Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines

Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines (The Book of Holy Medicines)^[2][3] is a fourteenth-century devotional treatise written by Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster around 1354. It is a work of allegory in which he describes his body as under attack from sin: his heart is the castle, and sin—in all its forms—enters his body via wounds, and against which he begs the assistance of the necessary doctor, Jesus Christ. It exists in two complete copies today, both almost identical in language although with different bindings. One of these copies is almost certainly a surviving copy from Grosmont's family, although their provenance is obscure.

Grosmont was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in England at the time. A close companion of King Edward III, he was a major figure in the early years of the Hundred Years' War and a renowned soldier. He was also conventionally pious and able to put his wealth to demonstrate his piety, for example in the foundation of St Mary de Castro, Newarke, in Leicester Castle. Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines combines both elements from Grosmont's life, and the work is noted for the breadth of its imagery and imagination, much of which is taken from his own personal experience. The work describes Grosmont—a self-acknowledged sinner—talking directly to Christ, who is portrayed as a physician for the physically sick, and who is accompanied by the Virgin Mary as his nurse. Through metaphor, symbolism and allegory Grosmont describes how his body has been attacked by the seven deadly sins which now permeate him and talks his reader through the necessity for confession and penance to allow Christ to perform his work.

Le Livre was probably written at the urging of his friends and relatives, for a literary audience which would have primarily comprised his fellow nobility, but would also have included senior ecclesiastics, lawyers and the educated mercantile class. Historians consider it to be one of the most important domestic manuscripts extant from the era, not least due to the status and position of its creator. It exists today in a number of manuscript forms and is used by historians not only as a source for the history of books and literacy but also for the broader social and religious conventions of the English nobility.