Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS 87
Medical works
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Followed by a short 'Nota vnum fundamentum in dosando'
The first entries are for various baths, draughts, plasters, and embrocations. Their purpose is occasionally stated and includes treating the stomach, dysentery and dropsy. The medical recipes that follow all address aspects of female health:
- f. 38v: for aiding or preventing conception/pregnancy ('Ad impregnandum' and 'Camphore nocet impregnacioni'), for cleansing the matrix/womb, several for inducing menstruation (including one for ?abortion/miscarriage: '[...] prooucat fetum et menstrua [...]'), for inducing urination, for the flux (continuing on f. 39r)
- f. 39r: for pustules on the face, for removing red blemishes from the face, for cleansing the face and removing all pustules, for inducing breastmilk, for urinary incontinence, for dropsy, for tertian fever, for an anti-emetic/preventing vomiting, for stomach and womb pain, for strenghtening the womb
- f. 39v: for removing wind from the womb, for strengthening the womb
Physical Description
20th-century foliation:
1-185
Numbering in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the rectoCollation
- Quires 1-710 (ff. 1-70)
- Quire 810-1 (ff. 71-78: 10th leaf cancelled)
- Quires 9-1810 (ff. 79-179)
- Quire 1910-3 (ff. 180-rear pastedown: 7th-9th leaves missing, 10th leaf is a pastedown)
1-710 810-1 (10th cancelled) 9-1810 1910-3 (7th-9th missing, 10th is the rear pastedown)
Leaf signatures combining letters ('a'-'s') with Arabic numerals
Catchwords in decorative banderolesCondition
Layout
210 × 155 mm. Ruled in leadpoint, frame and line ruling. Double columns. 50-52 lines to the page, written above top line.
Hand(s)
Copied entirely by a single scribe named Cornelius of Brussels , in Padua, in a Gothic rotunda script with some humanistic features (see Origin).
Decoration
Large (4-6 lines) initials in blue or red with frames of red penwork decoration.
Paraphs in blue or red.
Additions
Titles added in the (?) 17th century: 'Petrus de Tusignano [...]' (f. 1r); 'Marsilius de S. Sophia in prima fen. 4ti Auicenne de Febribus' (f. 41r); 'Antoinie Gaynerius Papiensis, Dr Med: de Febr' (f. 80r).
Note of the manuscript's contents in pencil on the front pastedown by a (?) 19th-century hand.
Note of the manuscript's contents in ink on f. 1r by a (?) 16th-century hand.
Binding
18th-century binding: white vellum (with early modern writing on reverse of the vellum on the front cover) over thin pasteboards. Four raised bands on spine. Description of the contents of the volume with an early classmark written in ink on the spine in an 18th century hand: 'Petrus de Tusignano / O.8.8'. Small printed paper label affixed to spine bearing the shelfmark designation '87'.
'James 87' written in pencil on the front pastedown, referring to the manuscript's designation in the Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis by Thomas James (1600).
A title inscription in brown ink on the manuscript's top edge: ‘Gaynerius cum aliis’
Binding height: 345mm; width: 245mm; depth: 45mm.
Added binding material: a thin stub of parchment with (?) medieval text (not legible) between f. 184 and f. 185
History
Copied in the year 1400 as indicated by a scribal colophon on f. 184v: ‘Scripte per me Cornelium de Bruxella Brabantinum Padue existentem tunc temporis ordinis scriptorum de abstinencia anno Domini M. CCCC. feria sexta ante festum Trinitatis’. His name occurs in another undated colophon on f. 79v.
Provenance and Acquisition
Thomas Deynman (fl. 1473-d. 1501) , Bachelor of Medicine from an unidentified continental university and Master of Peterhouse: his ownership inscriptions on f. 1r: ‘Liber Thome Deynman [...]’; and f. 184v: ‘Constat Thome Deynman medico’.
Bequeathed to Peterhouse by Thomas Deynman (fl. 1473-d. 1501) . Deynman was physician to Henry VII and his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and fellow of Peterhouse from 21 April 1473, and Master from 19 November 1500 until his death in 1501. Deynman bequeathed 'twenty of his better books' to Peterhouse, to be selected by one of the fellows.
Additional Information
Record Sources
Availability
Researchers should note that Peterhouse's western European medieval manuscripts are housed at Cambridge University Library. Scholars who wish to consult Peterhouse manuscripts should contact the Special Collections Reading Room to arrange their visit; all University Library admissions procedures will apply. For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Joining the Library. For further enquiries, and to confirm the availability of the manuscript, please contact the Special Collections Reading Room.
Bibliography
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A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of Peterhouse, James, M. R. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1899)
A biographical register of the University of Cambridge to 1500, Emden, A. B. (Alfred Brotherston) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1963)
Catalogue of dated and datable manuscripts c. 737-1600 in Cambridge libraries, Robinson, P.R. (Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 1988)
A catalogue of western book illumination in the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge
colleges Illuminated manuscripts in Cambridge, (London, Harvey Miller, 2011)
A descriptive catalogue of the medieval manuscripts in the library of Peterhouse,
Cambridge, Thomson, R. M. (Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 2016)
Funding of Cataloguing
Wellcome
Digital Images
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
