Richard of Wendover

Richard of Wendover (died 1252) was an English cleric and physician.

Life Richard was a canon of St. Paul's, in which church he held at one time the prebend of Ealdland, probably succeeding Roger Niger in 1229. He afterwards held the prebend of Rugmere, which previously to 1250 he had exchanged for that of Neasden. Matthew Paris mentions that he was at one time physician to Gregory IX, who, on his death in 1241, gave Richard a crucifix containing relics, which Richard in his turn bequeathed to St. Albans. He died in 1252, his obit at St. Paul's being observed on 5 March. He left bequests to various bodies, including the hospital of St James's, near London, to have prayers said for his soul.

Identity Richard of Wendover, the canon of St. Paul's and physician, is to be carefully distinguished from Richard de Wendene or de Wendover (died 1250), Bishop of Rochester, as well as from the famous jurist, Ricardus Anglicus, who has been himself confused with Richard Poor, Bishop of Durham; and, finally, from another Richard who was celebrated as a physician in the early part of the thirteenth century, and had been physician at Montpellier, of whom Gilles de Corbeil , in his Compendium Medicinæ, says: Some have thought Richard of Wendover identical with a second famous physician, Richard the Englishman (Ricardus Anglicus), who had studied medicine at Paris and Salerno, and was author of the Practica sive medicamenta Ricardi, in which reference is made to the writer's practice at Bologna and Spoleto, and of the Tractatus de Urinis, whose author is sometimes styled "Ricardus Anglicus", and sometimes "Ricardus Salernitanus". Gilbert the Englishman cites a treatise De Urinis as by Master Richard, one of the most skilful of all doctors. Richard is mentioned as a celebrated physician by John of Gaddesden and others.