II.7. The Rise of the Professions: Medicine & Law

In this sense, though medical and juridical activities have formed part of human societies for as long as there have been written records, 1 medicine and law only began to be distinguished as professions over the course of the thirteenth century upon their establishment as university disciplines. The literature of law and medicine has its roots in antiquity. In ancient Rome the practice of law generated a variety of written works. 2 After the fall of the Western Empire, Emperor Justinian (r. 527-65 CE) set his lawyers to summarizing and updating the body of Roman law. The results of this project were published in five volumes between 533 and 565, later known as the Corpus iuris civilis —fundamental works in the development of Western jurisprudence. 3 In parallel, when the Roman Empire transitioned to Christianity during the reign of Constantine (306-37 CE) the church created its own legal system and developed rules for governance and worship that were published as texts of canon law. Over the next 500 years—as Justinian’s collection fell largely into disuse and legal procedure in the West mostly followed local and regional customs—canon law continued to develop and expand.

The most important sources of medicine originated from Greek scientific writing and from the Islamic world. The former included a collection of medical treatises attributed to Hippocrates (late fifth or early fourth century BCE); descriptions of medicinal herbs by Dioscorides in the first century CE; and Galen’s anatomical studies (d. circa 200 CE). Between the seventh and the twelfth centuries Muslim scholars in the Middle East and the Iberian Peninsula translated Greek texts into Arabic and began adding new material, among them Avicenna’s important Canon (c. 980-1037) and the medical writings of Averroes (1126-98). 5 This increased availability of medical literature stimulated practical activity: Salerno, in southern Italy, became a center for medical practice in the mid-900s, initiating a structural prototype for modern medicine.

The energy of the “twelfth-century Renaissance” (c. 1050-c. 1225) triggered cultural developments, particularly in education and professional specialization. In the eleventh century Italian scholars had worked to restore the Roman law texts, regaining the entire Corpus by 1125. Around 1140 Gratian produced the first recension of his Decretum, a compilation of excerpts from patristic and ecclesiastical sources intended to structure and resolve contradictory ideas among the historical and legislative texts of the church. 7 About 1150, Justinian’s Corpus and Gratian’s Decretum were utilized as the first textbooks in privately-run law schools in Bologna; private schools quickly opened in other Italian cities and Northern Europe. 8 By the thirteenth century the escalating focus on learning had fostered the creation of universities, where the institutionalization of law and medicine provided authoritative curricula and professional degrees that established benchmarks for the theory and practice of these disciplines.

The most important texts for the study and practice of law were Justinian’s Digestum vetus and Codex (cat. nos. 170-71), and Gratian’s Decretum for canon law. The Digest and the Decretum were organized didactically, presenting case studies and discussions that considered various solutions to legal questions. Following the Decretum, the canons and decrees issued under various popes were organized and promulgated as official canon law textbooks in their time: the Decretals of Gregory IX 10 (r. 1227-41) in 1234, the Decretals of Boniface VIII 11 (r. 1294-1303) (cat. no. 172), and the Constitutiones Clementinae of Clement V (r. 1305-14). 12 After three to five years of study, university-trained lawyers went through admission procedures that would qualify them to practice in secular or church courts.

The teaching of medicine was fully established at the universities of Montpellier, Bologna, and Paris around the second quarter of the thirteenth century. 14 Five years or more were required to complete the curricula, which incorporated the Salernitan works and new medieval texts on anatomy, diseases, diagnosis, therapeutic methods, and surgery, as well as alchemy and astrology. 15 From the fourteenth century doctors would carry with them portable folding almanacs, sometimes called girdle books or physicians’ vade mecums, such as cat. nos. 164-65. They contained calendars, charts, and texts that informed the most astrologically favorable times for taking medicine or to practice bleeding, purging, and cauterization.