Fresh examinations of the role of medicinal plants in medieval thought and practice and how they contributed to broader ideas concerning the body, religion and identity. The important and ever-shifting role of medicinal plants in medieval science, art, culture, and thought, both in the Latin Western medical tradition and in Byzantine and medieval Arabic medicine, is the focus of this new collection. Following a general introduction and a background chapter on Late Antique and medieval theories of wellness and therapy, in-depth essays treat such wide-ranging topics as medicine and astrology, charms and magical remedies, herbal glossaries, illuminated medical manuscripts, women's reproductive medicine, dietary cooking, gardens in social and political context, and recreated medieval gardens. They make a significant contribution to our understanding ofthe place of medicinal plants in medieval thought and practice, and thus lead to a greater appreciation of how medieval theories and therapies from diverse places developed in continuously evolving and cross-pollinating strands,and, in turn, how they contributed to broader ideas concerning the body, religion, identity, and the human relationship with the natural world. Contributors: MARIA AMALIA D'ARONCO, PETER DENDLE, EXPIRACION GARCIA SANCHEZ, PETER MURRAY JONES, GEORGE R. KEISER, DEIRDRE LARKIN, MARIJANE OSBORN, PHILIP G. RUSCHE, TERENCE SCULLY, ALAIN TOUWAIDE, LINDA EHRSAM VOIGTS

Essays examining the compiler and contents of two of the most important and significant extant late medieval manuscript collections. The Yorkshire landowner Robert Thornton (c.1397- c.1465) copied the contents of two important manuscripts, Lincoln Cathedral, MS 91 (the "Lincoln manuscript"), and London, British Library, MS Additional 31042 (the "London manuscript") in the middle decades of the fifteenth century. Viewed in combination, his books comprise a rare repository of varied English and Latin literary, religious and medical texts that survived the dissolution of the monasteries, when so many other medieval books were destroyed. Residing in the texts he copied and used are many indicators of what this gentleman scribe of the North Riding read, how he practised his religion, and what worldly values he held for himself and his family. Because of the extraordinary nature of his collected texts - Middle English romances, alliterative verse (the alliterative Morte Arthure only exists here), lyrics and treatises of religion ormedicine - editors and scholars have long been deeply interested in uncovering Thornton's habits as a private, amateur scribe. The essays collected here provide, for the first time, a sustained, focussed light on Thornton and hisbooks. They examine such matters as what Thornton as a scribe made, how he did it, and why he did it, placing him in a wider context and looking at the contents of the manuscripts. Susanna Fein is Professor of Englishat Kent State University; Michael Johnston is an Assistant Professor of English at Purdue University. Contributors: Julie Nelson Couch, Susanna Fein, Rosalind Field, Joel Fredell, Ralph Hanna, Michael Johnston, George R. Keiser, Julie Orlemanski, Mary Michele Poellinger, Dav Smith, Thorlac Turville-Petre.