Collection of medical recipes

An untitled recipe (f. 3r) has the name ‘D. Bulleyn’ written over it, probably referring to the English physician William Bullein (b. c. 1515-1576) who published various medical works between 1558 and 1565. A recipe for the dropsy (f. 4r)is attributed to ‘D. Langten’, probably referring to the English physician Christopher Langton (1521-1578), fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and the College of Physicians of London, who published medical works between 1547 and 1552. The recipe may not be taken from his published works, however, since it seems to describe an eye-witness account of a medical treatment performed by Langton on a female patient (‘Mrs Egles’) involving her being placed into a newly-dug pit and then being buried with sand taken from the ‘bowling alley’. A recipe for a gall or bladder stone (f. 8v) is attributed to ‘Valentine Rawsworme the stranger surgion’ (and said to have been given to ‘John Hinde’). This probably is the Valentine Russwurin whose medical practices were critised by the London surgeon William Clowes (1543/4-1604) [on Russwurin, see Amanda Coates, 'Stories of Medical Malpractice in Elizabethan England', Synapsis(2022)] (with thanks to Peter Murray Jones for sharing his identification). A recipe for ‘frenesie’ (f. 4r) is attributed to ‘D. Atlone’, who remains unidentified. A recipe for ‘the stone’ (f. 11r) is attributed to ‘D. Bayl’, who remains unidentified.

All the recipes are directly medical except for a recipe ‘for a wasshing ball’ (f. 9r), which involves Venetian soap (‘Sope of Venyse’). A recipes for a washing ball can be found in Hugh Plat's ‘Delightes for Ladies’ (London: 1600), involving castille soap.

Tract on the Four Humours

Collection of medical recipes

The collection contains ‘A preciouse water for eyes þat be blinde’, which involves a mixture of herbs, the powder of fifteen peppercorn seeds, white wine, honey, and ‘fiue spoonfulls of maskuline childes vrine’.

Two medical recipes

The recipes are ‘for a grene wound’ and ‘ffor to heale sores’.

Collection of medical recipes for treating broken bones and sores

Chirurgia Roland of Parma

Added medical texts in Anglo-Norman in the margins on ff. 54v (lower margin), 55r (lower margin), 64r (single word in Latin recipe in lower margin), and 73v.

eTK 0191P

Method for testing for leprosy

Note on the Chirurgia of Ruggero Frugardo

Added by a different 14th-century hand. Full transcription as in James (1901), p. 327.

Medical recipe(s)

Four lines of Middle English text, written in the 15th century, that Mooney (1995), p. 40 takes as "headings for or beginnings of three medical recipes and a fourth note": ‘ffayr rennende water and gret salt’, ‘Tak þe ball of wyn dreȝd and fenegre’, ‘Brend alum and reme of melk’, and ‘A pynte half a pound and ounce’. However it is possible that these lines all relate to one another and consitute a single recipe.

Medical recipes

Chirurgia parva Lanfranc of Milan

eTK 0757A

Liber de Naturis Rerum (extracts) Pseudo-John Folsham (attributed elsewhere)

Extracts from the sections ‘De aere et contingentibus aerem’ and ‘De motu celi’ of Pseudo-John Folsham's Liber de Naturis Rerum. Abramov (2003) identifies four full-text copies of the work and one copy of an abbreviated and selected version. Among the former is one 14th-century manuscript: Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.15.13 . The extracts in this manuscript, however, were previously unidentified.

Collection of five medical recipes

Added in the 15th or 16th century. The last recipe for treating pain in the eye is accompanied by a drawing of an eye in dark ink.

Bookplate verse from an owner of this book (rubbed out)

Full transcription. Added in the 15th or 16th century but subsequently heavily rubbed out. Mooney (1995), p. 40, transcribes the owner's name as ‘? belgerley’ but this record follows the DIMEV in transcribing it as ‘Bewerlea’.

IMEV 2766.2

NIMEV TM 1334

DIMEV 4391-1

Bookplate verse from an owner of this book

Full transcription. Added in the 15th or 16th century by two different hands: one hand has added the request for prayers and the other the verse that puts a curse on those who loose the book. Mooney (1995) transcribes the owner's name as ‘Belgerlay’ but, as with the preceding bookplate verse, the name appears to read ‘Bew[er]lay’ instead.

Book curse for losing the manuscript

Full transcription. Added by a 15th- or 16th-century hand. This verse is not mentioned in Mooney (1995) nor recorded in the Index of Middle English Verse

Recipe for treating textiles

Added in the 15th or 16th century.

De Anatomia Henri de Mondeville

eVK2 0370.00

Mooney (1995), pp. 40-41 [other copies]

Chirurgia parva (Middle English translation) Lanfranc of Milan

Not identified by Mooney (1995) who states that the text 'does not appear to correspond to ed. (EETS 102 (1894)) from BL Addit. 12,056 or Bodl. Ashmole 1396 [1]'. The latter two manuscripts, however, contain Middle English translations of Lanfranc's Chirurgia magna.

eVK2 3368.00

eVK2 2517.00

Asplund (1970)

Chirurgia magna (Middle English translation) Lanfranc of Milan

Mooney (1995) notes that the text is apparently incomplete and that it does not correspond directly to the other known Middle English copies of the Chirurgia magna.

eVK2 2933.00

eVK 4348.00

Mooney (1995), p. 41

Anatomia William of Saliceto

eVK2 0915.00

Heimerl (2008)

Treatise on remedies

Treatise of remedies with 130 headings, each including several recipes.

