Harley MS 6816

This collection predominantly features medical texts in Latin and English. It contains a section (ff. 97r-133v) of Middle English recipes that ends with Latin prayers against the plague and an indenture from Sempringham Priory in Lincolnshire, suggesting that the recipes may originate from this monastery.

Contents:

ff. 1r-30r: An English commentary on George Cheyne (b. 1673, d. 1743)’s Essay of Health and Long Life (published in 1724).

f. 30v: A Latin quote in pencil: ‘pergas pugnantia secum / Frontibus adversis componere’.

ff. 31r-74r: Bernard Martin Berenclow (the father-in-law of Humphrey Wanley's wife), ‘Medicina Practica Seu de Cognoscendis discernendi et curandis omnibus humani corporis Affectibus Doci Bernhardi Martini Berenclow Caroli secundi magne Britanniae Regis medici Ordinarii’.

ff. 75r-76r: A Latin tract enttitled: De formatione sexus in foetu humano; written in the 17th century.

ff. 77r-132v: A collection of medical recipes in Middle English, beginning with recipes ‘For Evill heringe’; featuring a section on medicinal oils and a list of the names of herbs in Latin and English.

f. 133r: Eleven couplets in Latin, featuring verses such as: ‘Optimus esse soles te fecit honor meliorem / Estimo quod fies de meliore bonus’.

f. 133v: Latin prayers to St Anthony and St Sebastian against the plague.

f. 134r: A copy or draft of an indenture from the Gilbertines of St Mary’s Priory of Sempringham, Lincolnshire, dated to 8 March 1505.

f. 134r: A prayer against tempests, beginning: ‘Salve pater heremita infirmorum Spes et Vita / Fac nos digne te laudare / Venerare et amare’.

ff. 135r-144v: A miscellaneous collection of early modern medical recipes, beginning with ‘A Receipt given under the Hand and Seal of an eminent Physitian as a Gratification to a Gentleman that had much obliged him’; written in the 17th century.

ff. 145r-150r: A list of herbs, roots, flowers and spices for the making of metheglin (spiced mead), entitled: ‘Herbes Rootes Flowers and Spices which may be generally used being rightly proportioned in the composition of Metheglin’; followed by instructions on how to gather, preserve and prepare them; and instructions for making Metheglin; written in the 17th century.

ff. 151r-158v: A collection of 17th-century medical recipes, beginning with ‘The Turkes Drinke’.

ff. 159r-159v: ‘Medecynes for the Gowte’; written in the 17th century.

ff. 160r-161v: ‘The Neck Plaister for Rheum and Eyes spread on Leather; Also good to lay to the soles of the Feet or behind the Ears’; written in the 17th century.

ff. 162r-163r: Entries about a merchant ship in England, written in Spanish, dated to 1636-1638.

f. 163v: English recipes; written in the 17th century.

f. 164r: A recipe ‘for a Quartan ague by Samuel Birch [d. 1719]’; in English and Spanish.

f. 164v: A description of the size and contents of the HMS Sovereign of the Seas, entitled: ‘The sovereigne of the seas, A ship Royall finished August 25 1638’.

ff. 165r-166v: Recipes for making mead, entitled: ‘An other way for the making of Mede by Mashing it uppon Malt’.

ff. Instructions to make Metheglin, beginning ‘To make Metheglin gathered out of sundrie mens observacions’.

ff. 167r-168v: Giuseppe Francesco Borri (b. 1627, d. 1695), Balsamo Cattolico del Borri; Italian treatise copied from a publication in Rome in 1689.

ff. 169r-170v: A treatise entitled: ‘The descripcion of Mede Royall with sundry differences in the Confection thereof’; copied in the (?) 17th century.

ff. 171r-189v: Collections concerning 'Cider et Winy liquors', written at Hereford in 1658-1659.

f. 190r: A tract entitled ‘The observations conserning Mellons’; written in the 17th century.

f. [189a] recto: ‘Observations concerning Mellons – Bought of Mr G. Paul’s Landlady’.

Decoration:

An ink drawing of the dead body of Christ, lying down, displaying his bloodied side-wound and the wounds from the Crown of Thorns, and being rolled in a cloth or death shroud by a figure of whom only their left arm is visible (f. 135v); perhaps copied from another manuscript or painting.