Das Hospital als Träger der Armenfürsorge im Mittelalter

importance of healing miracles, whether actual or potential, as a motive for conversion. Preachers say little about this, but there are other "less orthodox" texts that may bridge the gap between the age of the gospels and that of saintly healing from 350 or so onwards. St Augustine was well aware of the gulf that might separate his own explanations and practices from those of his flock. The final essay surveys writings on syphilis from 1495 to 1504 in order to discover any moral stance. It carefully lists the various causes suggested for the disease, and explains soberly and sensibly the relatively small part attributed to divine wrath as a remote cause of infection. It notes the acceptance, from 1500 on, of sexual intercourse as the main way in which the disease was caught, and shows that none of the physicians recommended refusing to treat syphilitics, or, indeed, attributed their illness to specifically sexual sinning. This is extremely useful, as far as it goes, and stands in sharp contrast to some recent fashionable formulations. Yet, as with many of the pieces in this volume, one can assent to their conclusions, while wishing that the author had taken the wider argument further. Comparison with Temkin's article on the morality of syphilis in his The doubleface ofJanus shows where such an argument might lead. In his responses to the problems posed by others Darrel Amundsen, as this collection shows, generally offers a sound assessment based on a close acquaintance with the primary sources. To wish that he had struck out more often on his own, or interpreted some of his texts more imaginatively, is intended less as a criticism of what he has given us than as an acknowledgement of the value of his conclusions.