On Speaking Terms

The friar in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is described as having a lisp, which he employs pretentiously. His lisp is described as ‘wanton’, indicating excessive pleasure-seeking and his morally-dubious character

'She was dombe and had neuer spoken worde'.

The mute maiden of Malory's tales of King Arthur is given the responsibility of summoning Sir Percival to the round table. This gives her a voice, and she says out loud: ‘Aryse Syr Percyvale’.

This extract (from Mac Datho’s Pig, in the Book of Leinster) notes an alternative account of how Cuscraid came to stutter: a spear thrown by Cet of Connaught damaged tendons in his throat.

Suibne experienced the Battle of Mag Rath. His terror is clear, and the ‘clamour of conflict’ causes his speech to become faltering. ‘The inlets of hearing were expanded and quickened by the horrors of lunacy; the vigour of his brain in the cavities of his head was destroyed by the clamour of the conflict; his heart shrunk within him with the panic of dismay; his speech became faltering from the giddiness of imbecility'

Tissot addresses symptoms following a bite by a 'mad dog'. Of interest here is that the voice is either hoarse or 'abolished entirely'. He goes on to deny reports that those bitten bark like mad dogs. Swallowing is also mentioned as being possible but 'not without violent difficulty'.

This 15th-century text uses features of speech as diagnostic. Phlegm ('flewme') in the lungs is associated with hoarseness more at night than in the day, more in winter than summer, more after meat than before it, and more after sleep than before it

This text from 1793 is by O'Halloran, a doctor who was based in Limerick. Here we see the prominence he gave to symptoms relating to communication in terms of the diagnostic relevance.

A highly specific account of symptoms is given in this extract: 'She spake one Word for another' - a symptom that we would call paraphasia today. This presentation occurred with no accompanying 'Giddiness in her Head [or] Failing of her Limbs'.

In one extract from this 15th-century manuscript, Gilbertus Anglicus describes how lethargy is a sickness that makes a man forgetful. Anglicus explains that when the man is called, he will answer ‘only with difficulty’. When he opens his mouth, he may close it only with difficulty.

The Virgin Mary was an exemplar healer to medieval people: in this text, she uses her breast milk to cure a monk who has a throat swelling and cannot speak, and is unable to swallow saliva or food.

Cures relating to problems of the voice occur across a number of the texts featured in this exhibition. This vivid diagram appears in 'Compleat treatise of the muscles' (1698), and shows muscles of the tongue and larynx

The juice of sage and primrose are recommended as a cure for loss of speech in this medieval household remedy collection, jotted down in the back of a literary text.

Several centuries later, sage is still being used in remedies for disorders of the mouth and voice. Here, a spoonful of sage juice is one the treatments for hoarseness. Another is unusual in that it is applied to the feet - a mixture of lard and garlic.

'For sore throat or Quinsey'.

This Irish recipe book suggests that millipedes can be dried out and made into a powder. Butter is rolled around in this powder before the lump of powdered butter is swallowed.