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Harley MS 3383

Record Id:

040-002049214

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049214

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00033b

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3383

Title:

Collection of medical texts and recipes

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-4r: A Middle English treatise on urine, beginning imperfectly: 'But yf the malyncole and the fleumatyk make þe suche than hy buthe yn a[…] oþer in a fever tercian. Nowe speke we of twey rede urynys with a whyte resydeus scheweth a man bue en a fever'; ending: 'and lete hyn use this til he be hole'. The text appears to differ from the Middle English compilation by Henry Daniel (fl. 1379), Dominican friar and horticulturist, but is listed as Daniel's work in Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts in Middle English' (1970), p. 399 n. 14. Listed in eVK2 no. 0384.00.

ff. 4v-8v. Collection of Middle English medical recipes (circa 50 recipes), imperfect at the end, with the first heading: 'ffor the ache of the h[ede with] grete hete'; beginning: 'Take þe juis of jubars id est sengrene'. Listed in eVK2 no. 6145.00.

ff. 9r-11r: John of Burgundy (attributed), Regimen of health, written in Middle English [title added by Knott in the upper margin: 'J[…] [b]urgon de peste']; with a Prologue beginning: 'Here begynnyth a nobyl tretis ymade for medicines agenst pestelence of a nobyl fecisyan John de Burg[y]on'; ending: 'what medicine ys a₃enst it'; the treatise begins: 'Thys seyd the clerke for defaute of good governaunce in dyetyng men may falle'; and ends: 'he schal be howte of this sekenesse Amen'. Listed in Thorndike and Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin (1963), p. 619k [eTK, no. 619K]; eVK2, nos. 2173.00, 7466.00; Matheson, ‘John of Burgundy’ (2006), p. 573.

ff. 11v-12r: Collection of Middle English medical recipes relating to wounds (circa 10 recipes), with the added title: 'Tractatus de Vulneribus'; and opening with the heading: 'And ffor telle liff or deth of a wunded man'; beginning: 'Take pympernele and stampe hit and ₃if it him to drynk'. Listed in eVK2, no. 5818.00.

ff. 12v-32r: Collection of Middle English and Latin recipes relating to apostemes (circa 150 recipes), with the added marginal title by Knott: 'Incipit […] alterius tractatus', with a prologue beginning: 'For all manner soris [...] postomes and onbycom et kankrs and gowt'; the first recipe begins: 'Make drink of bugle pigle and sanigl herbe Robert avence crop of rede worts'; the collection includes the ‘Charme of Seint William’ (ff. 20r-20v). Listed in eVK2, nos. 3446.00, 0255.00.

ff. 32v-35v: Glossary of herbs in Latin and Middle English, bginning: '[…] .i. sowredok […] .i. wylddgarleke centumca', and ending: 'Ziziber .i. radix peret … Zoni .i. betera […]'.

ff. 36r-36v: Collection of 4 Latin medical recipes, with the title: 'Unguentum dealtea'; beginning: 'mastiliconum et calasticonis a [...] radice evisti malasticon i.e. molificatum casast[...] i.e. calefactum'.

f. 36v: Galen (attributed), Aphorism in Latin, with the added marginal title by Knott: 'Aphorismi aliquot Galenici', and the original marginal title: 'apostemata in superficie'; beginning: 'Galienis superfluit vigiliarum '.

ff. 37r-44r: The Twenty-Jordan Series; a Middle English treatise on uroscopy with the title 'De urinis'; beginning: 'Karapos color aque: as scalis of fyssche a wynde under the syde þe stone aposteme'; ending: 'hic is signe of dethe'. Listed in Tavormina, ‘The Twenty-Jordan Series’ (2005), p. 43; eKV2, no. 3282.00.

f. 44v. De coloribus urine, in Latin verse; here attributed here to Richard the Englishman, but possibly a variant to the verse attributed to Henry of Winchester in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS. 117/186 (pp. 221-223), listed in Thorndike and Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin (1963), p.75j [eTK, no. 75J]. The text in this manuscript begins with the rubic: 'Incipiunt signi colores urine Magistrum R. Anglicum'; the text begins: 'Albus ut aqua purissima / latteus ut serum / glaucum ut corum lucidum', expl. 'significant mortificationem ex frigiditate'.

f. 45r: A description of the urine of epileptic patients with the title 'Urina pacientis epilenciam .i. morbum caducum'.

