Add MS 29301

This manuscript contains a collection of medical treatises, written in Latin and Middle English. They include two illustrated medical works by John Arderne (b. 1307, d. 1392), a renowned English surgeon who saw active military service during the Hundred Years' War. The first, the Liber receptorum medicinarum, is a collection of medical recipes and cures, while the second, the Practica de fistula in ano, is an account of how Arderne cured the anal fistula of one his patients, Sir Adam Everingham (b. c. 1311, d. c. 1370).

The manuscript also includes Middle English translations of Circa instans (also known as the Liber de Simplici Medicina), a 12th-century treatise on pharmaceutical herbs and plants attributed to Platearius, and the Gouernayl of Helthe, a medical work by John Mirfield (d. 1407). Mirfield was an ecclesiastical and medical writer and chaplain of the hospital of St Bartholomew, Smithfield, in London. The eight-chapter treatise elaborates on self-care and the importance of food and drink and exercise and their effect on the health of the body.

Contents:

ff. 3r-22r: John Arderne, Liber receptorum medicinarum, written in Latin, beginning, 'Ad cancrum in virga virili siue in alio loco experimentum bonum...'

ff. 22r-47v: John Arderne, Practica de fistula in ano, written in Latin, beginning, 'Ego Iohannes predictus a prima pestilencia...'

ff. 47v-50v: 'Diverse medicine secundum compilaciones diversorum magistrorum cirurgicorum', a collection of medical recipes written in Latin, the first entitled, 'Medicina quae dicitur noli me tangere'.

ff. 50v-54v: 'Diversitates herbarum omnium quae ad medicinas pertinent', a set of drawings of 68 English wild plants with medicinal properties, arranged in alphabetical order and captioned with their names in Middle English.

ff. 55r-89r: Circa instans (also known as the Liber de Simplici Medicina), attributed to Platearius, in a Middle English translation, beginning, 'Aloe is hote and drye...'

ff. 89v-93v: John Mirfield, Gouernayl of Helthe, written in Middle English, beginning, 'In þis tretie þat is clepid Gouernayl of Helthe...'

ff. 93v-94r, 95v-96r: Recipes and cures for various diseases, written in Middle English.

ff. 94r-95v: Treatise on the virtue of rosemary, written in Middle English, beginning, 'Rosa marina is bothe tre and herbe...'

ff. 1v, 2v, 96v-97r, and 98v are blank.

The manuscript features a number of later additions:

f. 1r: A pasted note in English on John Arderne's career and surgical treatises, written in a 19th-century hand.

f. 2r: Added ownership inscriptions and the Latin phrase, 'Quaque natura homo, visum vitium / natura inerat', written in late 17th-century hands.

f. 97v: A list of three Latin titles, with accompanying folio references, written in a 17th-century or 18th-century hand.

f. 98r: Added inscriptions and pen-trials, written in different hands.

Decoration:

The miniatures in the manuscript were made by a single artist, probably based in London and active between c. 1420 and 1430. Their other surviving work includes a Zodiac man in a collection of astronomical diagram and tables dating to c. 1424 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 370, f. 27v); the historiated initials in a Psalter dating to the second quarter of the 15th century (Add MS 6894); and two portraits of abbots, datable after 1420 and before 1440 in the Benefactors' Book of St Albans (Cotton MS Nero D VII, ff. 25r and 27r). For their identification and a list of the subjects of the miniatures and drawings in the manuscript, see Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts (1996), pp. 200-02.

1 three-quarter miniature in colours, depicting the four stages of the operation for fistula in ano, with a row of seven instruments in use below and four types of asterisk above (f. 25r).

1 column miniature in colours, depicting a Zodiac Man, with inscriptions accompanying different parts of the body, a crescent moon beside (f. 26v).

190 marginal drawings in colours, unframed, accompanying John Arderne's Liber medicinarum and Practica (ff. 3r-47v).

68 drawings of English wild plants in pen-and-ink, arranged in three registers, three or four plants to a register, the plants captioned with their names in Middle English (ff. 51r-54v).

1 diagram in pen-and-ink (f. 38v).

2 large decorated initials in colours and gold with foliate decoration and three-sided foliate bar borders ending in sprays (ff. 3r, 55r).

Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Paraph marks in alternating red and blue. Line-fillers in red and blue.

Rubrics and proper nouns in red.