quest. Such a ploy would have been useful in prevent-
ing invasions from Scandinavia and France during his
lifetime. As a prominent royal adviser, Harold may have
been cognizant of the double dealing and thus unlikely
to take seriously foreign claims to the throne.
It is impossible to know what kind of king Harold
would have made or what tone he would have estab-
lished had he repelled the Normans. The combination
of lands inherited from Edward and his own earldom
made him extraordinar ily powerful, and the successful
exploitation of these resources gave him the means to
fi nance important projects. His found ing of a college of
canons at Waltham suggests that patron age of religious
houses would have been one aspect of his poli cies. His
efforts to extend English infl uence in Wales would no
doubt have continued after 1066, and he might have built
his own retinue of loyal, powerful nobles.
See also Edward the Confessor; Haraldr harðraði
(“hard-ruler”) Sigurðarson; Henry I
Further Reading
Primary Sources
Barlow, Frank, ed. and trans. The Life of King Edward Who
Rests at Westminster [Vita Aedwardi Regis]. 2d ed. Ox ford:
Clarendon, 1992.
Secondary Sources
Barlow, Frank. Edward the Confessor. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1970.
Williams, Ann. “Land and Power in the Eleventh Century: The
Estates of Harold Godwineson.” Anglo-Norman Studies 3
(1981): 171–87, 230–34.
Stephanie Christelow
HARPESTRENG, HENRIK (d. 1244)
A large body of medical work has been preserved from
the Danish doctor Master Henrik Harpestreng, who died
April 2, 1244, as a canon in Rosktlde and physician-in-
ordinary of King Erik Plovpenning (“plow-penny”). Two
Latin works by a certain Henricus Dacus, presumably the
same man, are known: a book about laxatives, De sim-
plicibus medicinis laxativis, and a book about herbs, Liber
herbarum, extant in several MSS from the 15th century.
His other works are written in older Middle Danish,
according to the late MS Thott 710 4to (A, 1450), by the
author’s own efforts: “Here a medical book in Danish
is begun, the one that Master Henrik Harpestreng com-
posed from his great mastership.” This is the prologue to
Harpestreng’s best-known work, Urtebogen (“The Book
of Herbs”), which is known from late MSS and two
MSS from around 1300. In one of these MSS (NkS 66
8vo by Brother Khud Juul, attorney of the monastery of
Sorø), two books about herbs are followed by a Stenbog
(“Book of Stones”) about the curative properties of gem-
stones, and by a Kogebog (“Cookbook”), the oldest one
with “French cuisine.” The Urtebog is translated from
a Latin poem in hexameters written under the French
pseudonym Macer, De viribus herbarum (ca. 1090),
and from Constantinus Africanus’s De gradibus liber,
a major work from the Salerno school (1050).
An astrological-prognostic work, which also contains
the doctor’s instructions for the bloodletting of King
Erik Plovpenning, is still unedited (GkS 3656 8vo,
from ca. 1500). Harpestreng also wrote about hygiene,
bloodletting, and cupping, and may have collected his
comprehensive knowledge in a leechbook. A Swedish
leechbook (AM 45 4to, from ca. 1450) names Harp-
estreng as author, but his name had such a reputation
in all of Scandinavia that it recommended any work.
The provenance is thus uncertain, and more detailed
examination of the authorship is lacking.
Harpestreng’s works reveal him as a pupil of the
international medical school in Salerno, Italy, which
pursued Greek traditions (e.g., Galen, 2nd century a.d.)
and Arabic ones (e.g., Avicenna’s Canon, 1030). This
antique system was based on a theory that the body
was infl uenced by four cardinal liquids or humors, cor-
responding to the four elements and temperaments: air
corresponding to blood (sanguis); fi re to red or yellow
gall (cholera rubea); soil to black gall (melancholia);
and water to phlegm (fl egma). Illnesses were caused
by a lack of balance among these liquids, and medi-
cine prescribed natural plants and minerals to restore
the balance by a contrasting principle. Phlegm has,
for example, the attributes of cold and moistness, and
one gets pains if there is too much of it in the stomach,
Harpestreng therefore suggests peas against stomach
pains, because the attributes of peas are dryness and
warmth like the yellow gall: “Pea is dry and warm;
boiled and eaten it causes a good digestion and warms
the stomach, but be careful not to eat it if you have an
ulcer or abcess, because it increases the pain, and do
not eat it during bloodletting nor when you suffer from
pains in your eyes, because it brings about and increases
warmth and infection and causes bad stitches and does
not allow the unclean liquid to fl ow from one’s eyes”
(from Liber herbarum).Further ReadingEditions
Konráðr Gíslason, ed. Fire og fyrretyve for en stor deel forhen
utrykte prøver af oldnordisk sprog og literatur. Copenhagen:
Gyldendal, 1860.
Klemming, G. E., ed. Läke-och örteböker från Sveriges Medeltid.
Samlingar utgivna av Svenska fomskrift-sällskapet, 82, 84,- Stockholm: Norstedt, 1883–86.
Hægstad, M. Gamalnorsk fragment av Henrik Harpestreng.
Videnskabs-selskabets skrifter. II, Hist.-fi los. Klasse 1906.
Christiania [Oslo]: Dybwad, 1906.
HARPESTRENG, HENRIK