What was the impact of Christianity upon medicine in the medieval period?
This resource was created with the AQA ‘Health and the People’ unit in mind, but it is suitable for a GCSE lesson on one of the many ‘health’ or ‘medicine’ units across the exam boards.
Students colour-code types of consequence then add the impacts to a spider diagram. They then write three PEE chains explaining the impact of Christianity on medieval medicine. Sentence starters are provided to scaffold their writing.
Answers are included for the categorising task.
An extract from the colour-coding task:
Task 1: Read the statements in the table below – they give information about the impact of Christianity upon medicine in the medieval period, including attitudes towards medicine.
Colour–code the table to match each set of statements to one of the following categories of impact:
Medical training | Hospitals | Attitudes in society |
Literacy rates were low. Most of the population were illiterate, so they were unable to read texts which may have disproved existing ideas. They relied on the Church for information and guidance. | The Church banned the cutting of the body in 1215. This meant that, because most physicians were religious men, doctors were not allowed to perform invasive surgery or carry out dissections. This prevented discoveries and experimentation, so old ideas were continued. |