Overview

Early in twelfth century pre-Renaissance European surgery and medical practice began to mature, in large part through the heavy influence of ancient Greek texts and the work of Arabic physicians and surgeons. Medical scholarship and practice became centered in southern Italy at Salerno, where a medical school was established in 1140. In the thirteenth century the medical school at Bologna, Italy, was the most influential center of medical expertise, anatomical teaching, and competent surgical practice. Surgeons who trained at Bologna took their practice and scholarship into northern Europe. By the close of the fourteenth century France became the preeminent seat of European surgical practice.

Surgery, as practiced by Theodoric (1205-1296), Guido Lanfranchi (1250-1306), Henri de Mondeville (1260-1320), and Guy de Chauliac (1300-1368), became a respected and important part of medicine...