Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Sloane MS 2839
- Record Id:
- 040-002115213
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002112337
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000653.0x00020f
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056067514.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Sloane MS 2839
- Title:
- Liber cirurgium cauterium; medical recipes; Epistola Peri Hereseon; Tereoperica
- Scope & Content:
-
This 11th-century manuscript contains a collection of didactical texts on practical and theoretical medicine. The format of this volume suggests that it was used as a medical textbook. It includes an illustrated account on cautery points, which was one of the principal medieval treatments, and an anonymous medical compilation, known as the Tereoperica (Therapeutics).
The compiler of the Tereoperica has relied on various sources. These include scholastic texts from Late Antiquity that were used for education at the school of medicine at Ravenna and passed down through Carolingian sources. The compiler, for example, has included materials from De Medicina (On Medicine) by Cassius Felix (fl. 447), the Etymologiae (Etymologies) of Isidore of Seville (b. c. 560, d. 636), and the lectures of Agnellus of Ravenna (fl. after 550-before 751) concerning De Sectis (On Schools of Medicine) by Galen (b. 129, d. c. 200). The Tereoperica circulated on the Continent since the 9th century (for a 12th-century copy from France, see Harley MS 4977, ff. 1r-72v). It was disseminated in England in the 11th century, where it was partially translated and adapted into Old English. The only extant copy of this translation, known as Peri Didaxeon (Concerning the Schools of Medicine), can be found in 12th-century manuscript Harley MS 6258B, ff. 51v-66v. The Latin copy of the Tereoperica in Sloane MS 2839 may have been written in England as well, as is suggested by the Anglo-Norman recipes added to f. 78v and f. 112v.
Contents:
ff. 1v-3r: Anonymous, Liber cirurgium cauterium Appollonii et Galieni de artis medicine (The Book of Cautery Surgery of Appollonius and Galen, on the Art of Medicine), including six cautery illustrations with descriptive inscriptions sometimes partially erased : [Ad dolorem capitis et inflamacionem] pectoris et minibus et tor[tiones geniculo]rum et ped[um incend]itur sic (f. 1v); incenditur ad interocellicos (f. 2r); ad splene (sic) incenditur (f. 2v), ad elefanticos incenditur sic and ad renum et coxarum dolores incenditur sic (f. 3r).
ff. 3v-4v: Added medical recipes written by various late 12th-century hands, beginning: 'Nota quod aqua catapucie bibita provocat vomitum'; ending: 'ad guttem ubicumque fuerit'. They are followed by a 13th-century incantation.
ff. 5v-6v: A list of contents of the Tereoperica.
ff. 8r-110v: Anonymous, Tereoperica: a collection of medical treatises on various aspects of medicine. The treatise opens with the anonymous Epistola Peri Hereseon (ff. 7r-8r),a dialogue between a master and a student on medical theory and practice, beginning: 'Post diluvium per annos mille quingentos latuit medicina usque in tempus Artaxersis regis Persarum'; the letter is followed by medical recipes for diseases of the whole body (ff. 8r-70r), beginning: 'Capillorum defluxion contigit ex debilitate corporis'; the anonymous Epistula Ypocratis de quattuor humoribus (Letter of Hippocrates on the Four Humours) (ff. 70r-71v), beginning: 'Epistola Ypocratis et Galieni contemplantes quattuor esse humores in corpore humano'; a series of remedies for various ailments, disorders, injuries, with their symptoms (ff. 71v-87r), beginning: 'De subita inflatione. Reumatismus dicitur reumatici humoris'; Pseudo-Galen, Epistula de Febribus (Epistle on Fevers) (ff. 87r-87v), beginning: 'Galienus auctor veritatis dixit quod febres sicut sunt diversi generis'; short texts for diagnosing and healing different type of fevers (ff. 87v-91v); short texts for diagnosing and healing various diseases (ff. 91v-106r); anonymous, Disputatio Platonis et Aristotelis (Discussion of Plato and Aristotle) (ff. 106r-106v, f. 110r), a treatise related to the location of the soul and the humours, beginning: 'Epistola conflictus duorum philosophorum Platon et Aristotelis'; short texts on bloodletting referring to the Egyptian days, the dies caniculares (dog days) and the lunar phases for bloodletting, embedded in the Disputatio Platonis et Aristotelis, including a dietary calendar (ff. 108r-108v, f. 109v), (ff. 107r-110r); short texts related to phlebotomy (ff. 110r-111v), describing the location of veins used for bloodletting and when bloodletting should be performed, beginning: 'Sunt venae tres'; Pseudo-Hippocrates, Epistula ad Antiochum Regem, (Epistle to the King of Antioch) (ff. 111v-112v), related to the division of the body and providing a diet according to the four seasons, beginning: 'Convenit te regum peritissimum esse et longam aetatem producere'.
