The Omont fragment is a fragment of a 9th century Anglo-Saxon medical text. This fragment is kept at:

Bibliotheque Generale et des Sciences Humaines
College Erasme
Place Cardinale Mercier 31
B-1348
Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

An article in Anglia also discusses the document. (Schauman, Bella and Angus Cameron. 1977. "A Newly Found Leaf of Old English From Louvain." Anglia: Zeitschrift Fur Englishe Philologie, Vol. 3-4, 289-312.



Many thanks to Justin Bullard for sending us the graphics and for the introduction included here. Justin received a Master of Science in Ethnobotany from the University of Kent, Canterbury, England in 2000. He conducted field work and studied local systems of health care delivery, domestic medicine, ethnotaxonamy and ethnobotany in Nepal between 1994 and 2002. All along he has been nurturing a passion for, what he calls, Anglo-Saxon ethnomedicine. People can reach Justin either at jadibhuti@hotmail.com or at jbullar@vdh.state.vt.us

For further study, Justin recommends Steven Pollington's book, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing, which can be purchased at David Brown Book Co. He has devoted a respectful and well-written section about the fragment (his book is one of the best about AS ethnomedicine in how he treats AS medicine as a cultural system, and he doesn't belittle the Anglo-Saxons either, which is such a good change because it means that scholars are changing the way in which they handle local or indigneous knowledge).


These images may be used for educational and research purposes only.

> Introduction by Justin Bullard
> Front of Leaf (2.93 Mb)
> Back of Leaf (2.54 Mb)