The remedies include a gynaecological section, including a diagnostic for establishing the cause of unwanted childlessness in a couple: ‘wheþer is defaute in man or woman þat she beres nougt’ (f. 239v), remedies for fertility issues: ‘ffor to make a man and woman to gete children’ (ff. 239v), recipes to influence the child's sex: ‘ffor to gete a sone’ (ff. 239v-240r), methods to establish the sex of an unborn child: ‘ffor to wete wheþer she be with son or with dougther’ (f. 240r), a section of charms to help a pregnant woman deliver her child safely (discussed below), methods to deliver a stillborn child: ‘ffor to delyuere a woman of dede childe’ (ff. 240r-240v), and a remedy for women who have purged excessively after giving birth: ‘ffor þam þat purges þam ouere mekell after Childyng’ (f. 240v).

The collection also includes prognostic methods to establish whether patients will live or die: ‘ffor to wete yf a seke man shall lyve or dye’ (ff. 240v-241r).

Among the remedies are various charms, including a charm for jaundice that involves liturgical formula written on a quartered apple (f. 228v: ‘Anoþer take an appell and schere it in .iiij. parties and do away þe fert party and write in a party . In nomine partris et filij sui ihesus nazareni + and in þe toder partyt et spiritus sancti + et in þe þryd party + rex iudeorum amen.’; a charm for epilepsy (‘Falling Sickness’) that instructs one to collect the herb mercury in the early morning of the feast of St John the Baptist, recite prayers over it, and then leave it on an altar until nine masses have been said over it (f. 229v): ‘Anoþer tak on saynt John day Baptist or þe sone arise a gresse þat men calles mercuryall and þe whyle þou drawes it vp sey þi pater noster and Aue maria and lay it on a Auter to .ix. masses be seyd ouere it þan tak þat gresse and drie it an make pouder þerof and gyf him to drink þat has nede þe weight of .iij. penys and he shall be hole for euere’.

Another charm provides instructions for curing epilepsy with amulets onto which are inscribed the names of the Three Magi written in the patient's blood, and for making a prophylactic drink for children (ff. 229v-230r): ‘Anoþer tak þe blode of þe litell fynger of him þat is seke and write þese þre names of Coleigne Jasper fert aurum thus Melchior attrapa mirram he þat beres þe names of þese .iij. kynges with him þan shall he be lessed þorouȝ pety of god of þat evyll. Anoþer tak and wryte with þe same blode þes þre names for saied and hange þa aboute his necke in a wryt. Anoþer make a childe drynk it wrytten or he be vj. ȝere old and he shall neuere haue it’; a charm for ‘þe cramp’ (ff. 230v-231r: ‘Anoþer geddre apoun gode friday at .v. parayssshe chirches .v. of þe fyrst penys þat is offeryd to þe crose of eche chirche þe first peny [sic] þe first peny þan tak [sic] þa[m] þam all and go be fore þe crosse and say .v. pater noster in þe worshippe of þe crosse and þe .v. woundes and bere þam ouer þe .v. daies and say day also mech on þe same wyse and þan gar make a rynge þerof withouten alay of oþer metell and write within Jasper balthar attrapa and write withouten ihesus nazarenus and þan tak it fro þe goldmyth apoun a friday and say .v. pater noster as þou dyd before and vse it all way afterward’

A section of charms to help a woman conceive a child (f. 240r): ‘Here begynnes charmes for trauelyng of child. Arcus forcium super nos sedebit virgo maria notabit lux et hora sedule sedebit rebus rubus rarantibus natus nater natoribus faxs sic memor esto vt sit puer vel puella. Exiet foras qui Christus natus est nullum dolore passus est venit homo fugit dolor Christus adiutori adiuro te virgo per patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum vt habeas potestatem coniungendi say þis charme thryse and scho shall sone haue child and it be hir tyme. Anoþer say quicumque vult ouer hir and scho shall haue childe and it be hir tyme. Anoþer Beata Anna genuit mariam matrem domini nostri Jhesu Christi et sancta maria genuit Christum filium dei Annunciante gabriel archangelo per ipsam natiuitatem credo ego quod omnis Christianus a morte et ab omni periculo potest esse liberatus sancta maria dei genitrix et omnis sancti apostoli et omnes sancti martires et omnes sancti confessores et omnes sancti virgines ut intercedant pro famula dei amen. Anoþer tak and þese wordes in buttur or chese and garhir ete sator arrepe to nete operarotas’.

While Mooney notes that the collection's first recipes resemble those in the ‘Liber de Diversis’ and can be compared with copies of this collection, the collection's previously unresearched charms suggest specific parallels with London, British Library, Royal MS 17 A.viii . Both manuscripts include the so-called ‘Arcus’ charm (a hitherto unidentified copy appears on f. 240r) as well as the charm that opens with the words ‘Beata Anna’.

eVK2 5141.00

Olsan (1989) [without this manuscript]

Mooney (1995), p. 41 [other copies]