Decoration:
Four full-page drawings in brown ink with washes of green, brown and red, of cautery figures (ff. 1v-3r): a surgeon heating cautery irons and a naked man with cautery points (f. 1v); two naked men with cautery points marked (f. 2r); a surgeon with cautery iron and a bowl, a naked patient with cautery points (f. 2v); two naked patients with cautery points (f. 3r).
Large and small initials in brown, red, or green, some with highlighting in green. Highlighting of letters in green.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Sloane Collection - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002112337
040-002115213 - Is part of:
- Sloane MS 1-4100 : Sloane Manuscripts
Sloane MS 2839 : Liber cirurgium cauterium; medical recipes; Epistola Peri Hereseon; Tereoperica - Hierarchy:
- 032-002112337[2836]/040-002115213
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Sloane MS 1-4100
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056067514.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Anglo-Norman
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1100
- End Date:
- 1124
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 185 x 130 mm (text space: 140 x 100 mm).
Foliation: ff. 112 ( + 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather; red leather back; marbled endpapers with Sloane's arms gold tooled on upper and lower outside covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England or Northern France.
Provenance:
Added, 12th-century recipes written by various hands (ff. 3v-4r).
Added, 12th-century recipes written in French (ff. 78v, 112v).
Added, 12th-century pen trial (ff. 2r-v).
Added, 13th-century incantation (f. 4v).
Sir Hans Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753), baronet, physician and collector: his arms gold tooled (front and back covers).
Purchased as part of the Sloane collection from Sloane's executors and incorporated into the newly founded British Museum in 1753.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts: Sloane 2720-2906 (London: British Museum unpublished manuscript of unedited descriptions, no date), no. 2839.
Salvatore De Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, ossia documenti inediti e trattati di medicina appartenenti alla scuola medica Salernitana, ed. by August Wilhelm Eduard Theodor Henschel, Charles Daremberg and Salvatore De Renzi, 5 vols (Naples: Typographie du Filiatre-Sebezio, 1851-1859; repr. Naples: Garzya, 2001), IV (1856), pp. 185-291.
Karl Sudhoff, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Chirurgie im Mittelalter: Graphische und textliche Untersuchungen in mittelalterlichen Handschriften, 2 vols, Studien zur Geschichte der Medizin, 10-12 (Leipzig: Barth, 1914-1918), I (1914), pp. 81 (as 'Sl.I'), 91-92, pl. XVII.
Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 6 vols (London: Macmillan, 1923-1941), I (1923), 723-24.
Augusto Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956), pp. 261-63 (no. 81).
Loren MacKinney and Thomas Herndon, Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, New Series, 5 (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1965), nos 48, 86.92.
Claus Michael Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Miller, 1975), no. 12.
Edward J. Kealey, Medieval Medicus: A Social History of Anglo-Norman Medicine (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 12-13.
Peter Murray Jones, Medieval Medical Miniatures (London: British Library, 1984), pp. 97-98, fig. 43.
Tony Hunt, Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-Century England: Introduction and Texts (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1990), p. 64.
Peter Murray Jones, Medieval Medicine in Illuminated Manuscripts, 2nd edn (London: British Library, 1998; first publ. as Medieval Medical Miniatures, 1984), pp. 77-78, fig. 69.
Richard Gameson, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066-1130) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) p. 122 (no. 578).
Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 498.9.
Peter Murray Jones, ‘Image, Word, and Medicine in the Middle Ages’, in Visualising Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550, ed. by Jean A. Givens, Karen M. Reeds, and Alain Touwaide, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art, 5 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 1-24 (p. 5 n. 8).
Danielle 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 Amalia D'Aronco, Textes et Etudes du Moyen Age, 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 495-512.
Florance Eliza 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 Amalia D'Aronco, Textes et Etudes du Moyen Age, 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 467-94.
László Sándor Chardonnens, Anglo-Saxon Prognostics: A Study of the Genre with a Text Edition (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 58, 103, 162.
Maria Careri, Christine Ruby, Ian Short, Terry Nixon, Patricia Danz Stirnemann, eds, Livres et écritures en français et en occitan au XIIe siècle: catalogue illustré, Scitture e libri del Medioevo, 8 (Rome: Viella, 2011), p. 100.
Laura López Figueroa, Estudio y edición crítica de la compilación médica latina denominada Tereoperica (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Santiago de Compostela, 2011), esp. pp. 115-122 (manuscript S).
Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, 'Two Latin Pre-Salernitan Medical Manuals, the Liber passionalis and the Tereoperica (Ps. Petroncellus)', in Medical Books in the Byzantine World, ed. by Barbara Zipser (Bologna: Eikasmós Online II, 2013), pp. 35-56 [on the textual tradition and sources of the Tereoperica].
Leslie Lockett, 'The Limited Role of the Brain in Mental and Emotional Activity according to Anglo-Saxon Medical Learning', in Anglo-Saxon Emotions: Reading the Heart in Old English Language, Literature and Culture, ed. by Alice Jorgensen, Frances McCormack and Jonathan Wilcox (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 35-52 (pp. 42-43).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.