Part one of term paper
Many critics' familiarity with the medieval medical community comes from Chaucer's characterization of the Doctor of Physic: "In al this world ne was there noon hym lik, / To speke of phisik and of surgerye."1 But what few critics fail to realize is that there is an important difference between the Doctor's ability to speak of surgery and hi ...

Part two of term paper
... This conflict of ideologies informs the tensions behind Chaucer's portrait of the Physician. During the late Middle Ages, doctors were believed to be a repository of medical knowledge, thus their profession was seen as learned. The surgeon, on the other hand, was considered to be an artisan, thus his profession was seen as a craft.4 This craft ideology allowed access for untrained artisans to enter the field of surgery. In this paper, I will statistically demonstrate that the medieval English sur ...