Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 366/588
Antidotarium magnum
Contents
Physical Description
19th/20th-century foliation:
i-iv | 1-92 | 93-96
Foliated in pencil. The opening four endleaves are foliated on each recto as ff. i-iv and the closing 4 endleaves are foliated on each recto as ff. 93-96. The main part of the manuscript is foliated ff. 1-92, but folio numbers are only present on the first recto of each quire.Collation
The main part of the manuscript comprises 11 quires of 8 leaves, and a final quire of 4 leaves. Eight leaves from an early 13th-century manuscript have been added as endleaves: four at the front, and four at the rear of the volume. The outermost of these were probably used as pastedowns in a former binding: both have adhesive residue on their outermost sides, but both have been lifted during later rebinding and conservation work. These were noted as 'a' and 'b' by M.R. James in his Descriptive catalogue (1908).
- Four parchment endleaves (ff. i-iv) |
- Quires 1-118 (ff. 1-88)
- Quire 124 (ff. 89-92) |
- Four parchment endleaves (ff. 93-96)
1-118 124
No leaf signatures common to the entire volume.
No quire signatures common to the entire volume.
Additions
Quire signatures ('1-12') in the bottom right-hand corner of the recto side of the first leaf of each quire, written in pencil by a hand of the 19th/20th century.
Binding
Fully bound in tawed skin over wood boards. The covering material is undecorated, but there are traces of a title in ink (perhaps 'Liber Nich...') on the front cover. Four sewing supports.
The manuscript has been rebound since M. R. James examined the volume for his Catalogue of the medieval manuscripts belonging to Gonville and Caius which was published in two volumes in 1907-08. The original tawed skin cover has been detached, a new tawed skin cover laid over the original boards, and the original tawed-skin cover was then trimmed to fit within the perimeter of the outer faces of the wood boards and pasted over the newer cover material. The older tawed skin cover is heavily stained and rubbed, and there are large patches where layers of the skin have peeled or scraped off. When M. R. James examined the volume, he noted that it had 'red clasps, broken'; these clasps are not present on the current binding. Two small printed paper labels indicating the current shelfmark of the item are affixed to the spine, the upper label has the number '588' printed in red ink and the lower label has the number '366' printed in black ink.
The current binding has post-1908 paper pastedowns. The front pastedown contains a Gonville and Caius armorial bookplate with the number '588' corrected from '585' handwritten in red ink, and the number '366' handwritten in black ink. The number '585' is written in pencil in the upper outer corner of the pastedown, and is probably an error for the shelfmark '588'. Leaves f. i and f. 96 were probably the pastedowns in an earlier binding, as both have adhesive residue on their outer faces.
The date and the binder of the post-1908 rebinding is not known.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
At Gonville and Caius College by 1600: recorded as no. 162 ('Liber medicus qui procedit secundas literas alphabeti') in Thomas James's Ecloga (number written on upper margin of f. 1r). Not noticed by M.R. James.
Part 1: Scholastic text on Logic (fragment) [Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 366/588, ff. i-iv, 93-96]
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Text begins imperfectly.
Text identified and described in R. M. Thomson's Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts of Latin Commentaries on Aristotle in British Libraries - Volume II: Cambridge. Thomson states that this the commentary covers chs. 30-33 of the De sophisticis elenchis and that the text is 'apparently in the order of the leaves.'
Including notes on fever and apoplexy.
Physical Description
Collation
No leaf signatures.
No quire signatures.
No catchwords.Condition
Layout
180 × 130 mm. Ruled in leadpoint, two columns, frame and line, 50 lines to the column. (Folio iv verso ruled in light brown ink). Written above top line.
Hand(s)
Written in a precise and heavily-abbreviated textualis libraria. The text has been corrected, and particular words and clauses have supralinear emendations written in an extremely small hand.
Decoration
Two and three-line initials in red.
History
Part 2: The antidotarium magnum and other medical texts [Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 366/588, ff. 1-92]
Contents
Language(s): Latin
This text is described as the Antidotarium nicholai in the M. R. James Catalogue for Gonville and Caius College, but it is in fact, the text known as the Antidotarium magnum. The two texts have frequently been confused in the literature, but the Antidotarium nicholai has a distinctive preface (not present in this manuscript) where a 'Nicholas' addresses his readers and sets out his reasons for assembling a collection of medical recipes.
Folios 91v-92r have been exposed to liquid and much of the text on the opening is now illegible, but the remains of several medical recipes in Latin in several hands are still partly legible.
Physical Description
Collation
- Quires 1-118 (ff. 1-88)
- Quire 124 (ff. 89-92)
No leaf signatures
Quires numbered in ink in Roman numerals in the lower margin of the last verso of Quires 7, 9, 10, 12. The medieval quire signatures for Quires 1-6, 8, and 11 have been trimmed away. The remaining quire signatures have small pen-flourishes around the numeral.
No catchwords.Layout
185 × 105 mm. Ruled in leadpoint, frame and lines, ruling often very faint or latterly erased. Single bounding lines extending the length and the width of the page. Single column, typically 43 lines to the page. Written above top line. Pricked for ruling in outer margins.
Hand(s)
The majority of the text ff. 1r-91r is written by a single scribe writing a neat and well-practiced protogothic bookhand of the mid-12th century.
A scribe has added annotations on ff. 1r, 57v-59r and 91v-92r, in a rather rushed protogothic minuscule of perhaps the mid- or later- 12th century.
Decoration
Each antidote begins with a decorative initial 2-3 lines high in the 'arabesque' style common in English and French manuscripts of this date. Each initial is rendered in red, blue, or green, with decorative pen flourishes in one of the two colours not used as the base-colour of the initial. Due to the structure of the text, there are typically 3-6 decorative initials per page in the manuscript.
Each antidote section terminates in a red wavy line filler where the entries end more than c. 25mm from the right margin of the text box.
Additions
'162' written in the upper margin of f. 1r in brown ink in an early modern hand. Refers to the listing of this manuscript in Thomas James' Ecloga Oxonio-Catabrigiensis (1600), where it is described as 'Liber medicus qui procedit secundas literas alphabeti'.
The word ‘'probatio'’ in ink in a 12th century hand in the lower outer corner of f. 1r.
Marginal annotations in several contemporary hands throughout the text that supply corrections to or comments on the recipes.History
Additional Information
Record Sources
Availability
Visitors to Gonville and Caius College who wish to consult Lower Library material are required to apply to the Library in advance of their visit. For information on eligibility and admission procedures see: Gonville and Caius College: Library Information.
Custodial History
Number 162 in T. James, Ecloga (c. 1600)
Number 965 in Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (c. 1697)
Bibliography
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The Antidotarium magnum: A Short Description, Green, Monica H. (2019, https://www.academia.edu/40255503/The_Antidotarium_magnum_A_Short_Description_2019_)
Funding of Cataloguing
Wellcome
Digital Images
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
