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Harley MS 1735
- Record Id:
- 040-001980286
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-001980286
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001482.0x000218
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 1735
- Title:
-
John Crophill, Commonplace Book including astrological prognostications, cookery recipes, medical and alchemical treatises and recipes
- Scope & Content:
-
A composite and miscellaneous volume put together by John Crophill (d. in or after 1485), medical practitioner and bailiff of Wix Priory in Essex.
The volume includes:
1. Texts relating to astrology, Thyrtty Days of the Mone (ff. 1r-13v), prognostication, Prophecies of Esdras (ff. 13v-16v), and cookery (ff. 16v-28v), sparsely annotated in the margins by Crophill (ff. 1r-28v);
2. Series of texts (ff. 29r-36v), imperfect, copied on paper by a professional Norfolk scribe for Crophill's use, relating to astrology, astronomy and cosmology (ff. 29r-33r), the four elements and the human complexion (ff. 33r-34v), uroscopy (ff. 34v-35v), alchemy (f. 35v), and onomancy (ff. 35v-36v);
3. John Crophill, Notebook (ff. 36v-52v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
Harley Science Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-001980286", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1735: John Crophill, Commonplace Book including astrological prognostications, cookery recipes, medical and alchemical treatises and recipes" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001980287", "parent" : "040-001980286", "text" : "Harley MS 1735, ff 1r-28v: John Crophill, Commonplace Book" },{ "id" : "042-001980288", "parent" : "041-001980287", "text" : "Harley MS 1735, ff 1r-28v, ff 1r-13v: Thyrtty Days of the Mone" },{ "id" : "042-001980289", "parent" : "041-001980287", "text" : "Harley MS 1735, ff 1r-28v, ff 13v-16v: Prophecies of Esdras" },{ "id" : "042-001980291", "parent" : "041-001980287", "text" : "Harley MS 1735, ff 1r-28v, ff 16v-28v: Cookery recipes" },{ "id" : "041-001980296", "parent" : "040-001980286", "text" : "Harley MS 1735, ff 29r-36v: Texts on astrology, astronomy, medicine and alchemy" },{ "id" : "041-001980301", "parent" : "040-001980286", "text" : "Harley MS 1735, ff 36v-52v: John Crophill, Notebook" }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-001980286 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 1735 : John Crophill, Commonplace Book including astrological prognostications, cookery recipes, medical and alchemical treatises and recipes - Contains:
- Harley MS 1735, ff 1r-28v : John Crophill, Commonplace Book
Harley MS 1735, ff 29r-36v : Texts on astrology, astronomy, medicine and alchemy
Harley MS 1735, ff 36v-52v : John Crophill, Notebook
Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 1735 - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[1737]/040-001980286
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 52 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_1735 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1430
- End Date:
- 1485
- Date Range:
- 1430-1485
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment (ff. 1-28) and paper (ff. 29-52) codex (ff. 29-37: paper watermark representing a bull's head (ff. 31, 32, 36) similar to Heawood, no. 18; ff. 38-52: paper watermark representing a bunch of grapes (f. 45) similar to E. Heawood, Watermarks, mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries (Hilversum: The Paper Publications Society, 1969), no. 49, and Charles Moïse Briquet, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire Historique des Marques du Papier Dés Leur Apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 1600. Facsimile of the 1907 edn, ed. by Allan Stevenson, 4 vols (Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society), 1968, no. 12992; another unidentified watermark on f. 46).
Dimensions: 210 x 150 mm (Text space: ff. 1-28: 138-140 x 98 mm; ff. 29-37: 146-153 x 93-100 mm; ff. 38-52: variable).
Foliation: ff. iv + i*+52 (all unfoliated flyleaves are paper). Old paginations in black ink '1-56' (ff. 1r-28v) and '1-46' (ff. 29r-52v, omitting f. 50); foliation in pencil ff. '1-52' (ff. 37-37v originally blank).
