Nature in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times

When Is a Good Time? Health Advice and the Months of the Year

Wendy Pfeffer

Abstract

This article is an introduction of the Diététique provençale or Conselhs occitans de santat, a thirteenth-century Occitan verse text offering advice on the topics of health and diet, and a demonstration of its ties to Latin works including the Secretum secretorum or Secret of Secrets, Letter of Hippocrates, and regimina XII mensum. The regimina texts spell out, month by month, what to eat and what to do medically according to a calendar of the months; the Diététique translates this advice for its Occitan audience. The analysis will illustrate how medieval medicine was deeply in tune with the cycles of nature, embracing the timing of the natural world ...