Brain and Mind in Anglo-Saxon Medicine

Abstract

The Middle Ages inherited from classical writers a debate as to whether the heart or brain is the master organ of the body that governs movement and mental phenomena. Studies of literary, poetic, and homiletic writings of the Anglo-Saxon period have shown that these texts use language that tends to locate the mind in the heart or breast. The present work examines the Old English medical writings and their Latin sources, texts in which one might expect a literal, rather than a figurative or metaphoric, use of the names of the physical organs. These texts cite a variety of causes for mental disorders, but when an organ is identified as ultimately responsible for the manifestations, that organ is the brain and not the heart. Some texts known to the Anglo-Saxons assert explicitly that the brain or the head is the locus of thought, perception, memory, and even the soul.