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SUMMARY:Gynaecological fragments in a pragmatic archbishop's handbook: the
  Old English 'Formation of the Foetus' in context - Conan Doyle (Departmen
 t of Anglo-Saxon\, Norse and Celtic)
DTSTART:20090120T170000Z
DTEND:20090120T183000Z
UID:TALK15931@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lauren Kassell
DESCRIPTION:The Old English _Formation of the Foetus_ is a short Old Engli
 sh text from the eleventh century which describes on a month-by-month basi
 s the development of the human embryo in utero and is found in a single ma
 nuscript: London\, British Library\, Cotton Tiberius A.iii. Since its firs
 t publication in 1866 it has been the subject of periodic bursts of intere
 st from Anglo-Saxon scholars\, but two questions remain unanswered in prin
 t to this day: What is the textual source for this fragment\, and how does
  it relate to the texts recorded with it in the manuscript.\n\nThis paper 
 attempts to answer these questions in the light of new research and recent
 ly published scholarship. A recent article by Tracey-Anne Cooper concludes
  that the manuscript in question was 'an archbishop's commonplace book or 
 pragmatic handbook\,' while the details of the text closely resemble those
  found in the Gynaecia of Vindicianus. It is only by bringing these two ap
 proaches together that we may begin to ask a third question: why does an e
 leventh century archbishop want to know about the human embryo?
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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