Terminological variation and change across the German translations of Lanfranc of Milan’s Chirurgia parva

This chapter focuses on the variation in the rendering of Latin specialised terminology across three German translations of Chirurgia parva, authored by Lanfranc of Milan, one of the most influential surgeons of the late Middle Ages. Vernacular terminology represents, in fact, one of the most interesting features of medieval medical discourse. While Lanfranc and other so-called ‘rational surgeons’ established a surgical Fachsprache in Latin, their vernacular translators faced the challenge of rendering these specialised terms into a language that lacked a surgical literary tradition. The analysis of terminological variation, conducted on a significant sample of Latin terms belonging to four significant semantic fields (i.e., anatomy; pathology; procedures, instruments and remedies; humoural pathology) highlights different degrees of terminological variation.