Doctor versus patient: two fourteenth-century lawsuits.

Tim medieval medical practitioner, like his fellows in every age, was vulnerable to accusations of negligence. The least fortunate, or perhaps the most negligent, might find themselves liable to public prosecution," despite some recognition that treatment was hazardous anyway.2 More commonly, the doctor might face a private lawsuit by a dissatisfied patient; a cursory glance through Talbot and Hammond's Biographical Register reveals more than a dozen cases.3 It is small wonder that in at least one instance a surgeon arranged indemnity before undertaking an operation,4 and the contemporary textbook insistence on obtaining fees in advance is at least partly explained.5 For the most exalted practitioners, however, the major sources of professional income were the annual retainers paid by magnates or by institutions; in the event of apparent negligence, the retainer could be withdrawn. Although the doctor probably had ecclesiastical as well as professional income, it is not surprising that two attempts to regain such annuities have left traces in the legal records which throw some light on the services expected of the medieval physician.* The traces are to be found in two types of legal source. In the first place there are the records of the court of Common Pleas, which embraced the bulk of civil litigation in the later medieval period.6 These court rolls were definitive; despite the vagaries * These cases were kindly brought to my attention 1 In 1395 a jury presented William Leeche of Newark for taking fees without affecting cures (B. also, a coroner's jury found that Gerard Goss had caused the death of a patient by operating, and he was prosecuted for felony (Public Record Office, London: Just[ices Itinerant] 2/156, m.3 d; K[ing's] B[ench] 27/527, Rex m.7). ' Thomas and Pernell de Rasyn were pardoned for their negligence (Calendar of Patent Rolls 1348-1350, 561).