The entanglement of friars and medicine has long been a neglected area of research. The decrees of the Forth Lateran Council (1215), prohibiting clerics from practicing surgery, along with internal regulations preventing friars to study medicine in favour of theology, seemed to close off this area of study. However, Peter Murray Jones's book unveils a wealth of evidence showing that friars acted as physicians, and even surgeons, treating hernias and fistulas, practicing bloodletting, and experimenting with amulets and charms. Scholars such as Angela Montford drew attention on Franciscans and Dominicans in Bologna and Paris, while Iona McCleery researched the case of the Portuguese friar Giles of Santarém. Reflections on the involvement of friars in medicine appeared in the proceedings I francescani e le scienze (Spoleto, 2012). However, no monograph had exclusively focused on English friars.

As Jones explains, many friars studied medicine before entering religious life and continued to apply their knowledge and skills in their new religious habit, though they were not necessarily labelled as physicians. Medicine was a lucrative profession involving a pecuniary transaction, which conflicted with the friars' vow of poverty. This also explains why, by privileging the study of administrative and propriety transactions, Talbot and Hammond's Medical Practitioners in Medieval England (1965) provided only a limited representation of friars. As Jones underlines, the nature of the sources we choose significantly shapes the resulting historical picture we draw with them (23).

To overcome this challenge, Jones takes a different approach, focusing on manuscripts circulating within English friaries including case histories of medical treatments. Jones examines treatises and compilations written by friars, such as the Tabula medicine, the writings of Roger Bacon and Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum, the letters of the Franciscan master Adam Marsh, but also lesser-known works such as the Liber uricrisiarum of the Dominican Henry Daniel and the Tractatus de medicinis by William Holme. These texts not only display medical knowledge but also reveal details about friars actively practicing medicine, treating both nobles and poor, men and women, immersing us in the world of medieval medicine.

The book is structured into seven chapters. In chapter 1, 'Friars practising medicine', Jones presents stories of friar-physicians, drawn from various sources, particularly the Tabula medicine, an early fifteenth-century compilation by Franciscan friars. Notable figures include John of Gaunt's surgeon, William Appleton, killed during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381; the Dominican master John of St Giles; and Geoffrey Launde, confessor and healer of Edward, 2nd duke of York. Other friars include Adam de Bekesoveres, mentioned in Adam Marsh's letter, and the curious case of Eryk de Vedica, paid for the treatment of an elderly lady; also the Carmelite Richard Tenet, and the Augustinian Robert Waldby, archbishop of York.

Chapter 2, 'William Holme, medicus' is dedicated to the most cited practitioner in the Tabula medicine. Holme stands out for his mastery of various treatments, use of balsams, and distilled medicines. His practice was based in London and primarily catered to noble patients. Two medical treatises, Tractatus de medicinis, and De simplicibus medicinis, are transmitted under his name, but the remedies in these texts are intended for poor patients. As Jones clarifies, there is no clear evidence to connect the William Holme who authored these two works with the homonymous practitioner mentioned in the Tabula medicine (96).

In chapter 3, 'Writing medicine differently', Jones develops a broader discussion on friars as authors of medical texts. Most friars writers were primarily engaged in encyclopaedic works aimed at the educational needs of their brethren, such as the Tabula medicine, De proprietatibus rerum, James Le Palmer's Omne bonum, Henry Daniel's Liber uricrisiarum and Aaron Danielis. These texts reflect the friars' methods of compiling study aids, similar to texts that served their core mission of preaching, teaching, and hearing confession.

Chapter 4, 'The Medical Culture of the Friars', discusses the academic background of medical writings. As mendicant orders developed alongside universities in the thirteenth century, their medical culture aligned with the same framework. Friars remained anchored to the tenets of Galenic humoral medicine. However, Jones highlights Bacon's innovative approach, incorporating special sciences, such as alchemy, astrology, and magic, into medical remedies.

Chapter 5, 'Souls and Bodies', explores the intersection of medicine and pastoral care. As preachers and confessors, friars advised laypeople not only on spiritual health (salus animae) but also on bodily health (sanitas corporis), often in the form of regimen sanitatis. This explains the popularity of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum, and of De proprietatibus rerum, read both as a source of moral exempla and as a guide to bodily health. This entanglement between physical and spiritual health is evident in penitential texts, such as in the Fasciculum morum, which employs the analogy of Christ as a physician healing sins, and in Malachy of Ireland's Tractatus de veneno.

In chapter 6: 'Creeping into Homes', Jones discusses the representation of friars as healers. Mendicancy provided itinerant friars with opportunities to approach laypeople in their domestic space, leading to both satirical depictions (Langland, Chaucer, and Gower), and ecclesiological criticism (FitzRalph and Le Palmer), as the friars' activity was seen as interfering with the clergy's domain. Among the more sophisticated attacks, Jones focuses on two images from William Langland's Piers Plowman, embodying the ruins of the English Church (214). The first is Envy, dressed as a friar, who is unable to cure himself by confessing his own sins. The second is Friar Flatterer, a false physician who corrupts instead of healing.

Chapter 7, 'The Legacy of Friars Medicine', discusses the influence of friars' medical writings beyond their original context and after the dissolution of the monasteries of 1538. The Tabula medicine, for example, was used by later physicians such as for John Argentine, royal doctor under Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII. Henry Daniels works were used and annotated in the sixteenth century, while Bacon's manuscripts maintained an extraordinary reputation until seventeenth-century England. John Trevisa's Middle English translation of De proprietatibus rerum made this text widely accessible and even printed in 1536 (234).

The books concludes with two appendices, a bibliography - including manuscript sources -and a general index. The first appendix lists friars attested as medical practitioners alongside manuscript references. The second provides a chronological list of medical works written by friars, revealing a strong predominance of Franciscan authors. This is likely due to the study's focus on English manuscripts. However, it is important to remember that some of these authors were trained or active outside England, for example De proprietatibus rerum was composed in Magdeburg. Further research into other geographical areas may provide a more comprehensive perspective on the role of friars in medicine. For now, we can only commend Jones for taking this important step forward.

Andrea Mancini