Part of the Reynolds-Finley Lecture Series, hosted by UAB Libraries Historical Collections

Between 1400 and 1600, English readers gained increasing access to practical medical knowledge, first in vernacular manuscript collections, and later in inexpensive, printed books. This talk, drawn from the first book writen by presenter Melissa Reynolds, Ph.D., "Reading Practice: The Pursuit of Natural Knowledge from Manuscript to Print," surveys those medieval manuscripts and early printed books to demonstrate how engagement with these sources prompted English readers to see themselves as adjudicators and even creators of medical knowledge in their own right. By the Elizabethan era, eager readers turned their newly developed critical skills on the medical manuscripts of the medieval past, which they collected as evidence of a uniquely “English” medical tradition. While the democratization of medical knowledge in manuscripts and printed books did encourage an emergent culture of scientific curiosity among English readers, in this talk Reynolds will argue that these same books also became sources for those who would use medicine to define what it meant to be English.

Melissa Reynolds, Ph.D., is a cultural historian of later medieval and early modern Europe, with research interests in the history of medicine, the history of gender and the body, and the history of material texts. She is an Assistant Professor of Early Modern European History at Texas Christian University. Her articles and essays have appeared in the "Journal of British Studies," "Social History of Medicine," "Gender & History," "Renaissance Quarterly," and "The Washington Post." Her first book, "Reading Practice: The Pursuit of Natural Knowledge from Manuscript to Print" (Chicago, 2024) was awarded the John Ben Snow Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies and the William H. Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine. Reynolds is currently at work on a new project that explores the relationship between commerce, environment, and changing conceptualizations of the body in Tudor and early Stuart England.