Colour as Accident
MS 86: Collection of medical texts by John of Arderne, 14th century
John of Arderne was one of the most influential English surgeons in the Middle Ages. Educated at Montpellier, he practised surgery in both England and France, gaining much of his surgical knowledge from his time spent serving as a medic in war, particularly in the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453). There, he devised an operation to treat fistula-in-ano, a painful sore that developed when soldiers spent an extended time riding on horseback. This is the only medieval medical operation that is still used today (Murray Jones, 2008).
Arderne also revolutionised medical manuscripts by including 250-300 marginal illustrations per text, plus full-page diagrams. The translation of his texts from Latin into Middle English opened his manuscripts up to a much wider audience than just the university elite (Murray Jones, 1999). Medicine was only firmly established in Oxford and Cambridge in the fourteenth century, and its focus was largely on theoretical medicine rather than the “lowly art” of practical surgery (Murray Jones, 2008). Despite this academic bias, Arderne’s writings nevertheless ‘rapidly established themselves in Latin or Middle English translations as among the most popular books of practical medicine circulating in England’ (Murray Jones, 2008).
A large part of the appeal of Arderne’s texts lies in the illustrations, which Arderne seems to have
designed himself. Marginalia (margin drawings) have a long history in medical manuscripts, but his are on an unprecedented scale. From diagrams of surgical instruments, useful plants, and patient portraits, this text does nothing to hide its purpose as a medical manual, using its illustrations as instructive tools. Red is used copiously to indicate pain or veins relevant to certain procedures (often depicted as a “vein man”: Murray Jones, 2008).
Of particular note is the patient portrait of a man in the left hand margin. His lips have been painted red to indicate his condition, but the green of a plant painted on the reverse has bled through, as green pigments often did (Pulliam, 2012). This has given him a green, ghoulish tinge, although one quite unintentional on the part of the illuminators! Accidents like this remind us of the complexity of manuscript illumination, and demonstrate how much skill was required in order to create a faultless manuscript.
References:
Kauffmann, M. (2008) ‘Illustration and Ornament’, Cambridge History of the Book Volume 2: 1100-1400; from the same volume, Murray Jones, P. (2008) ‘University books and the sciences, c.1250-1400’; Murray Jones, P. (1999) ‘Medicine and science’, Cambridge History of the Book Volume 3: 1400-1557; Pulliam, H. (2012), ‘Colour’, Studies in Iconography; Robbins, R. H. (1970), ‘Medical Manuscripts in Middle English’, Speculum.