Arnaldus de Villa Nova

The other early medieval university of special interest in medicine is that of Montpellier.

With it are connected three teachers who have left great names in our story, Arnold of Villanova, Henri de Mondeville, and Guy de Chauliac.

The city was very favourably situated, not far from the Spanish border, and the receding tide of the Arab invasion in the 8th century had left a strong Arabic influence in that province.

The date of the origin of the university is uncertain, but there were teachers of medicine there in the 12th century, though it was not until 1289 that it was formally founded by a papal bull.

Arnold of Villanova was one of the most prolific writers of the Middle Ages.

He had travelled much, was deeply read in Arabic medicine, and was also a student of law and of philosophy.

He was an early editor of the Regimen Sanitatis and a strong advocate of diet and hygiene.

Known as the conciliator, from his attempt to reconcile the diverse views on philosophy and medicine, he had an extraordinary reputation as a practitioner and author, the persistence of which is well illustrated by the fact that eight of the 182 medical books printed before 1481 were from his pen.

Valencia had a long and distinguished medical tradition, one of the greatest physicians of the Middle Ages.

Arnau de Villanova, who died in 1311, was closely associated with the city, and his works on medicine, diet and health were read across Europe.

Valencian physicians were trained at the universities of Montpellier, Lleida, Salamanca and Italy, and the city's medical profession was regulated by the municipal authorities, who examined and licensed practitioners.

Jewish and Converso physicians had played an important role in Valencian medicine for centuries, though the expulsion of 1492 and the attentions of the Inquisition had made their position increasingly precarious.