Medieval Death Trip

A Podcast Exploring the Wit and Weirdness of Medieval Texts

Concerning Seizure and Possession (Part 2): Medieval Methods

Cover image featuring Chaucer's Doctour of Phisik from the the Ellesmere manuscript of the Canterbury Tales.

We complete our look at epilepsy in the Middle Ages by considering how religion and medicine intersect in surviving medical texts and how classical learning was reintroduced by looking at the example of John of Gaddesden, possibly the model for Chaucer’s Doctour of Phisik.

Today’s Texts:

  • John of Gaddesden. “John of Gaddesden on Epilepsy.” Edited by William G. Lennox, translated by Adrian P. English, Annals of Medical History, vol. 1, no. 3, May 1939, pp. 283-307. Semantic Scholar.
  • Origen. Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, translated by John Patrick, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9, edited by Allan Menzies, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1896. New Advent, revised and edited by Kevin Knight, www.newadvent.org/fathers/1016.htm
  • Herbarium. In Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, translated by Thomas Cockayne, vol. 1, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864, pp. 1-325. Archive.org.
  • Leech Book. Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, translated by Thomas Cockayne, vol. 2, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864. Archive.org.
  • “Life of St. Winefred.” Lives of the Cambro British Saints, of the Fifth and Immediate Succeeding Centuries, from Ancient Welsh & Latin MSS. in the British Museum and Elsewhere, with English Translations, an Explanatory Notes, edited and translated by W. J. Rees, Welsh MSS. Society, 1853, pp. 515-529. Google Books.

References:

  • Capener, Norman. “John of Gaddesden: and the Crest of the Frederick Coller Surgical Society.” Annals of Surgery, vol. 154, suppl. 6, Dec. 1961, pp. 13-17. DOI: 10.1097/00000658-196112000-00003. PubMed Central.
  • Dendle, Peter. “Lupines, Manganese, and Devil-Sickness: An Anglo-Saxon Medical Response to Epilepsy.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 75, no. 1, Spring 2001, pp. 91-101. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44445557
  • Temkin, Owsei. The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology. 2nd ed., revised, Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. Archive.org.

Image Credit: The Doctor of Physick, from the Ellesmere manuscript of the Canterbury Tales (Huntington Library EL 26 C 9, via Wikimedia Commons).

Concerning Seizure and Possession (Part 1): The Greek Tradition

Cover image for Ep. 121.

This episode we begin a two-part exploration into the understanding and treatment of epilepsy in the middle ages. But to get to the medieval, we have to start with its ancient antecedents, so here in Part 1, we look at texts produced by the Hippocratic school and its later followers.

Today’s Texts:

  • Lucretius. On the Nature of Things. Translated by John Selby Watson and John Mason Good, George Bell & Sons, 1893. Internet Archive.
  • Wilson, J.V. Kinnier, and E. H. Reynolds, translators. “Translation and Analysis of a Cuneiform Text Forming Part of a Babylonian Treatise on Epilepsy,” Medical History, vol. 34, 1990, pp. 185-198. National Center for Biotechnical Information,www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1036070/
  • Hippocrates. “On the Sacred Disease.” The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, vol. 2, translated by Francis Adams, Sydenham Society, 1849, pp. 831-858. Google Books.
  • Galen. “Advice for an Epileptic Boy.” Translated by Owsei Temkin, Texts and Documents, reprinted from Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, vol. 2, no. 3, May 1934, pp. 179-189. Archive.org.
  • Paulus Ægineta. The Medical Works of Paulus Ægineta, the Greek Physician. Vol. 1, edited and translated by Francis Adams, J. Welsh, 1834. Google Books.

