Should we assume that in order to be
> historically correct, this doctor lived for 150 years???
> Suey
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>