The Germanic Translations of Lanfranc’s Surgical Works as Example of Global Circulation of Knowledge

Lanfranc of Milan is considered one of the most influential surgeons of the late Middle Ages and his Latin works – the Chirurgia parva and the Chirurgia magna – have informed surgical practices until the beginning of modern surgery in the sixteenth century. The importance of Lanfranc’s works is documented by the large number of vernacular translations which were produced in the years following their compilation and which made the scholarship of Lanfranc and his sources available throughout Europe also to those who did not read Latin. Among these sources, we find the twelfth-century Latin translation of Albucasis’s Surgery by Gerard of Cremona, a book which circulated widely in Italy, but was difficult to find in other parts of Europe, such as present-day France, Germany, England and the Netherlands. Lanfranc himself is thought to have brought a copy of the Latin Albucasis with him when he moved to France. Therefore, the vernacular translations of Lanfranc’s works contributed significantly to the circulation of the surgical part of Albucasis’s Kitab alTasrif (The Method of Medicine). In this study, two groups of Germanic (English and German) translations of Lanfranc’s works will be taken into consideration with respect to their vernacular rendering of the passages which are more strongly indebted to the Islamic tradition, in order to highlight how knowledge spread from one culture to another and from one language to another.