References:

  • AL-Zwaini, Isam Jaber, and Ban Adbul-Hameed Majeed Albadri. “Epilepsy — The Long Journey of the Sacred Disease.” Epilepsy — Advances in Diagnosis and Therapy, IntechOpen, 2019, pp. 1-10. Academia.edu.
  • Diamantis, Aristidis, Kalliopi Sidiropoulou, and Emmanouil Magiorkinis. “Epilepsy during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.” Journal of Neurology, vol. 257, 2010, pp. 691-698. DOI: 10.1007/s00415-009-5433-7. Academia.edu.
  • Katz, Arnold M. “Knowledge of Circulation Before William Harvey.” Circulation, vol. 15, May 1957, pp. 726-734. American Heart Association.
  • Patel, Puja, and Solomon L. Moshé. “The evolution of the concepts of seizures and epilepsy: What’s in a name?” Epilepsia Open, vol. 5, 2020, pp. 22-35. DOI: 10.1002/EPI4.12375. Academia.edu.
  • Schachter, Steven C. “Seizure Triggers.” Epilepsy Foundation, 2026, www.epilepsy.com/what-is-epilepsy/seizure-triggers
  • Temkin, Owsei. The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology. 2nd ed., revised, Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. Archive.org.

Image Credits:

Concerning the Life and Miracles of St. Winefred

Cover image featuring an 18th-century print depicting St. Winefred's Well.

As a follow-up to our 2025 saint’s-life generating Advent Calendar game, we hear an actual medieval saint’s life and discuss how we get some of our saintly terminology. You’ll also find out where you can get a downloadable version of the Advent Calendar game!

Today’s Texts:

  • “Life of St. Winefred.” Lives of the Cambro British Saints, of the Fifth and Immediate Succeeding Centuries, from Ancient Welsh & Latin MSS. in the British Museum and Elsewhere, with English Translations, an Explanatory Notes, edited and translated by W. J. Rees, Welsh MSS. Society, 1853, pp. 515-529. Google Books.
  • “The Miracles of St. Winifred’s Well.” The British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 1762, 13 Oct. 1894, p. 829. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20230146
  • The Rule of St. Benedict. Translated by D. Oswald Hunter Blair, 2nd ed., Sands & Co,m 1907. Google Books.

References:

  • Dendle, Peter. “Lupines, Manganese, and Devil-Sickness: An Anglo-Saxon Medical Response to Epilepsy.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 75, no. 1, Spring 2001, pp. 91-101. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44445557
  • Head, Thomas. “Hagiography.” Reprinted from ORB: the On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies, 1999. Hagiography Society, 2013, www.hagiographysociety.org/?page_id=678
  • Keune, Jon. “Comparative vs. Hagiology: Two Variant Approaches to the Field.” Religious Studies, vol. 10, no. 10, 14 Oct. 2019, p. 575. MDPI, doi.org/10.3390/rel10100575
  • Stumpe, Lynne Heidi. “Display and Veneration of Holy Relics at St Winefriede’s Well and Stonyhurst.” Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 22, Dec. 2009, pp. 63-81. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41417138

Music credit: “Ton y botel (Ebenezer).” Performed by the Wilkes-Barre Quartet, Victor, 1922. United States Library of Congress.

Image: Engraving from circa 1790 depicting St. Winefred’s Well. Wikimedia Commons.

Appendix to Ep. 120: Some Sts. Valentines’ Lives

A medallion of Claudius Gothicus, ca. 269 C.E., photo by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. (CC BY-SA 2.5)

In this prelude appendix to our episode on saint’s lives, we hear versions of the life of St. Valentine from three different medieval sources.

Today’s Texts:

  • First English edition of the Nuremberg chronicle: being the Liber chronicarum of Dr. Hartmann Schedel. Edited and translated by Kosta Hadavas, U of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, 2023, https://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/3SXNV3NHBQLFQ8J [used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.]
  • Jacobus de Voragine. “Life of S. Valentine.” In The Golden Legend, or Lives of the Saints. Translated by William Caxton, edited by F.S. Ellis, vol. 3, J.M. Dent, 1900, pp. 42-45. Google Books.
  • Bede. Martyrologium de Natalitiis Sanctorum. In Patrologia Latina, edited by J.-P. Migne, vol. 94, col. 840A-842B, 1862. Google Books.

References:

Image Credit: A medallion of Claudius Gothicus, ca. 269 C.E., photo by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. (CC BY-SA 2.5) via Wikimedia.

Concerning Hinzelmann the Kobold

Cover image for Episode 119, illustration of Hinzelmann in the kitchen from Der vielförmige Hintzelmann, 1704.

