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Harley MS 6258 B

Record Id:

040-002052106

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002052106

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000899.0x0003d5

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 6258 B

Title:

Medical miscellany

Scope & Content:

Miscellany including Anglo-Saxon medical texts, translations and recipes.

Contents as follows:

1. Pseudo-Apuleius Platonicus, Herbarium (ff. 1r-44r);

2. Medicina de quadrupedibus with added medical recipes and remedies in Old English and Latin (ff. 44v-51r);

3. Peri didaxeon (ff. 51v-66v).

Contemporary annotations throughout. Running titles 'A.-X.' (ff. 1-44) in ink relating to the alphabetical organisation of the herbarium. Marginal titles in Latin (circled).

The volume is imperfect in its first portion (ff. 1r-44r) and at the end; part of the first portion (ff. 11r-19r) has been recovered from the Cotton library and is badly burnt (see Cockayne 1866).

Decoration: Rubrics and chapter initials (2 lines; mostly set between bounding lines) in red, throughout.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002052106", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 6258 B: Medical miscellany" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-002162299", "parent" : "040-002052106", "text" : "Harley MS 6258 B, ff 1r-44v: Pseudo-Apuleius Platonicus, Herbarium; Liber de herba vettonica, attributed to Pseudo-Antonius Musa; and…" },{ "id" : "041-002162300", "parent" : "040-002052106", "text" : "Harley MS 6258 B, ff 44v-51r: Medicina de quadrupedibus with added medical recipes" },{ "id" : "041-002162301", "parent" : "040-002052106", "text" : "Harley MS 6258 B, ff 51v-66v: Peri Didaxeon" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002052106

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 6258 B : Medical miscellany

Contains:

Harley MS 6258 B, ff 1r-44v : Pseudo-Apuleius Platonicus, Herbarium; Liber de herba vettonica, attributed to Pseudo-Antonius Musa; and…
Harley MS 6258 B, ff 44v-51r : Medicina de quadrupedibus with added medical recipes
Harley MS 6258 B, ff 51v-66v : Peri Didaxeon

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 6258 B

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[6262]/040-002052106

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_6258_b (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Old
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1160

End Date:

1199

Date Range:

Late 12th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 187 x 143 mm (text space: 145-158 x 95-103 mm).

Foliation: ff. x + 66, including a number of slips added by the scribe (ff. 4, 9, 21-22, 29-30, 33, 35, 41) and badly burnt leaves (ff. 11-19: f. 15 is the upper corner missing from f. 19, ff. 16-18 were also added slips). Old foliation in pen '31-38, 54-98' (ff. 1-10 excluding added slips, ff. 21-66 excluding only f. 23 and repeating no. 71), which suggests the loss of thirty leaves at the beginning and of fifteen others in the burnt portion; modern foliation in pencil ff. '1-66' (ff. 4, 9, 21, 22v, 29, 30, 33, 35 are blank).

Collation: The original gatherings are lost and the leaves have been mounted on guards in small gatherings of four leaves, bifolia or single leaves as follows: i-ii⁴⁺¹ (ff. 4, 9 added slips), nine modern paper leaves framing the burnt leaves, iii³⁺² (f. 20 a singleton, ff. 21-22 two slips, ff. 23-24 one bifolium), iv^6-1+2 (fifth missing; ff. 29-30 added slips), v²⁺² (ff. 32 and 34 singletons, ff. 33 and 35 added slips), vi⁴⁺¹ (f. 37 inserted leaf), one slip (f. 41), vii-viii⁴, ix-x², xi-xii⁴, xiii¹ (f. 62 singleton), xiv⁴.

Layout: The first four gatherings start with the hair-side out, the others with the flesh-side out. Ruled on flesh side in metal point (double vertical bounding lines) for single columns of 21-31 lines. Text written above top line.

