John
of Gaddesden wrote his treatise on medicine (‘Rosa Medicinae’) in 1314 and the
work became the first printed medical book in the English language in 1492.
WHO WAS HE?
More appropriately, perhaps,
which one of the confusing plethora of Johns of Gaddesden was he? The priest and physician whose name is
variously given as Joannes de Gaddesden, John de Gatesden, Joannes de Gatisden
and even Jone de Gabeshede was born, probably in the village of Little
Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, circa 1280 (1250 in some sources). In 1236 a John of Gatesden, not the physician
but possibly an earlier relative, gave information to Henry III about the
daughter of one Raymond Berringer. This
is the same John sent by Henry to Alphonsus, King of Castile, to appease the
latter’s complaints about English merchants.
A later John of Gaddesden was entered in the Book of Benefactors of St
Albans Abbey. Circa 1276 (or 1283)
another John of Gaddesden was one of the signatories of the Foundation Charter
of the College of Bonhommes at Ashridge, near Little Gaddesden; this John could
well have been the father of the famous doctor.
In the same area of
Hertfordshire, the manor of Southall (at different times known as the manor of
Gatesden and as Oliver’s Place) was owned during the 13th century by
a family of Gaddesden or Gatesden.
Among them was a John de Gatesden who died ‘seised of the manor’ in
1259, leaving a daughter, Margaret, as his heir. She married, confusingly enough, yet another John de Gadsden who
died in 1292, at which point the manor passed to his daughter and heir Joan. It seems likely that these people were
connected to John the physician and it is reasonable to assume that he was born
into a well-established Hertfordshire family.
What emerges more
clearly out of these shadows is the figure of the man whose disposition and
peculiarities as gathered from his writings are so precisely those of the Doctour
of Physick in Chaucer’s Prologue to The Canterbury Tales that it seems possible
that Gaddesden is the contemporary from whom Chaucer drew his character.
JOHN’S CAREER
John of Gaddesden may
have been born ca 1280 in a dwelling on the site of the so-called John O’Gaddesden’s
House (at Little Gaddesden in Hertfordshire) which is of a later period.
By 1294 he was a pupil
at Oxford Grammar School. At about the age
of 16, towards the end of the 13th century, John entered Merton
College. Oxford University had been in
existence for some time and was already a leading centre of thought and
learning. Like many students there,
John probably lived in lodgings in the town while working towards his degree of
Bachelor of Arts. He would have studied
the seven liberal arts of Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry
and Astronomy, and have had more than a passing acquaintance with the writings
of such ancient scholars as Aristotle and Boethius.
After four years, his
BA duly obtained, John proceeded to study for a Masters degree, achieving that
goal in three years. He could have
pursued Law, Theology or Medicine, but chose the latter, graduating as Bachelor
of Medicine in 1307 and as a Doctor in 1309.
He went on to a doctorate in Theology and later became a Fellow of
Merton. During the next few years he
established a large practice in London and began work on his book, writing and
completing it between 1314 and 1317.
Somehow John found time in-between all this intense intellectual
activity to be physician to Edward II, who had succeeded to the English throne
at the age of 23 in 1307.
In addition, John took
Holy Orders, becoming Rector of Abingdon in 1316. His impressive upward-mobility continued with the granting in
1330 of a canonry at St Paul’s and later at Chichester. Then, the cherry on the top, a post as King’s
Clerk, which brought him influence (and possibly affluence) serving the royal
family, including the eldest son of Edward III, the Black Prince. After 1342, John went into the service of
the 12 year-old Black Prince himself, receiving a gift of gold from him in
1346. That was the year in which the
young prince fought at the Battle of Crecy alongside his father. John is thought to have been in attendance
throughout the French campaigns, and there is a reference to a John of
Gaddesden as Marshal of Calais in 1350 – though we may be getting into trouble
with our dates here, if John was born in 1280.
JOHN & CHAUCER
It has been speculated
that an acquaintance between Geoffrey Chaucer and John of Gaddesden may have
led to Chaucer drawing his character, the Doctour of Physick, from John’s life
and personality. If this is true, parts
of the sketch are none too complimentary, particularly in regard to the physician’s
alleged mercenary tendencies. Chaucer
was born much later than John, circa 1340-1343. Nevertheless the idea that they knew one another is not too
far-fetched. We tend to think of
Chaucer as a poet, but he had to earn a living as well and like John served in
various royal households, including that of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third
son of Edward III, in 1357. Two years
later, Chaucer joined the army when England invaded France, and was there until
March 1360. Some sources mention that
at one stage Chaucer was employed at Berkhamsted Castle, a favourite royal
residence up to Elizabeth I’s time, and not far from Little Gaddesden. Perhaps the poet’s and the physician’s paths
did cross.
‘MARVELLOUS REMEDY’
Despite his advancing
years, John was present at Crecy in 1346 where his lord, the Black Prince,
joined King Edward III on the battlefield.
For the Prince it was the start of a lifelong reputation as a fearless
warrior. For John, about 50 years his
senior, it may have held less glamour and glory. If, as some sources suggest, he had been in France since 1339,
John must have been tiring of war.
There was, however, in
the very year of England’s victory at Crecy, a far more terrible enemy than the
French gathering its forces in Asia Minor: the Black Death. This ‘marvellous remedy’, believed by many
to be retribution for man’s manifold sins, spread swiftly along the trade
routes into Europe and thence to England in 1348. Its results were devastating and it is difficult to imagine any
God choosing to destroy quite so many people for the sins of the few.
The plague arrived in France
in the early months of 1348. Assuming
that John was indeed the Marshal of Calais who is recorded as being present
after the raising in 1347 of the siege by the English there, he could have been
in France when the epidemic began. If
his death occurred around 1349, which has been claimed, we wouldn’t have to
look far for a probable cause, particularly in his line of work. Other sources believe he lived for several
more years, much of the time in France holding various civil appointments,
probably returning eventually to England then disappearing from the stage
around 1361.
Is it a coincidence
that this was the year of the third outbreak of the Black Death in
England? Though not as many fatalities
resulted as during the first cataclysmic visitation in 1348, John would have
been an old man in 1361; the elderly and infirm were more susceptible to
infection. What is the likelihood,
though, of his having lived to 80-odd during that particular century? We may
never learn the truth, unless some hitherto undiscovered source emerges to give
us clarity.
Vicars Bell, in his
book ‘Little Gaddesden’, takes the romantic view that John came home from the
wars to end his days in the village, occasionally visited perhaps by his friend
Chaucer in the ‘house by the cherry-sprinkled green’. It is a pleasing picture.
The reality is that so far there is no concrete evidence of John’s connection with what has
come to be known as ‘John O’Gaddesden’s House’.
Bibliography:
Chronicon Henrici
Knighton : Ed J Lumby (quoted in The
Black Death : P Ziegler, Collins London 1969)
Little Gaddesden :
Vicars Bell (Faber & Faber London 1919)
A Distant Mirror :
Barbara Tuchman (MacMillan London 1978)
The Later Middle Ages
1272-1485 : George Holmes (WW Norton
London 1962)
Victoria County History
: Hertfordshire : Dacorum Hundred
© Rosemary
Dixon-Smith 2005