As we enter the season of elves and Christmas spirits, we follow up on our fairy theme from last episode with a look at the famous 16th-century German hausgeist, Hinzelmann the Kobold — but don’t call him that to his face!

Today’s Texts:

References:

Music credit: Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101, composed in 1816 (same year as the publication of the Grimms’ Deutsche Sagen), performed by Paul Pitman (CC-PD). Musopen.

Image: Illustration of Hinzelmann in the kitchen, from Der vielförmige Hintzelmann, 1704. Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen.

Advent 2025 Calendar Game: Legendae Sacrae de Capitibus vel Caudis

December 1, 2025 / / 2 Comments
Game cover image.

This year, Medieval Death Trip‘s annual Advent Calendar on Instagram is taking the form of a journaling game called Legendae Sacrae de Capitibus vel Caudis (Holy Legends of the Heads or the Tails), where you are invited to respond to daily prompts to construct your own mock medieval saint’s life.

What it is:

Legendae Sacrae de Capitibus vel Caudis (Holy Legends of the Heads or the Tails) is a non-competitive journaling game housed in an online Advent calendar, in which you respond to a series of prompts that will help you construct a written piece. In this game, that piece is a mock medieval saint’s life about a person born with an animal trait — namely, a body part.

What you’ll need:

  • Writing tools (digital or physical)
  • A means for randomly selecting between two options, “heads” or “tails” (e.g., a coin, odds or evens on a die, or your own intuition)

How to play:

  • To play, check in on the Advent calendar posts that appear on Instagram @medievaldeathtrip. Each post has a “door” cover image hiding the prompts. You can also find all the posts by searching Instagram for #MDTAdvent25.
  • Open the door (by advancing to the next image), and read the introduction to the day’s prompt. Then choose “heads” or “tails” using the method of your choice (flipping a coin, picking odds or evens by rolling a die or picking a word at random from a page and counting the number of letters, meditating on the question until a selection appears to you, etc.).
  • Once you’ve determined if you will be “heads” or “tails” for that day’s prompt, advance to the first image after the introduction for “heads” or to the second image after the introduction for “tails.”
  • Read the prompt and write a response with your choice of writing tool. Responses may range anywhere from a couple of sentences to a couple of paragraphs (or longer, if you’re feeling especially inspired).
  • If you would like to share your work publicly, you can post your response as a comment on the day’s prompt on Instagram.
  • You should begin the game with the set-up prompt for Dec. 1st and continue day-by-day in sequence until the conclusion on Dec. 25th.

Historical Context:

Hagiography, or writing about saints, was a major genre of medieval literature. Like popular genres today, it developed a common formula for organizing its narrative. The prompts of this journaling game will guide you through the conventional structure of a medieval saint’s life. This begins with establishing their origins, then narrates their birth and childhood, their education and spiritual guides, sketches out examples of their exceptional piety and notable events of their life (not necessarily in chronological order), and describes the circumstances of their death. The being alive part of a saint’s life is only half the story; their posthumous activities as a saint are typically given equal or greater attention. So next the life will discuss the disposition of their body or relics and their placement into a shrine or notable burial place, then present a catalogue of miracles attributed to the saint’s intercession with God.

As for saints with animal parts, this is not a common convention. Medieval depictions of the legendary figure of St. Christopher sometimes depicted him as having a dog’s head — not, in this case, as a prodigy or unusual birth, but as a member of a race of dog-headed people reported to dwell in far away in the East by classical authorities. The Queen of Sheba (not a saint, but a biblical figure) was sometimes depicted in medieval art as having either a goat’s or a goose’s foot. I am not aware of any saint’s born with a bestial tail, but such hybrids frequently adorn the margins of illuminated manuscripts and seem a natural addition to the choir of unusual saints.

A cynocephalus from British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. 100r.

No AI Commitment:

I will not be using generative AI to produce images or content for this game. I can’t promise an absolute elimination of AI, as it is integrated into many Photoshop tools that I will be using in simple image clean-up and preparation. But I will not be using AI for full generation of images or content. All the “doors” of this year’s Advent Calendar are from photos I took myself.

–Patrick Lane

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