Medieval Medicine to Gene Therapy

**3**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

intermediaries.

Armenia

*Jasmine Dum-Tragut*

Medieval Equine Medicine from

The Armenian medieval and early modern equine medicine has rarely been noticed or researched by veterinarians, historians of science, philologists, or medieval researchers. As Armenia represents both a geographical border and cultural corridor between Muslim East and Christian West, a consideration of its hippiatric texts and their integration into the general history of veterinary medicine can only lead to a deeper understanding of equine medicine from the medieval to the early modern period. They could also contribute toward tracing the paths of knowledge diffusion and transmission across political, linguistic, and religious-cultural boundaries in the time of the Crusades. The role of Armenian manuscripts bridging the traditions of equine medicine from the Muslim East and the Christian West is examined by revealing the complicated history of Armenian horse treatises that

traveled the long way from Baghdad via Sis to Tbilisi.

**Keywords:** medieval horse medicine, Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, knowledge transfer, cultural encounter between East and West, Crusades

between Europe and Asia was, however, very rarely taken into account.

In recent years, much research has been dedicated to the cross-cultural and cross-religious aspects of the encounters of peoples from the Christian West and the predominantly Muslim East during the Crusades. The role of the small Oriental-Christian kingdoms and principalities both geographically and culturally located

Equine medicine occupies a prominent role: hippiatric treatises were widely circulated, translated, and adapted. According to tradition, Greco-Roman and Byzantine works lost in Europe in the Middle Ages were preserved in Arabic libraries in translations from the original Greek to Arabic. These texts returned to Europe in the Renaissance, with a greater or lesser influence of Muslim/Eastern knowledge on European. Detailed analyses show that even if European writings provided the basis for Arabic hippiatric books, the Arabs also referred to the knowledge of Indian medicine and their own local practices. Yet none of these studies question how and where European and Eastern traditions met, and whether there were any cultural

Only gradually, researchers began to understand the historical significance of a corridor country and significant negotiator with the peoples of the Far East: the Armenian principality and later Kingdom of Cilicia between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. Despite religious and linguistic differences, mutual influences were revealed, which help to identify socio-cultural parallels, particularly concerning royal courts.

#### **Chapter 1**
