The Lorscher Arzneibuch

The Lorscher Arzneibuch (LA) is the earliest surviving medical compendium from the Frankish–German world, produced in the Lorsch scriptorium and usually dated to the late eighth or early ninth century. Conceived as a practical handbook, it combines a protreptic defence of medicine, isagogic pieces, capitulationes with short recipes, synonym and substitution lists, dietetic notes, and, at the end, Anthimus’ Observatio ciborum. With 482 recipes preserved after substantial leaf losses, the original extent must have approached seven hundred or more items. The work condenses late antique and early medieval Latin material into a Carolingian monastic frame and is now a primary witness for the formation of learned medicine north of the Alps. Its inscription on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2013 reflects its cultural weight; pharmacological claims are to be handled cautiously and kept within the philological evidence.