Harley MS 2381

Compendium of Medical Recipes; mid 15th cent. Middle English and Latin. Copies. The cataloguing of this manuscript was funded by the Wellcome Trust and only the medical texts are fully itemised in the description. The MS. contains one large collection of medical recipes and three others very short and partly later. It also includes: - a) a list of herbs (f. 1) in Middle English; - b) a calendar (ff. 1v-13) in Latin; - c) a lunar calendar of the years 1463-1569 (ff. 13v-15) in Latin; - d) a note on weights and measures (f. 31v; item 2) in Middle English; - e) Lanfranc of Milan, Antidotary (ff. 40-47; item 4B) in Middle English transl.; - f) The Waters of Saint Giles (ff. 56v-60; item 4.C2). Table of contents (ff. 17-30) relating to the larger medical collection (item 4), inc. 'Ffor the blody mensoun 13 medicine .1. capitulum', with running titles 'A/B'-'Y'. Inscriptions (ownership notes?) on f. 22v, 'John Hignell his hand / 1646', ff. 64 and 116v 'James Weiy (or Weix ?) his hand / 1644', and f. 84v, 'Edward Roult / his hand'. Owned by John Batteley (1647-1708), clergyman and antiquary. Bought with other MSS. from his collection on 5 Nov. 1723 from his nephew, John, by Edward Harley (1689-1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, the date of the purchase marked on f. 1 by Harley's librarian, Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726): see C. E. Wright and R. C. Wright, The Diary of Humfrey Wanley (London, 1966), ii, p. 263 n. 1; C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani (London, 1972), pp. 66, 407. Bequeathed with Edward's library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (1694-1755), during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (1715-1785), duchess of Portland. Sold with the other Harley manuscripts 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 Harleian manuscripts became part of the collections of the British Library on its establishment in 1973. Harley shelfmarks '100.C.II / 2381' in dark brown ink and 'I/III D' in pencil (f. i). The MS. is described in A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts (London, 1808-1812), ii, p. 675.

Paper; ff. ii+116+ii. Modern foliation in pencil ff. '1-116' (followed here; ff. 21, 27v, 28v, 30v, 34 blank; 15v-16v, 19v, 32v originally blank). circa 220 x 148mm. Gathering: i¹⁶, ii^16-2 (xv-xvi cancelled), iii⁴ (two leaves possibly constituting a bifolium and two small paper slips), iv²², v¹⁰⁺² (ii-iii added bifolium), vi¹⁶, vii³². Only the calendrical material (ff. 1v-15) is ruled. Written in single columns of 26-31 in dark brown ink in a cursive English secretary script with some Anglicana features (littera cursiva media) by different hands. Marginal maniculae (passim), pen-trials (ff. 1, 84v, 116v) and a sketch (f. 28v) of the lower part of the human body. 18th-cent. binding in mottled brown leather with gilt-fillet decoration.

Contents relating to medicine as follows:

1. ff. 15v, 16v, 19v. Added medical recipes (circa 5 recipes); late 15th cent. Middle English. Copies. Rubric (f. 15v) 'For a man \or womanys/ yee that is hurte wit a pol(?)', inc. 'Take / gum arabyk and dissolue hym wit water of / rosys and ley hit to his yee'. Added by at least two different hands. Listed in L. E. Voigts and P. D. Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference, CD-ROM, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor, MI, 2006 = eVK2), no. 5449.00. Keywords: recipes, medical.

2. ff. 31-33v. Medical recipes (circa 27 recipes); mid 15th cent. Middle English. Copies. Rubric 'Ffor þe stone', inc. 'Take a stone tha ys callyd lapys iudaiorum {ounce} 1 saxifragie powder'. The collection includes (f. 31v) a text on weights and measures used by physicians, rubric 'To know yowr misure', inc. 'A scropull ys a gort wi₃th. iii scropullis ys a dram. viii drames ys / a vnce'. Listed in eVK2, nos. 4894.00 and 683.00. Keywords: recipes, medical; weights and measures.

3. ff. 32v, 34v-35. Added medical recipes (3 recipes); mid 15th cen. Middle English. Copies. Imperfect. Rubric (f. 32v) 'To make oyl of Exetore', inc. 'Take chalamint heuirb', copying the recipe on the facing leaf, f. 33. Added by two different hands, one possibly the hand of the main collection. Keywords: recipes, medical.

4. ff. 35v-115v. Medical compendium including medical recipes, a translation of Lanfranc of Milan's Antidotary, and the Waters of Saint Giles; mid 15th cent. Middle English. Copies. Imperfect.

