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Curating Curious Cures
14th October 2025 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Curating Curious Cures
Tuesday 14th October 7pm
A talk by Dr James Freeman.
Medieval medicine has a bad reputation. It conjures up images of people blighted by disease and ignorance, living a degraded existence in squalid villages and pestilence-ridden towns, and subject to the misguided ministrations of physicians or the bizarre remedies of folk healers and charlatans. We commonly think of the Middle Ages as a time of superstition, blind trial-and-error and devastating mortality…but that’s not the whole story! A current exhibition at Cambridge University Library – Curious Cures: Medicine in the Medieval World – describes the complex theories and ideas that guided medieval physicians in their work, introduces the many different constituencies who practised medicine at this time, and reveals the bewildering array of ailments and illnesses they sought to cure. These subjects are explored through a display of more than fifty medieval manuscripts, early printed books and objects – many exhibited publicly for the first time – from the University Library’s own holdings and from college collections across Cambridge.
Join us to hear from Dr James Freeman, the exhibition’s curator, about the inspiration behind the exhibition, what guided the selection and display of these unique and irreplaceable objects, and which ones are his personal favourites.
Biography
Dr James Freeman is the Medieval Manuscripts Specialist at Cambridge University Library. He was the Principal Investigator of the Wellcome-funded project, Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries, and is the curator of the exhibition Curious Cures: Medicine in the Medieval World, which is open to all and free to visit at Cambridge University Library until 6 December 2025. Prior to joining the University Library in 2016, James worked in various capacities in the Manuscripts and Rare Books Departments at the British Library. He also serves as Assistant Editor for the Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society and as Chair of the Association for Manuscripts and Archives in Research Collections, which promotes the study, accessibility and preservation of manuscripts and archives in Britain, Ireland and further afield.
Tickets £8.50
Gates open at 6.30pm
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