L’expertise médicale et le jugement du droit de soigner (Paris, 1350-1550)

Abstract

At the end of the Middle Ages, the judges from the Parliament of Paris consulted medical experts for advice on the severity of victims’ physical injuries, or the causes of their death but also on the professional competence of the practitioners wishing to have license to practise medicine or surgery in Paris. The analysis of a collection of lawsuits during which the court required civilian assessments of proficiency, allows us to question the summoned experts’ status and authority as well as the relevance of the medical expertise to the required professional certification, usually delivered in Paris by the physicians from the Faculty of Medicine or by the sworn surgeons and barbers from the trade associations. Having heard the expert reports, the court could issue prohibitions to practise, thereby protecting the population from uncertified practitioners who had been disqualified as incompetent. Occasionally, the court could also grant some individuals who were in conflict with the medical groups a license to practise medicine, thus refusing to deprive the population of a proficient practitioner’s help when a positive expert report proved his abilities.

Keywords

• expert
• expert report
• Parliament of Paris
• health
• barbers
• physicians