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Harley MS 1602

Record Id:

040-002047432

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002047432

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x00006d

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 1602

Title:

Collection of medical treatises, alchemical recipes and charms

Scope & Content:

This composite manuscript is formed of four separate codicological units with materials added to the beginning and the end, when the units appear to have been bound or kept together.

Part 1 (ff. 3r-4v) contains a collection alchemical recipes that was written in the 15th century.

Part 2 (ff. 5r-7v) contains a fragment of a late 16th-century commonplace book.

Part 3 (ff. 8r-10v) contains a collection of medical, alchemical and metallurgical recipes that was written in the 15th century.

Part 4 (ff. 11r-23v) contains a medical compendium that was written in the 15th century.

The added materials are fragments of a 14th-century French text (ff. 1r , 25*recto, 26r-27r) and recipes in English added in the 16th century (ff. 1v-2v, 24r-25r).

Part 1:

ff. 3r-4v: Alchemical recipes in Latin, including recipes against rats (f. 3r), and a tract on alchemy (f. 3v), beginning: 'Alkemia est sciencia docens transformare omnia genera metallorum in aurum et argentum'.

Part 2:

f. 5r: Medical recipe for itching, entitled: 'A medicine that shall heal / the greatest scawls or scawlde / head or itch or scabbe in / the worlde', beginning: 'Take and slyce certayne lymonis and / put them same lemans [sic] so slyced into an olde pott of Rustie Iron and grynde them well togeather'.

ff. 6r-6v: A tract on the features of animals, entitled 'De mirabilis', including e.g.: 'Lupi caput', 'Dentis masculi equi', 'Oculus canibus nigri', 'Spinea cameli', 'Ventriculum Arietis in aqua', 'Cornui Arietis', 'Lingua Anseris', 'Formices volatiles in oleo sambacin', 'Corium calcanei dextri vulturis', and 'Umbilicus Infantis'; probably extracted from from Gerolamo Cardano's De Subtilitate (1550).

f. 6v: A charm to staunch blood, with the heading: 'Hec que sequitur est precantatio ad cohibendum sanguinem ne fluat'.

f. 6v: A charm to catch fish, with the heading: 'Precantacio ad capiendos pisces'.

f. 6v: A charm to preserve wine, with the heading: 'Precantatio ad vinum non pervertatur'.

f. 7r: Collection of recipes, beginning with a recipe to protect onself with radish while treating serpents: 'Qui sunt peruncti leonis pinguedine tuti redduntur a feris'; and including recipes beginning: 'Si manus peruncte fuerint succro Radicule vel raphani tuto possis tractare serpentes', 'Veneficia Amatoria', 'Astrum samium' [Contra ignem Buffonis], 'Candela ex sulphure', 'Lyre nervi super carnes', 'Capparorum aqua distillata', 'Cytria putrescunt', 'Rubea tinctorum'; probably extracted from from Gerolamo Cardano's De Subtilitate (1550).

f. 7v: A recipe to write inside an egg ('Ut inscribas in ovo interius'), beginning: 'Gallas cum alumine tritas aceto subigeinde inscribe hoc liquore quod velis ovi cortici'; probably extracted from from Gerolamo Cardano's De Subtilitate (1550).

Part 3:

ff. 8r-10v. A collection of medical, alchemical and metallurgical recipes in Middle English (circa 20 recipes); Imperfect at the end. beginning: 'Take lynsede and stampe it in a mortere to it be wole brokene and take / sweit mylke', breaks at 'and put it in a boxe'; Listed in eVK2, no. 0455.00.

Part 4:

ff. 11r-23v: Medical compendium in Middle English and Latin (circa 106 recipes); imperfect at the beginning and the end. Includes diet recipes and disease descriptions, and texts relating to uroscopy, bloodletting and materia medica; beginning: 'Fleumaty he may ete fyssh rosted mare þan sodyn fysshe in water / poudre fissh', and breaks up with a recipe in Latin; listed in Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts' (1970), p. 403 ns 27-28; eVK2, no. 0406.00.

The compendium includes:

ff. 11r-11v: Medical texts relating to Master Pauline ['maystre Paulyne'], with the heading: 'The medycyne pauline is gode for alkyne evyll', beginning: 'For þe dropsy. For tysys. For desentirie'.

f. 11v: Text relating to the diseases in the four main parts of the human body, with the heading: 'Evyll of man whare so yt begynes', beginning: 'Foure partes is of a man whare þe evyll begynnes. Ffyrst in / þe hede. þe brest. þe wome and þe bledrede. þe evyll of / þe hede'; For similar texts, see Harley 5401, f. 87r.

ff. 12r-13r. Text relating to urine, with the heading: 'For to knawe euyll or horght3', inc. 'Iff þe uryne be / trebyll of þe sek man and haf haldand clouds aboune / fletand'; ending: 'signifyes'; For similar texts, see Harley MS 5401 (ff. 87v-88r) and Sloane MS 1388 (ff. 52-52v). Listed in eVK2, no. 2678.00.