Collation: composite manuscipt comprising three codicological units of different origin: ff. 1-28: i8, ii8-4 (first, second, seventh and eighth missing), iii-iv8, with traces of leaf signatures (lower right corner of ff. 9-10, 13-16, 22) and horizontal catchwords (ff. 8v, 20v, 28v, at centre of lower margin); ff. 29-37: v10-1 (first missing) with traces of leaf signatures (lower right corner of ff. 29-35); ff. 38-52: 15 single leaves (the only exception are ff. 39-40 that form a bifolium) mounted with consequent loss of the original gathering composition, including a small paper fragment (f. 50) that was possibly originally unbound and used to calculate the moon's age at a patient's birth.
Layout: ff. 1-28: ruled in ink (single vertical bounding lines) for single columns of 21-22 lines, text written below top line; ff. 29-37: unruled, single columns of 29-30 lines; ff. 38-52: unruled, single columns with variable number of lines and written space measures.
Script: Gothic cursive (Anglicana). ff. 38r-52v: written by John Crophill.
Binding: British Museum/British Library binding with the Harley arms and motto gilt-tooled at centre of covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England, SE and E (Norfolk).
John Crophill (d. c. 1485) medical practitioner and bailiff at Wix priory, Essex from 1455-1477: his marginal annotations (e.g. 16v-28v) and texts in his hand, including a list of 150 patients (ff. 36v-52v); his name incorporated in a poem: 'and I John Crophill' (f. 49r).
Provenance:
A parchment fragment pasted onto f. 1* verso bears the name 'IACOBO' within a cartouche, 15th/16th century.
Henry Worsley (b. 1675, d. 1747), scholar and manuscript collector, envoy at the Court of Portugal (1714-21) and governor of Barbados (1721-31): donated by him to Robert Harley together with other manuscripts from Worsley's collection (now Harley 1585-1747, 1811, 1812) before December 1712 (see Diary 1966).
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 shelfmark '1735' in ink, the first part of which, corresponding to '93.A.6', was cropped away by a binder and has been added in pencil by a later hand (f. 1r); another Harley shelfmark 'J/III B' partly in ink and partly in pencil (f. 1r).
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 1735.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Ilustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 16.
Ernest William Talbert, 'The Notebook of a Fifteenth-century Practicing Physician', Studies in English, 22 (1942), 5-30.
Max Forster, 'Vom Fortleben antiker Sammellunare im Englischen und in anderen Volkssprachen', Anglia, 67 (1944), 1-171.
Rossell Hope Robbins, 'John Crophill's ale-pots', Review of English Studies, 20 (1969), 182-89.
Rossell Hope Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts in Middle English', Speculum, 45 (1970), 393-415 (pp. 411-12).
James K. Mustain, 'A rural practitioner in fifteenth-century England', Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 46 (1972), 469-76.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 120, 361.
L. R. Mooney, 'Practical Didactic Works in Middle English. Edition and Analysis of the Class of Short Middle English Works Containing Useful Information' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Toronto, 1981), pp. 300-315.
The Index of Middle English Prose, Handlist 1: A Handlist of Manuscripts Containing Middle English Prose in the Henry E. Huntington Library, ed. by R. Hanna (Cambridge, 1984), p. 4.
W. L. Braekman, Studies in Alchemy, Diet, Medecine (sic), and Prognostication in Middle English, Scripta, 22 (Brussels, 1988), p. 58.
I. Taavitsainen, Middle English Lunaries: A Study of the Genre (Helsinki, 1988), p. 66.
Medieval Lunar Astrology. A Collection of Representative Middle English Texts, ed. by Laurel Means (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen, 1993), p. 15.
Lois Jean Ayoub, 'John Crophill's Books: An Edition of British Library MS Harley 1735' (Unpublished PhD thesis, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, 1994).
Peter Brown, 'The Seven Planets', in Popular and Practical Science of Medieval England, ed. by Lister M. Matheson, Medieval Texts and Studies, 11 (East Lansing: Colleagues Press, 1994), pp. 3-21 (pp. 6, 10) [with additional bibliography].
Sophie Page, Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), p. 40, pl. 30.
G. R. Keiser, 'Rosemary: Not Just for Remembrance', in Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden, ed. by P. Dendle and A. Touwaide (Woodbridge, 2008), p. 199.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)