Early Sci Med. 1999 May; 4(2): 127-48.

Vernacularization as an intellectual and social bridge. The Catalan translations of Teodorico's Chirurgia and of Arnau de Vilanova's Regimen Sanitatis.

Cifuentes L.

Dept. d'Historia de la Ciencia, Institucio Mila i Fontanals, CSIC, Barcelona.

This study analyzes the dissemination and readership of two medieval medical works in Catalan. Combining the use of diverse sources such as the manuscripts themselves, post-mortem inventories, and the prologues written by the translators, the study shows how the diffusion of these works exemplifies the two main audiences to which vernacular texts were addressed. These were, on the one hand, literate but not Latinate surgeons and other practitioners interested in the new medicine emanating from the emerging universities; and on the other, nobles and burghers interested in issues of health and disease and in natural philosophy in general. The framework for the study is the general process of consolidation of the new medical system which developed in late medieval Latin Europe.