ff. 13r-13v. Text relating to bloodletting; Imperfect (missing Jan., Nov. and Dec.), beginning: 'In þe Feuer3ere \lat/ þe blode of þe price so þat yn [....]'; ending at 'and heles þe longeste'. Listed in eVK2, no. 0355.00.

ff. 18r-18v. A recipe for a drink attributed to Richard Martin, with the heading: 'Drynk of Richard Martyne', beginning: 'Take burnet brydnest / turmentyne'; ending: 'of all þe toþer herbes'.

ff. 20r-20v. Alphabetical compendium of electuaries (circa 20); Middle English translation, including a list of compound medicines and their use; with the heading: 'Dyamagaritorium', beginning: 'Dya3in3aber is made of gynger it is / gode for þe host and for al maner of stopynge'; ending: 'Gariophilate […] of stomak and for þe goulsoght'. Listed in eVK2, no. 1469.00.

The manuscript contains later additions:

ff. 1r (1st and 2nd parchment pastedowns), 25*recto, 26r-27r: fragments of a poem in Old French or Anglo-Norman relating to Acab, king of Israel, and his wife Iezabel; written in the 14th century (very imperfect and faded on versos), probably used as pastedowns in the original binding, not included in Anglo-Norman texts described in Dean and Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature (1999).

f. 1v: Medical recipe for toothache, entitled: 'To cease any payne in the tethe', beginning: 'Rosmarye dryed and made in polder / alome burnte and made in polder'; added in the 16th century by the same hand that copied ff. 2r, 24r-25r.

f. 2r: Medical recipes from the adder's skin, beginning: 'There are 12 expedimentes in all of the aders skin'; added in the 16th century by the same hand that copied ff. 1v, 24r-25r.

f. 2v: Medical recipe from Oleander, beginning: 'the Berye is like a cherye'; added in the 16th century.

ff. 24r-25r: Medical recipes (9 recipes) in Middle english, entitled: 'To make one sweate', beginning: ''Take i ounce of commine / seed beaten small'; but also including recipes 'to sweat for the french evell [French Evil]', 'For him that is bresten', 'For Rupture that commeth downe into the body of mans members', and various ointments; added in the 16th century by the same hand that copied ff. 1v and 2r.

Decoration:

Large initials (2-3 lines) and paragraph marks in red on ff. 3-4; initials (occasionally large and extending into the margin) and cadels touched in red, rubrics underlined in black or red, and marginal maniculae on ff. 11r-23v; large initials (2 lines) in alternating blue and red with contrasting penwork on ff. 26r-27r.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002047432", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1602: Collection of medical treatises, alchemical recipes and charms" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002047432

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 1602 : Collection of medical treatises, alchemical recipes and charms

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[1603]/040-002047432

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_1602 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Anglo-Norman
English
English, Middle
French, Old
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1400

End Date:

1599

Date Range:

15th century-16th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper; parchment (ff. 3-4, 25*, 26-27).

Dimensions: Leaves of varying sizes mounted to fit a volume measuring 195 x 135 mm (text size in varying dimensions).

Foliation: ff. 25* + 27 ( + 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); f. 25* is a parchment strip in a paper frame; 2 unfoliated parchment pastedowns on f. 1r; 1 paper pastedown (printed Harleian shelfmark and subject category in pencil)

Collation: Leaves individually mounted on guards: ff. 3-4 form one bifolium; ff. 11-21 originally part of a gathering of 12 leaves with first leaf missing (see original quire signatures on ff. 11-14 and horizontal catchword on f. 21v).

Script: Gothic cursive (littera cursiva media, currens - Anglicana and secretary).

Binding: British Museum in-house; brown half leather binding with the Harleian arms gold stamped on the outside covers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Henry Worsley (1675-1741), scholar and manuscript collector, envoy at the Court of Portugal (1714-21) and Governor of Barbados (1721-31), owned the manuscript: possibly identifiable with his MS. 86 described as 'Quaedam de Arte Chymica, Membr. Medicinal Receipts, in old English, Chart.' in E. Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ in unum collecti… (Oxford, 1697), ii, p. 214, no. 6934; donated by him to Robert Harley (1661-1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, before Dec. 1712 together with other MSS from his collection, now Harley MSS 1585-1747, 1811, 1812 (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), I, pp. xix-xx; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (London, 1972), p. 361).

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. Harley shelfmarks '91.A.18 / 1602' in black ink and '2/III A' in pencil on f. 1r.

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née 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.

Publications:

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, pp. xix-xx

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), pp. 148-149 (no. 1602).

Rossell Hope Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts in Middle English', Speculum, 45:3 (1970), p. 403 ns 27-28.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 361.

Ruth J. Dean and Maureen Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society: Occasional Publication Series, 3 (London: Anglo Norman Text Society, 1999).

Linda Ehrsam Voigts and Patricia Deery Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference, CD-ROM, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor, MI, 2006 = eVK2), nos 0355.000, 0406.00, 0455.00, 1469.00, 2678.00

The cataloguing of this manuscript was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Worsley, Henry, 2nd son of Sir R Worsley of Appuldurcombe 3rd Baronet

Places:

England