Even Pope Honorius III did
something for the establishment of medical schools; but he did
so much more to place ecclesiastical and theological fetters upon
teachers and taught, that the value of his gifts may well be
doubted. All germs of a higher evolution of medicine were for
ages well kept under by the theological spirit. As far back as
the sixth century so great a man as Pope Gregory I showed himself
hostile to the development of this science. In the beginning of
the twelfth century the Council of Rheims interdicted the study
of law and physic to monks, and a multitude of other councils
enforced this decree. About the middle of the same century St.
Bernard still complained that monks had too much to do with
medicine; and a few years later we have decretals like those of
Pope Alexander III forbidding monks to study or practise it. For
many generations there appear evidences of a desire among the
more broad-minded churchmen to allow the cultivation of medical
science among ecclesiastics: Popes like Clement III and Sylvester
II seem to have favoured this, and we even hear of an Archbishop
of Canterbury skilled in medicine; but in the beginning of the
thirteenth century the Fourth Council of the Lateran forbade
surgical operations to be practised by priests, deacons, and
subdeacons; and some years later Honorius III reiterated this
decree and extended it.
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