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Harley MS 585

Record Id:
040-001949795
Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
040-001949795
MDARK:
ark:/81055/vdc_100000000335.0x00039e
LARK:
SLARK:
Format:
ISAD(G)
Reference (shelfmark):
Harley MS 585
Title:

Medical miscellany including Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium, and 'Lacnunga'

Scope & Content:

Contents include translations of:

Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium (circa 183 plants) (ff. 1r-101v) including Old English translations of two Latin herbals:

  • Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium, imperfect at the beginning (ff. 1r-66v);
  • Pseudo-Dioscorides, De herbis femininis and Curae herbarum (ff. 66v-101v);

Medicina de quadrupedibus (ff. 101v-114v) that includes three texts:

  • De taxone liber (ff. 101v-104v);
  • De moro (ff. 104v-106v);
  • Sextus Placitus, Liber medicinae ex animalibus (ff. 106v-114v);

A table of contents of Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium (ff. 115r-129v);

'Lacnunga' (Leechbook) (ff. 130r-151v, 157r-193r), including the poem Lorica of Lodgen or Lorica of Gildas in Latin (ff. 152r-157r);

Marginal 13th-century glosses in Old English, Middle English and Latin.

Decoration:

Zoomorphic initials (2-6 lines; ff. 30v, 47v, 66v, 73v, 81r, 111v, 130r, 150v, 174r) and decorated initials (2-5 lines; throughout) in brown or red ink (guide letters on ff. 177v and 178r).

Original chapter numbers in Roman numerals in brown ink (ff. 1r-101r) partially substituted by a later numbering (ff. 1r-42r) in red, which agrees with the table of contents. Occasional titles and rubrics in brown or red ink. Marginal pen drawings (ff. 4r, 11v, 17v, 21r, 26v, 30v, 46r, 48v, 57r, 120r, 136v).

Collection Area:
Western Manuscripts
Project / Collection:
Harley Collection
Harley Science Project
Hierarchy Tree:
[{ "id" : "040-001949795", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 585: Medical miscellany including Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium, and 'Lacnunga'" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001949799", "parent" : "040-001949795", "text" : "Harley MS 585, ff 1r-101v: Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium" },{ "id" : "041-001949801", "parent" : "040-001949795", "text" : "Harley MS 585, ff 101v-114v: Medicina de quadrupedibus" },{ "id" : "041-001949802", "parent" : "040-001949795", "text" : "Harley MS 585, ff 115r-129v: A table of contents of Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium" },{ "id" : "041-001949807", "parent" : "040-001949795", "text" : "Harley MS 585, ff 130r-193r: Lacnunga (Leechbook)" }]
Hierarchy Record Ids:
032-002045828
040-001949795
Is part of:
Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

 

Harley MS 585 : Medical miscellany including Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium, and 'Lacnunga'
Contains:
Harley MS 585, ff 1r-101v : Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium
Harley MS 585, ff 101v-114v : Medicina de quadrupedibus
Harley MS 585, ff 115r-129v : A table of contents of Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarium
Harley MS 585, ff 130r-193r : Lacnunga (Leechbook)

 

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 585
Hierarchy:
032-002045828[0585]/040-001949795
Container:
View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
Record Type (Level):
File
Extent:
1 volume
Digitised Content:
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_585 (digital images currently unavailable)
Thumbnail:
Languages:
English, Old
French, Old
Irish
Latin
Scripts:
Latin
Start Date:
0960
End Date:
1040
Date Range:
Late 10th century-Early 11th century
Era:
CE
Access:

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User Conditions:
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Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment codex and 1 paper leaf (f. 194).

Dimensions: 192 x 115 mm (text space: 140-150 x 70-90 mm).

Foliation: ff. vii + 194 + 2* (all unfoliated flyleaves are paper; ff. 1*-2* are medieval parchment flyleaves, f. 194 is a modern paper flyleaf). Three sets of medieval foliations: - a) 'xi-xl' (ff. 1r-33v) in faded ink, which suggests the loss of ten leaves at the beginning; - b) 'xiii-lxxxix' (ff. 1r-78v, omitting one leaf after xix, omitting no. lxii and repeating no. lxxv) in dark ink, which suggests the loss of thirteen leaves at the beginning, continued by a later hand '90-203' (ff. 79r-19v2); - c) 'i-xv' (ff. 115-129: 13th century) in red. Modern foliation in pencil '1-194' (f. 193v blank).

Collation: Twenty-three gatherings of eight leaves with the insertion of additional leaves in gatherings i (f. 7), and xix-xxi (ff. 151, 163, 166); gathering xvi is a later addition with an additional leaf (f. 124) and lacking last leaf (after f. 129); first original gathering lost; last gathering xxiv of five leaves (ff. 189-193) missing one leaf at the beginning and with an inserted leaf (f. 191); all gatherings with hair-side out and mounted on guards.

Layout: Pricked (traces of pricking on ff. 157-162) and ruled from fleshside in hard point (single vertical bounding lines, but double on added ff. 122-129, 163) for single columns of 11-23 lines (24 lines on added ff. 122-129). Text written above top line.

