Das Büchlein der Gesundheit: four manuscripts compared

Abstract

The Büchlein der Gesuntheit is a late fifteenth-century compendium of preventive and curative medicine. Examining the four extant manuscripts of the work provides an insight into how the compiler selected, adapted and organized his source materials, and demonstrates that the Büchlein was a structured and focussed treatise. The paper shows that both an earlier medical compendium, the Melleus liquor physicae artis Magistri Alexandri Yspani, and Konrad von Eichstätt’s Regimen Sanitatis, were its main sources. The Melleus liquor offers therapeutic advice, the Regimen offers guidance on healthy living, the Büchlein both. When the two source works discuss the same plants as nutrition, medicine, seasoning (or something in between), the compiler of the Büchlein chooses the one or the other as appropriate. The paper also highlights how, in medieval medical compilations, extracts from longer works were separated from the original and took on a life of their own, while a series of shorter tracts became mutually attached and frequently compiled.