Curious Cures: Medicine in the Medieval World
This month’s FRAG talk is also the subject of an exhibition at Cambridge University Library.
Medieval medicine has a bad reputation. It conjures up images of people blighted by disease and ignorance, living a degraded existence in squalid villages and pestilence-ridden towns, and subject to the misguided ministrations of physicians or the bizarre remedies of folk healers and charlatans. We commonly think of the Middle Ages as a time of superstition, blind trial-and-error and devastating mortality…but that’s not the whole story!
This talk will describe the complex theories and ideas that guided medieval physicians in their work, it introduces the many different constituencies who practised medicine at this time, and it reveals the bewildering array of ailments and illnesses they sought to cure.
Speaker: Dr James Freeman, Medieval Manuscripts Specialist, Cambridge University Library
James was the Principal Investigator of the Wellcome-funded project, Curious Cures and is curator of the exhibition Curious Cures: Medicine in the Medieval World, which is open to all and free to visit at Cambridge University Library until 6 December 2025. Prior to joining the University Library in 2016, James worked in various capacities in the Manuscripts and Rare Books Departments at the British Library. He also serves as Assistant Editor for the Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society and as Chair of the Association for Manuscripts and Archives in Research Collections, which promotes the study, accessibility and preservation of manuscripts and archives in Britain, Ireland and further afield.
FREE for FRAG Members
Non-members welcome – £5 cash, payable on the night
(card payment not currently possible)
The Venue for FRAG Talks has changed for Autumn 2026:
Flag Fen Archaeology Park
The Droveway
Northey Road
Peterborough PE6 7QJ
There is on-site parking available.
The talk will take place in the visitor centre.