Script: Anglo-Saxon minuscule; written in brown and dark brown ink by a number of scribes, main hands possibly identifiable as hand A (late 10th-early 11th century): ff. 1r-114v, 130r-179r (with the exception of ff. 131r-132v, 151r-151v); hand B (first quarter of 11th century): ff. 115r-129v; hand C (late 10th-early 11th century): ff. 179r-190v);

Binding: British Library binding; rebound in 1981.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Barbara Crocker (d. 1655), of Lyneham, near Yealmpton: owned in the 17th century, her pen trials, initials 'Ba. C.' and name (ff. 1*, 2*; see Ker 1957).

Robert Burscough (b. 1650/51, d. 1709), prebendary of Exeter in 1701, archdeacon of Barnstaple in 1703, rector of Cheriton Bishop in 1705: sold to Humfrey Wanley.

Humfrey Wanley (b. 1672, d. 1726), Anglo-Saxon scholar, palaeographer, and librarian of Robert and Edward Harley, earls of Oxford: owned in the early 18th century, his inscription 'Liber Humphredi Wanley' (f. 1r); given by him to Robert Harley.

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library. Harley shelfmarks '40.D.35/585' in dark brown ink and '2/III A' in pencil on a paper slip glued onto f. 1*r.

Publications:

Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 3 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian, 1697), II, p. 359, no. 9164.

Humfrey Wanley, Antiquae Literaturae Septentrionalis Liber Alter, seu Humphredi Wanleii Librorum Vett. Septentrionalium, qui in Angliae Bibliothecis extant, nec non multorum Vett. Codd. Septentrionalium alibi extantium Catalogus Historico-Criticus, cum totius Thesauri Linguarum Septentrionalium sex Indicibus (Oxford: 1705; reprint Hildesheim: 1970), pp. 304-05.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 585.

Thomas O. Cockayne, Leechdoms, Worthcunning, and Starcraft of Early England: Being a collection of documents, for the most part never before printed, illustrating the history of science in this country before the Norman Conquest, Rerum Britannicarum Medii Ævi Scriptores, 35, 3 vols (London: Longman, 1864-1866), I, p. lxxxiv.

John H. G. Grattan and Charles J. Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine illustrated specially from the Semi-Pagan Text 'Lacnunga', Publications of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, n.s. 3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), pp. 206-09, with pls.

Cyril E. Wright, Bald's Leechbook: British Museum Royal Manuscript 12 D. XVII, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 5 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1955), pp. 11-12.

Augusto Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956), pp. 249-50, no. 75.

Neil R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 305-06, no. 231.

Cyril E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 88, 119, 343, 382.

Heather L. Stuart, 'A Critical Edition of Some Anglo-Saxon Charms and Incantations' (unpublished doctoral thesis, Flinders University of South Australia, 1974), pp. 268-74.

Linda Ehrsam Voigts, 'One Anglo-Saxon View of the Classical Gods', in Studies in Iconography 3 (1977), 3-16 (p. 13, n. 13, n. 15).

Linda E. Voigts, 'Anglo-Saxon Plant Remedies and the Anglo-Saxons', Isis, 70 (1979), 250-68 (pp. 250, 251, 256).

Hubert J. De Vriend, The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus, Early English Text Society, 286 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1984), pp. xxiii-xxviii, pl. III.

The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966-1066, ed. by Janet Backhouse, Derek H. Turner, and Leslie Webster (London: British Museum, 1984), no. 163 [exhibition catalogue].

Audrey L. Meaney, 'Variant Versions of Old English Medical Remedies and the Compilation of Bald's 'Leechbook'', Anglo-Saxon England, 13 (1984), p. 245.

Margaret Laing, Catalogue of Sources for a Linguistic Atlas of Early Medieval English (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1993), p. 89.

Alger N. Doane, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (Binghamton, NY: 1994-), I, pp. 26-36.

Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library MS Harley 585. The Lacnunga, ed. by Edward Pettit, Mellen Critical Editions and Translations, 6 (Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 2001), I: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Appendices, pp. 133-49, with pls.

Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), p. 75, no. 421.

The Leofric Missal I, ed. by Nicholas Orchard, Henry Bradshaw Society, 113 (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 2002), p. 92.

Maria A. D'Aronco, 'The Old English Pharmacopoeia', AVISTA Forum Journal, 13 (2003), 9-18 (pp. 9, 11).

Maria A. D'Aronco, 'La pratica della medicina nell'Inghilterra anglosassone (secoli IX-XII)', in Medicina e società nel mondo antico: Atti del convegno di Udine (4-5 ottobre 2005), ed. by Arnaldo Marcone, Studi Udinesi sul Mondo Antico, 4 (Florence: Le Monnier, 2006), pp. 233-50 (p. 246).

Maria A. D'Aronco, 'The Transmission of Medical Knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England: the Voices of Manuscripts', in Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-Saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence. Papers presented at the International Conference, Udine, 6-8 April 2006, ed. by Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Maria A. D'Aronco, Fédération Internationale des Instituts d'Études Médiévales, Textes et Études du Moyen Âge, 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 35-58 (pp. 39, 50-55 and passim).

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story (London: The British Library, 2018), no. 109 [exhibition catalogue].

Exhibitions:
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, British Library, London, 19 October 2018 - 19 February 2019
Material Type:
Archives and Manuscripts
Legal Status:
Not Public Record(s)