ff. 45r-46v: Latin medical recipes relating to uroscopy and other ailments (circa 13 recipes), with the added marginal title by Knott: 'Medicine Diureticae'; beginning: 'Sunt diuritica fu brustus pepergus calamentum'.

ff. 46v-50r: Collection of Middle English medical recipes (circa 30 recipes), with the title: 'A good pouder for festerus to do it away', beginning: 'Take rewe ornel arnement and salte [? ana] and do it in a newe pot'. Listed in eVK2, no. 5922.00.

ff. 50r-51r: Collection of Latin and Middle English medical recipes (circa 9 recipes), with the rubric: 'Electuarium Galyeny that ys good a₃eyne the colde of the stomake’; beginning: 'Recipe pipers albi'.

ff. 51v-54v: Roger de Baron (fl. late 13th cent.), Rogerina minor (excerpts); written in Latin, with the added marginal title by Knott: 'Tractatus de aquis'; beginning: 'Humana natura non minus indiget aquis physicalibus quam alijs medicinis'; ending: 'Aqua stomacum rettificans […] ad stomacum confortandum et cetera'. Listed in Thorndike and Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin (1963), pp. 303e, 644a [eTK, nos. 303E, 644A]. Similar texts with the same incipit in Harley MSS 2558 (ff. 189r-190v) and 3719 (ff. 259r-266r).

ff. 56r-76v: Collection of Middle English medical recipes and charms (circa 128 recipes), including texts on the virtues of rosemary (ff. 62r-62v), betony (f. 63r), and on aqua vitae (ff. 67v-67v: circa 38 waters), beginning with the heading: 'Dropesy - For the dropesi’; the recipe collection begins: ‘Take […] stannemarche and the croþes of þe rede ne[ttle?] and a quantity of ysope'; including an instruction for seven masses to be read in poverty or prison (f. 75r) and a French-Latin charm-plaster for treating wounds (f. 76r). Listed in eKV2, nos. 5997.00, 6096.00, 1261.00, 1032.00; and Keiser, 'Rosemary’ (2008), p. 198.

f. 77r: Latin note on how to facilitate human conception, with the title 'Quomodo mulierem impregnat'; beginning: 'Omnibus horis quibus concumbit vir cum muliere non generat nisi incipiente menstruo'; followed by another note relating to fistula. Listed for Harley 2558 (f. 166r) in Thorndike and Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin (1963), p. 993b [eTK, no. 993B].

ff. 77v-85r: Collection of Latin and French (Anglo-Norman) medical recipes (circa 54 recipes), with the first title: 'Medicina pro dolore dorsi', beginning: 'Edera terrea'.

f. 85r: Collection of Middle English medical recipes (circa 3 recipes), with the first title: 'For the hede ache'; beginning: 'Make lye of verveine oþer of beteyne'. Listed in eVK2, no. 3477.00.

f. 85v: Middle English verses introducing a prose treatise on urine, with the added marginal title by Knott: 'Praefatio rhythmica', and the original introduction: 'Ypocras this boke sent to the emperour Gencian'; beginning: 'Wete þou that this boke ys good leche / The all thyng that hit doeth teche'; ending: 'Nowe thou man take good geme / How þou mayste thy body ₃eme'. Another copy of the poem (equally lacking the first couplet) is in Sloane MS 3285 (f. 73r). This copy is dated to around 1475 in Keiser, 'Verse Introductions to Middle English Medical Treatises' (2003), p. 310. Listed in Keiser, X: Science and Information (1998), pp. 3852-3853, no. [302].a; eVK2, no. 8178.00; and The Digital Index of Middle English Verse, no. 2688-3.

ff. 85v-86r: Pseudo-Hippocrates, Letter to Caesar (Regimen sanitatis), excerpt in Middle English, beginning: 'Everiche man best and brid that body hathe in hym sylfe hathe foure humours that susteyneth'; ending: 'in þe ferth month'. For the text see Kibre, Hippocrates latinus (1985), p. 226 [without this manuscript]; Tavormina, 'The Middle English Letter of Ipocras' (2007), p. 637 [transcription from this manuscript]. Listed in Keiser, X: Science and Information (1998), p. 3853, no. [302].b; eVK2, nos. 1555.00 and 6896.00.

