Royal Appendix MS 3

TREATISES on Materia Medica, in Latin. Imperfect at both ends. The same sequence of tracts occurs in Add. MS. 8928, and in Harley MS. 1585. An Anglo- Saxon version from Cotton MS. Vitellius C. iii is printed in Cockayne's Saxon Leechdoms, vol. i (Rolls Series, 1864), where other Latin MSS. are noticed. The present copy has no illustrations. Contents:-

1. 'Liber Platonis de herbis masculinis medicinalibus' (so colophon): the treatise De medicaminibus herbarum of Lucius Apuleius (called Barbarus, to distinguish him from the Neo-Platonist who wrote the Aureus Asinus), printed in J. C. G. Ackermann's Parabilium Medicamentorum Scriptores Antiqui (Nuremberg, 1788), p. 127. English names are usually given by the rubricator, others are added in the margin. Beg. in cap. xlix (ed. lii), 'folia cum piperis granis nouem'. Leaves are also lost after ff. 1, 2. The last chapter, cxxx, is on 'Camepicium' (ed. xxvii). f. 1.

2. Incipit epistola de bestiola quam aliqui melem uocant quidam uero taxonem, a rege Egyptiorum Octauiano missam (sic)': mythical epistle [of 'Idpartus', in the Saxon version] to Augustus, beginning 'Rex Egyptiorum Octauiano Augusto salutem. Plurimis exemplis expertus sum'. f. 7 b.

3. 'Liber medicinarum Placidi actoris ex animalibus pecoribus bestiisque et auibus': the work of Sextus Placitus Papiriensis, De medicamentis ex animalibus, printed by Ackermann, op. cit. p. 3. Preceded by table of capitula. Beg. 'Ceruinum cornu habet uires ad exsiccandos omnes humores'; ends 'uel labiorum appone. ualent mirifice'. Colophon, 'Liber medicine Sexti Placiti ex animalibus pecoribusque et auibus explicit feliciter. deo gracias'. f. 8.

4. 'Incipit liber Dioscoridis. In hoc enim libro continentur herbe femine numero sexaginta una' (&c.; lib. ii, containing the masculine herbs, is imperfect): a herbal partly extracted from the treatise of the Greek physician Dioscorides on Materia Medica. The arrange. ment here agrees roughly with Add. 8928 and Harley 1585, but that of the Anglo-Saxon version is different. Beg. 'Prime nomen herbe hecynum. Hec autem herba facit ad emptoicos'; breaks off in the chapter on Aristolochia, 'rotunda uero hoc ipsum [in omnibus facit]'. f. 18.

Vellum; ff. 21. 121/2 in. x 81/2 in. First half of the XIV cent. Gatherings of 8 leaves (the first, lettered c, wants three leaves), with catchwords. Double columns. Initials flourished in red and blue. Not identified in the old catalogues.