What did people believe about disease and treatment in the medieval period?
Medieval ideas about the cause of disease, the influence of Galen and the Church, treatments and care, public health in towns and monasteries, and the impact of the Black Death.
A focused answer to the medieval section of AQA's Health and the people thematic study, covering ideas about the cause of disease, the influence of Galen and the Church, medieval treatments and care, public health, and the impact of the Black Death of 1348 to 1349.
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What this dot point is asking
This is the opening period of AQA's Paper 2 thematic study, Health and the people c1000 to present. You need to explain how medieval people understood disease, why their ideas were dominated by Galen and the Church, what treatments and care they used, the state of public health, and how the Black Death affected them. As a thematic study, it is examined by significance, similarity and difference questions and a 16-mark factor essay.
Ideas about the cause of disease
Alongside this, people believed disease could be a punishment from God for sin, or caused by miasma (bad or "corrupted" air), or by the movement of the planets and the stars (astrology). These ideas coexisted, and a physician might use several at once. None identified the true cause of disease.
The influence of Galen and the Church
This dual role, preserving and obstructing, is the key analytical point and the basis of the common significance question on the Church.
Treatments, care and public health
Treatments mixed Galen's ideas with herbal remedies, charms and prayer. Trained physicians (university-educated) were rare and expensive; most everyday care came from apothecaries (who sold remedies), barber-surgeons (who did bleeding and minor surgery), and women treating the sick at home. Monasteries ran the best hospitals and had the best public health, with piped clean water, drains and latrines, because monks valued cleanliness.
In towns, by contrast, public health was poor: waste and sewage filled the streets, butchers dumped offal, and clean water was scarce, all of which helped disease to spread.
The Black Death
Try this
Q1. Name the theory that said illness was an imbalance in the body. [Knowledge recall]
- Cue. The Theory of the Four Humours (developed by Galen).
Q2. Explain why medieval medicine changed so slowly. [Short explanation]
- Cue. The Church preserved Galen's ideas but treated them as near-sacred and discouraged challenges and dissection, so ideas barely changed for centuries.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of AQA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AQA 20188 marksExplain the significance of the Church for the development of medicine in the medieval period.Show worked answer →
The Paper 2 thematic study "significance" question (8 marks, AO1 and AO2). Markers reward explained significance, both at the time and over time.
Develop both sides. The Church was significant because it preserved Galen's texts in monasteries and ran the universities that trained physicians, keeping classical learning alive. But it was also significant in holding medicine back: because Galen's ideas fitted the belief in one creator (the body designed by God), the Church forbade challenges to him and restricted dissection, so ideas barely changed for centuries.
Top band. Explain the Church's significance as both preserver and obstacle, ending with a judgement.
AQA 20208 marksExplain two ways in which ideas about the cause of disease were similar in the medieval period and during the Renaissance.Show worked answer →
The Paper 2 thematic study "similarity" question (8 marks). Reward two clearly explained, supported similarities across the two periods.
Way one. In both periods the Theory of the Four Humours and the work of Galen still dominated, so doctors continued to explain illness as an imbalance and to use bleeding and purging.
Way two. In both periods supernatural and environmental ideas persisted: people still blamed miasma (bad air) and, for some, God or the planets, so the true cause of disease remained unknown in both.
Top band. Develop each similarity with specific detail across both periods, not a list.
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Sources & how we know this
- AQA GCSE History (8145) specification — AQA (2016)