ff. 86v-87v: Collection of Latin and Middle English medical recipes and charms from Trotula (circa 14 recipes), with the title 'For wymen trawaylinge with childe'; beginning: 'Bynd to here wombe {cross} Maria peperit Christum {cross} Anna Mariam {cross} Elizabeth Johannem {cross} Cecilia Remigium'. Listed in eVK2, no. 1293.00.

ff. 87v-88r: Two short Middle English texts on bloodletting, the first (f. 87v) with the added title by Knott: 'De phlebotomiae incommoda'; beginning: 'Take hede þat þu ne lete nougt to moche blode man other woman that leteth to moche'; ending: 'in þe hede and oþer many mo evyllis'; the second (ff. 87v-88r) with the added title by Knott: 'Commoditas phlebotomiae'; beginning: 'Blode letyng thy thon₃te hit clerith the bladder hit chaufeth'; ending: 'and lenger hele in thy lif hit halte'. For comparison see Tavormina, 'Supplementary Text II. Liber fleobotomie' (2006), p. 285. Listed in eVK2, no. 5505.00.

ff. 88r-94v: Middle English medical recipes and charms (circa 76 recipes), with the first title: 'For the menesoun'; beginning: 'These metris both good for to used perof brede of wastell'; followed by a recipe with the added title by Knott: ‘Surditati’. Listed in eVK2, no. 7857.00.

The manuscript contains several additions:

f. 21r: A recipe '[t]o make a praetious powdr to shut any bodies bones that ar broken by Gods helpe'; added in the 17th century.

f. 22r: A Latin-German herbal glossary, including: 'Calamus - Halme' and 'Puls - Grutzen'; written in the 16th or early 17th century.

f. 70r: Memorandum aabout Agnes Dowdney, dated 1631.

ff. 95r-96r: Middle English medical recipes (circa 13 recipes), with the first title: 'tesyll for þe het ache'; beginning: 'Furste take a quarte of barly clene lessyd and set yn to þe watter for to nete'. Listed in eVK2, no. 4849.00; added in the late 15th or early 16th century.

ff. 96v-97r: Middle English alchemical recipe, beginning: '[Take] a pot off braser or of lattyne and lay hyme in þe erthe where þe soune and þe mone', with title added by Knott in Greek. Listed in eVK2, no. 4797.00; added in the late 15th or early 16th century.

f. 98r: Short English recipes: 'for the steche' and 'for a man that his […]kys be swolen'; added in the late 15th or early 16th century.

Decoration:

Titles underlined in red throughout.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049214", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3383: Collection of medical texts and recipes" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049214

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3383 : Collection of medical texts and recipes

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3384]/040-002049214

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English
English, Middle
German
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1475

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

4th quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper; the manuscript was badly damaged by damp and lost part of the original margins with occasional consequent loss of text particularly in the upper part of the leaves.

Dimensions: 215 x 150 mm.

Foliation: ff. 98 ( + 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); modern foliation in pencil ff. '1-98' followed here (including paper fragments and later additions). The manuscript also features early modern foliation in pen 'fol. 1-99' on the upper margins with numbers repeated in the lower margins (ff. 1-97), omitting one leaf after no. 57, predating the loss of six leaves from the first original gathering; ff. 21, 70 are paper strips pasted on a blank modern leaves.

Collation: i8 (leaf signatures 4, 23-26; old foliation 'fols. 1-4, 23-26') and ii6+1 (including additional f. 21; leaf signatures 8-19; old foliation 'fol. 8-19') were both originally part of a larger gathering of 26 leaves (missing fifth-seventh and contiguous twentieth-twenty-second); other gatherings as follows: iii14-1 (missing ninth), iv30-10 (missing eleventh-twentieth), v22-2+1 (missing fifth and seventh; including f. 70), vi20-2 (missing seventh and fourteenth), vii4 (later addition); leaf signatures; each quire has been mounted separately onto a paper guard.

Script: Gothic cursive (littera cursiva formata – Anglicana).

Binding: British Museum in-house; brown half leather binding with the Harleian arms gold stamped on the outside covers; rebound on 30 August 1967; the previous binding (gold tooled brown speckled leather) has been pasted on the insides of the upper covers; the former spine label, inscribed ‘Old Medicinal Receipts’ in gold, has been pasted on f. [iv]recto.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

? Thomas Williams, 16th century: his name inscribed in the upper margin of f. 85v: 'Thomas Wyllyams' (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).

