Harpestraeng, Henrik

(d. Roskilde, Denmark, 2 April 1244)

medicine, pharmacy.

Several thirteenth-century treatises on medical subjects are ascribed to a Henricus Dacus, or Henrik Harpestraeng, whose literary work is as well known as his life is obscure. An earlier attempt to identify him with a Maître Henry de Dannemarche who lived at Orléans in the twelfth century is impossible, in view of the obituary notice found in the Liber daticus Roskildensis (p. 47), which states: “Non Apr. obiit Magister, Henricus Harpestraeng, hujus ecclesiae Canonicus MCCXLIV. qui multiplices elemosinas huic ecclesie contulit, tam in morte quam in vita sua.” This proves that at the time of his death Harpestraeng was a canon of the cathedral of Roskilde, then the capital of Denmark, and that he was presumably a wealthy man. He was also commemorated in a contemporary epitaph in elegant Latin verse preserved in copies made from a now lost manuscript from the monastery at Sorö. In addition, there is no reason to disbelieve the well-founded medieval, tradition that he acted as physician to King Erik Plovpenning, who reigned from 1241 to 1250. A little more can be inferred from Harpestraeng’s writings, which show him to have been a remarkable medical author both in Latin and in his native tongue. This presupposes studies abroad, just as his title of magister points to some kind of university education. Nevertheless, in spite of his quotations from Salernitan authors, there is no definite evidence for the common belief that he studied at Salerno.

Not even a relative chronology of Harpestraeng’s writings has been worked out, but it is a plausible assumption that his Latin works date from his period abroad and that his Danish manuals arose from his medical activity at home toward the end of his life.

Harpestraeng’s first Latin work was De simplicibus medicinis laxativis, a treatise on herbs and drugs and their medical use, written in the Salernitan tradition and quoting Galen, al-Razi, Ibn Sīnā, Copho, the Antidotarium, Constantine the African, and others. Preserved in a single fifteenth-century manuscript (Copenhagen, G.K.S. 1654, 4°) of German provenance, it has been edited by J. W. S. Johnsson.

The Liber herbarum, a herbal for medical use, was written in the same vein as De simplicibus but also quotes the Regimen sanitatis. There are several fifteenth-century manuscripts (Copenhagen, A.M. 792, 4 °, and G.K.S. 3457, 8 °; Uppsala, D 600, 8°; Vienna, VIND. 2962, a.o.) and a number of more or less fragmentary translations into Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, and German, The text has been edited from the Uppsala manuscript by Poul Hauberg.

The Remedium Contra sacrum ignem, now lost, was a therapeutical treatise on St. Anthony’s fire.

The Urte Book was a Danish herbal, or leech book, in 150 chapters, the majority of them translated from the De viribus herbarum of Macer Floridus (Odo de Meung) and the De gradibus liber of Constantine the African. Among the numerous manuscripts one is from the thirteenth century (Stockholm, K. 48) and another from the early fourteenth (Copenhagen, N.K.S. 66, 8°). The book was extremely popular and was copied throughout Scandinavia as late as the eighteenth century. It was published by C. Molbech and later, in a critical edition, by Marius Kristensen.

Several codices contain a number of medical fragments in Danish or Swedish going back to the same source and usually considered as the scattered remains of another leech book by Harpestraeng. Until now no reconstruction of this text has been attempted.

A number of Latin fragments on phlebotomy, medical astrology, and other subjects have been ascribed to Harpestraeng, but their authenticity remains to be confirmed.

Finally, a book on gems and minerals, and a cookery book, both in Danish, were formerly ascribed to Harpestraeng but are now considered the works of an unidentified contemporary author.

As a medical author Harpestraeng showed no great originality, although he did enrich the medieval materia medica with a number of Nordic herbs unknown to the herbalists of the southern tradition, such as angelica, Benedicta alba, and Benedicta ruffa. His main importance was his establishment of European medicine in the Scandinavian countries, where his writings in the vernacular aligned popular medicine to the classical tradition. As the first scientific treatises in Danish they are of extreme linguistic interest. Through his connection with the cathedral school of Roskilde, Harpestraeng made the capital of Denmark a center of medical studies just as one generation later it became a center of astronomical research (through Peter Philomenus of Dacia) and thus an important center of learning in Scandinavia before the creation of universities in the late fifteenth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Editions of Harpestraeng’s writings are Henrik Harpestraengs danske Laegebog, C. Molbech, ed. (Copenhagen, 1826); “Gamalnorsk Fragment av Henrik Harpestraeng,” Marius Haegstad, ed., in Skrifter utgitt av det Norske videnskaps akademi i Oslo, Historiskfilos. Klasse, 2 , no. 2 (1906); Harpestraeng. Gamle danske Urtebøger, Stenbøger, Marius Kristensen, ed., 3 vols. (Copenhagen, 1908–1920); Henricus Dacus: De simplicibus medicinis laxativis, J. W. S. Johnsson, ed. (Copenhagen, 1914); and Henrik Harpestraeng Liber herbarum, Poul Hauberg, ed. (Copenhagen, 1936).

II. Seondary Literature. See J. Brøndum—Nielsen, “Studier i Dansk Lydhistorie,”in Acta philologica scandinavica, 4 (1929), 186–190; Poul Hauberg, “Lidt om Henrik Harpestraengs Laegebog,” in Danske Studier, n.s. 16 (1919), 111–128; and in Danske Biograisk Leksikon, IX (1936), 369–370; Marius Kristenstn, Danske Studier, 3rd. ser., 6 (1933), app., 161; L. Nielsen, Danmarks middelalderlige Haandskrifter (Copenhagen, 1937), pp. 148–155; A. Otto, ed., Liber daticus Roskildensis (Copenhagen, 1933). pp. 47, 179–186; P. Riant, “Vestigia Danorum extra Daniam,” in Danske samlinger for historie, topographi, personal- og literaturhistorie,2 (1866–1867), 270–271; P. Skautrup, Det danske Sprogs Historie, I (Copenhagen, 1944), passim; and E. Wickersheimer, “La véritable origine de Matîre Henri de Dannemarche,” in Janus, 37 (1933), 354–356.

Olaf Pedersen