Contents as follows:

A. ff. 35v-39v. Medical recipes (circa 22 recipes). Imperfect. Rubric (f. 35v) 'Ffyrste chapiter of xxiii and ix medicinae / a dryngk for all maner euylis', second rubric 'Ffor to make a dryng for all maner \of/ evyllys witin / mannys body þat ys to saye efficacissima … for many things more', inc. 'Make pouder of peletr sotelych and yf that / pouder iiij sponfull in swhete'. Listed in eVK2, no. 3482.00. Keywords: recipes, medical.

B. ff. 40-47. Lanfranc of Milan, Antidotary. Middle English transl. Copy. The text is a translation into Middle English of the Antidotarium written around 1295 by Lanfrancus de Mediolanum (c. 1245-c. 1306) as the fifth and last part of his Chirurgia Magna. Prologue inc. (f. 40) 'Here bygynnyth the Antidodarie of surgery / of pety lanfranke wich techith to make medcyne', rubric (f. 40v) '[**]Ys of repercussiuatiuis in þs manner', inc. '.i. Wit yow well þt as ofte as þu fondist to make a / repercussioun', expl. (f. 47) 'oþer woundys / Thus endyth the Antitodarie of Surgery / of pety lanfranke of many medecynes'. Mentioned in R. H. Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts in Middle English', Speculum, 45, no. 3 (1970), p. 406 n. 36, and listed in L. E. Voigts and P. D. Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference, CD-ROM, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor, MI, 2006 = eVK2), nos. 2223.00, 8189.00. This translation differs from that found in Sloane 2507 (ff. 21-31v) and at the end of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1396, and of Add. 12056 collated and published in R. von Fleischhacker, Lanfrank's 'Science of Cirurgie', part i (London, 1894; Early English Text Society, Original Series, 102), pp. 328-355, and translated from Fleischhacker's edition into modern English in L. D. Rosenman, The Surgery of Lanfranchi of Milan: a modern English translation ([Philadelphia], 2003). For Lanfranc, see 'Lanfranco da Milano', in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 63 (Rome, 2004), pp. 569-572 with mention of the present MS. at p. 571; W. O. Schalick, III, 'Lanfranco of Milan', in Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine. An Encyclopedia, ed. T. Glick, S. J. Livesey and F. Wallis (New York and London, 2005), pp. 305-306. Keywords: recipes, medical.

C. ff. 47-115v. Medical recipes (circa 600 recipes). Rubric 'Ffor the drye coughe', inc. 'Take a {half} {pound} of licoryse / and pare awey þe barke'. Listed in eVK2, no. 4713.00. Keywords: recipes, medical. This collection of recipes is interrupted by the insertion (ff. 61-63) of three astrological tables in Latin, and (ff. 52v, 56v-60) two embedded texts, which are as follows:

C1. f. 52v. Short text on bloodletting; Middle English. Copy. Imperfect. Rubric 'To knowe latyng of blode etc', inc. 'Ffor to knowe yowre weynes and how many þer beth of them / and where ₃e shall blede and for what desese'. Listed in eVK2, no. 1136.00, but with different beginning. Keyword: bloodletting.

C2. ff. 56v-60. Waters of Saint Giles; mid 15th cent. Middle English. Copy. Rubric 'Here bygynnyth the makyng of the water of seynt Gyle … in this wyse', inc. 'Take Isope and pulegium \id est monteyne/ gariofilata sugre \id est avence', expl. 'for no medecyne þat any man can make'. For the text, see W. L. Braekman, Studies on Alchemy, Diet, Medecine and Prognostication in Middle English (Brussel, 1988 for 1986; Scripta, Mediaeval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 22), pp. 7-41, with mention of the present MS. on p. 21; I. Taavitsainen, P. Pahta and M. Mäkinen, Middle English Medical Texts, CD-Rom (Amsterdam, 2005). Listed in eVK2, no. 5543.00. Keywords: recipes, medical; bloodletting; herbs and herbal medicine; distillation; plasters; waters; epilepsy; leprosy.

5. ff. 116-116v. Medical recipes (4 recipes); mid 15th cent. Middle English. Copies. Rubric 'A good medysyn for the ston', inc. 'Take water cressis samfans (?) in may / bellerys yonge parsely of euyri'. Listed in eVK2, no. 6496.00. Keywords: recipes, medical.

Recipes: Medicine and Surgery: Compendium of medical recipes: mid 15th cent.: Enm.

includes:

• ff. 1v-13, 13v-15 Calendars: Liturgical calendar followed by a lunar calendar: circa 1463: Lat.
• ff. 40-47 Medicine and Surgery: Lanfrancus de Mediolanum: Antidotarium by Lanfrancus de Mediolanum: mid 15th cent: Enm., anon. transl.
• ff. 56v-60 Recipes: Medicine and Surgery: Waters of Saint Giles: mid 15th cent.: Enm.
• ff. 61-63 Astrology: Astrological tables: mid 15th cent.: Lat.