its methodology (no grappling here with Foucault or the social construction ofdisease) and none the worse for that. Its chronological span is complete (chapter I is entitled 'Les Buveurs Antiques'), and though the focus becomes increasingly medical as we approach the present, the attitudes of preachers, moralists, and governments are not neglected. For the Anglo-Saxon reader, it is particularly...

IN late medieval England, the number of persons literate in the vernacular was growing rapidly.' The same interest in self-improvement which led these people to learn to read also led them to seek out, or to sponsor the production of, works that would make available to them knowledge from both antique and earlier medieval sources knowledge to which as yet, for the most part, only those who coul...