Gilles de Corbeil (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

: ''Egidius de Corbolio'' or ''Egidius Corboliensis''; also ''Aegidius'') was a French royal physician, teacher, and poet. He was born in approximately 1140 in Corbeil and died in the first quarter of the 13th century. He is the author of four medical poems and a scathing anti-clerical

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

, all in Latin dactylic hexameters.

Life and works

Education and '

Gilles de Corbeil was born in Corbeil-Essonnes. He studied at the Schola Medica Salernitana, absorbing its theories and practices and becoming a teacher himself. He praises his teachers Romuald Guarna and Peter Musandinus (in turn the student of Bartholomew of Salerno) in his long poem (four books and 4,663 verses) of ca. 1194 on Salernitan drug therapy, '.Faith Wallis, "Gilles de Corbeil," in T. Glick et al., eds., ''Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia'', Routledge, 2005, pp
198
199 He complains, however, of the school's degeneration after the sack of Salerno in 1194 by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Fielding Hudson Garrison, ''An Introduction to the History of Medicine'', 2nd edition, Philadelphia, 1917, p
134
/ref> and in the same poem he criticizes its "granting medical degrees, and consequently a license to lecture, to unlearned and inexperienced youths."

Paris and Montpellier

He returned to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

between ca. 1180 and 1194, becoming a canon and the court physician to Philip II of France. He proudly presented himself as a pioneer of academic medicine in France, upholding the prestige of the Salernitan medicine over rivals such as the

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

school and the "empiric" Rigord. The epilogue to ' is a particularly bitter denunciation of Montpellier, its vain contentiousness and obliviousness to true science (), and even its people; one Medieval commentator explains this in terms of an unhappy visit to the city by Gilles. Gilles of Corbeil is the only teacher namely known of the University of Paris where he became a ''magister'' in the end of the 12th century.

Poems for students: ' and '

His brief poems ' (352 verses on uroscopy) and ' (380 verses on

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...

ic pulsology), based on treatises by Theophilus Protospatharius by way of the Articella, were intended as mnemonic aids for his students to memorize, reflecting his preoccupation with pedagogy. They became didactic classics and were widely studied, copied, and commented upon.

'

This poem of 2,358 verses, not printed until 1907, deals with the signs and symptoms of humoral excess and diseases (organized from head to foot), proceeding to "sections on gynecological disorders and on whole-body diseases such as arthritis,

leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a Chronic condition, long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the Peripheral nervous system, nerves, respir ...

, and

fever Fever or pyrexia in humans is a symptom of an anti-infection defense mechanism that appears with Human body temperature, body temperature exceeding the normal range caused by an increase in the body's temperature Human body temperature#Fever, s ...

s."

'

His ''Laxative for Purging Prelates'' (; a Salerno glossary explains ' literally as "sacred and bitter medicine," ', from Greek , often used for a special pharmacological recipe, and ), a satire in nine books and 5,929 verses, was discovered in 1837 among manuscripts deriving from the library of Pierre Pithou. It particularly targets Guala Bicchieri but takes aim more generally at the abuses prevalent among ecclesiastical officials. In a prologue, the poet invokes, not a

Muse In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the Muses (, ) were the Artistic inspiration, inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric p ...

, but a

pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

(apparently

Innocent III Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216. Pope Innocent was one of the most power ...

), from whom he hopes to receive the antidote that can cure the morally sick prelates.Thomas Haye, ''Päpste und Poeten: Die mittelalterliche Kurie als Objekt und Förderer panegyrischer Dichtung'', Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009, pp
193
f.

Editions

* Johann Ludwig Choulant, ', Leipzig, 1826
online
* Camille Vieillard, ''L'urologie et les médecins urologues dans la médecine ancienne: Gilles de Corbeil'', Paris, 1903
online
* Valentin Rose, ', Teubner, 1907, editio princeps
online
* Dieter Scheler, ''Die '', Teildruck Phil. Diss. Würzburg, Bochum, 1972

Translations

* A text from ', translated by Michael R. McVaugh (originally in ''Sourcebook in Medieval Science'', ed. Edward Grant, Harvard University Press, 1974, pp. 748–50), is reprinted in ''Medieval Medicine: A Reader'', ed. Faith Wallis, University of Toronto Press, 2010, pp
256
258

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilles De Corbeil 12th-century births 13th-century deaths 13th-century French physicians French medical writers Medieval Latin-language poets Physicians of the Schola Medica Salernitana 12th-century French writers 13th-century French writers 12th-century French poets 13th-century French poets 12th-century French physicians 12th-century writers in Latin 13th-century writers in Latin Court physicians