? 'Jorg Langure' and 'Roger Wood', 16th century: their names (crossed out) inscribed on f. 98r (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).

? Unknown owner, early 17th century: their memorandum obout a visit to Agnes Dowdney in 1631 on f. 70r: ‘Anno Domini 1631: the xvij day of January, Agnes Dowdney the wife of John Downey, did say that I did come to her [...]’.

Robert Burscough (b. 1650/51, d.1709), prebendary of Exeter in 1701, archdeacon of Barnstaple in 1703, rector of Cheriton Bishop in 1705: sold by his widow on 17 May 1715 to Robert Harley, along with other manuscripts (see Edward Bernard, Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ in Unum Collecti, Cum Indice Alphabetico, 3 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian, 1697), II, I, p. 234 [no. 7680]; Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), I, p. 11 n. 6; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 87-88).

Samuel Knott (d. 1687), rector of Combe Raleigh, Devon (1661-1668), antiquary and collector of manuscripts: his notes in black or red passim, occasionally supplying faded words (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 211).

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, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘17 Maij, A.D. 1715’ (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. Harley shelfmarks '114.B.25 / 3383' in dark brown ink and '2 / III B' in pencil on f. [v]recto.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 22.

Lynn Thorndike and Pearl Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin, rev. edn, The Mediaeval Academy of America Publication, 29 (London: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1963), pp. 75j, 303e, 619k, 644a, 993b; and its electronic edition on CD-ROM (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000 = eTK).

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, p. 11 n. 6.

Rossell Hope Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts in Middle English', Speculum, 45:3 (1970), pp. 399 n. 14, 403 n. 27.

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. 87-88, 211.

Pearl Kibre, Hippocrates latinus: Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages, rev. edn (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985), p. 226 [without this manuscript].

George R. Keiser, X: Science and Information, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1500, 10 (New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1998), pp. 3852-3853, no. [302].a; p. 3853, no. [302].b.

George R. Keiser, 'Verse Introductions to Middle English Medical Treatises', English Studies, 84:4 (2003), 301-317 (p. 310).

Maria Teresa Tavormina, 'The Twenty-Jordan Series: An Illustrated Middle English Uroscopy Text', in ANQ [American Notes and Queries], 18:3 [Manuscript Studies in Honor of Linda Ehrsam Voigts] (2005), 40-64 (p. 43).

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 0384.00, 1032.00, 1261.00, 1293.00, 1555.00, 2173.00, 3282.00, 3477.00, 4797.00, 4849.00, 5505.00, 5922.00, 5997.00, 6096.00, 6145.00, 6896.00, 7466.00, 7857.00, 8178.00.

Lister M. Matheson, 'John of Burgundy: Treatises on plague', in Sex, Aging and Death in a Medieval Medical Compendium. Trinity College Cambridge MS R.14.52, Its Texts, Language and Scribe, ed. by Maria Teresa Tavormina, 2 vols, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 292 (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), II, pp. 569-602 (p. 573).

Maria Teresa Tavormina, 'Supplementary Text II. Liber fleobotomie', in Sex, Aging and Death in a Medieval Medical Compendium. Trinity College Cambridge MS R.14.52, Its Texts, Language and Scribe, ed. by Maria Teresa Tavormina, 2 vols, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 292 (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), I, pp. 277-286 (p. 285).

Maria Teresa Tavormina, 'The Middle English Letter of Ipocras', English Studies, 88:6 (2007), 632-652 (p. 637).

George R. Keiser, 'Rosemary: Not Just for Remembrance', in Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden, ed. by P. Dendle and A. Touwaide (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2008), pp. 180-204 (p. 198).

‘London, British Library Harley 3383', in the Digital Index of Middle English Verse [accessed 1 February 2022].

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

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Bentinck, Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Portland, née Harley, collector of art and natural history specimens and patron of arts and sciences, 11 Feb 1715-17 Jul 1785,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000115857160,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/2356861
Burscough, Robert, Church of England clergyman, 1650/51-1709
Harley, Henrietta Cavendish, Countess of Oxford and Mortimer, née Holles, patron of architecture, 4 Feb 1694-9 Dec 1755,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000030125833,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/6045563
John, of Burgundy, physician
Knott, Samuel, Rector of Combe Raleigh Devon, 1661-1668, d 1687
Pseudo Hippocrates,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000409584954,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/303414130
Roger, de Baron, French physician
Trotula

Places:

England