Script: Insular minuscule with Caroline and Protogothic features

Binding: British Museum/British Library binding with the Harley arms and motto gilt-tooled at centre of covers. Rebound in 1972.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Added title 'A Saxon Herball', probably identifiable with that of Sir Thomas Cotton (1594-1662), 17th century (f. 1r, upper margin).

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 '6258 b' in dark brown ink and '2/III A' in pencil (f. 1r).

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: [n. pub.], 1808-12), III, no. 6258.

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, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green, 1864-1866), II, pp. lxxxiv-lxxxv (MS O).

M. Löweneck, Peri Didaxeon, Eine Sammlung von Rezepten in Englischer Sprache aus dem 11/12. Jahrhundert. Nach einer Handscrift des Britischen Museums, Erlanger Beiträge zu englischen Philologie und Vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte, 12 (Erlangen, 1896, repr. Amsterdam, 1970).

H. Berberich, Das Herbarium Apuleii nach einer frühmittelenglischen Fassung, Anglistische Forschungen, 5 (Heidelberg, 1902); pp. 1-4.

J. Delcourt, Medicina de Quadrupedibus, an early Middle English Version, Anglistiche Forschungen, 40 (Heidelberg, 1914), pp. xii-xiii.

C. E. Wright, Bald's Leechbook: British Museum Royal Manuscript 12 D. XVII, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 5 (Copenhagen, 1955), p. 30

Neil R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. xix.

Neil R. Ker, 'A Supplement to Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon', Anglo-Saxon England, 5 (1976), p. 126 n. 1.

P. Bierbaumer, Der botanische Wortschatz des Altenglischen. II Teil: Lacnunga, Herbarium Apulei, Peri Didaxeon, Grazer Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, 2 (Bern: Lang, 1976), p. xi.

L. E. Voigts, 'A New Look at a Manuscript containing the Old English Translation of the Herbarium Apulei', Manuscripta, 20 (1976), 40-60 (p. 40)

L. E. Voigts, 'The Significance of the Name Apuleius ot the Herbarium Apulei', Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 52 (1978), 214-22 (p. 214 n. 4).

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

H. J. De Vriend, The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus, Early English Text Society, 286 (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. xxviii-xxxviii, pl. iv (f. 7).

A. L. Meaney, 'Variant Versions of Old English Medical Remedies and the Compilation of Bald's 'Leechbook'', Anglo-Saxon England, 13 (1984), pp. 241-43.

L. Sanborn, 'Anglo-Saxon Medical Practices and the Peri Didaxeon', Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa, 55 (1985), 7-13 (pp. 11-13).

A. N. Doane, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (Binghamton, New York, 1994-), I, pp. 44-48.

D. Maion, 'Edizione, traduzione e commento del PeriDidaxeon', (Unpublished doctoral disseration, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, 1995-1998), pp. 1-15.

Maria A. D'Aronco and M. L. Cameron, The Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia: British Library Cotton Vitellius C III , Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 27 (Copenhagen, 1998), p. 13 n. 14.

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, Appendix 2, pp. 153, 155.

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).

D. Maion, 'Il lessico tecnico Peri Didaxeon. Elementi di datazione', Il Bianco e Il Nero, 6 (2003), 179-86.

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, 57)

D. Maion, 'The Fortune of the so-called Practica Petrocelli Salernitani in England: New Evidence and Some Considerations', 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 ge, 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 495-512 (pp. 500-506).

F. E. Glaze, 'Master-Student Medical Dialogues: the Evidence of London, British Library, Sloane 2839’ 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 ge, 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 467-94.

Danielle Maion, 'London, British Library, Harley 6258B' in The Production and Use of English Manuscripts http://www.le.ac.uk/english/em1060to1220/mss/EM.BL.Harl.6258B.htm [accessed on 21 February 2012].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Apuleius Platonicus
Placitus, Sextus, fl c 370,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/000000001360252X,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/25399669
Pseudo-Antonius Musa, fl 4th century,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000072776562,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/160582729
Pseudo-Dioscorides, botanist, fl before 12th century