Introduction:
The contents of the manuscript comprise simple, practical medicine: somewhat more
than two hundred recipes,
written in Middle English, as well as some charms in Middle English or Latin (see
ff. 28r-29r), including a Latin charm for making an apotropaic amulet called the Seal of Solomon
('Sigillum
Salamonis'). In numerous instances, these correspond - though not always precisely
- with recipes and charms found in other
compilations made in the 15th century, pointing not only to their widespread circulation
in a number of manuscript forms, but
also to a complex history of textual transmission, selection and emendation (for example
comparisons and further discussion,
see the introduction to
Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 95
). The first complete recipe in the present manuscript (preceding 'For a man þat spekyth
in his slepe' on f. 3r) lacks its rubric, but reading the text it is clear that it concerns dental care.
The reader
is instructed to burn a green branch of broom, grind the results into a powder and
mix it with a powder of burned alum 'the
fourth part' (meaning, perhaps, to use a quarter of the quantity of the broom powder).
They should be mixed well and tempered
with fresh water: 'Frote ofte the teþe þerwith' and any blackness shall be removed,
it concludes. It must have been preceded
by another recipe for the same issue, since it begins 'Also'. Only the last three
words of the preceding recipe remain -
'[and] þe felth' - but this is enough for us to locate the recipe in other collections
of this kind, such as
Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 9308, f. 26r
, and
Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.6.29, f. 54r
. The latter seems to provide the closest match, and there the two recipes are introduced
by the rubric: 'For to make
teth white þat arn blake or ȝolowe' (i.e. black or yellow).
MS Add. 9309 is especially worthy of note, however, on account of the survival of
its medieval, and probably
original, binding. It comprises a rigid spine made from a thick strip of leather,
attached to which is a rectangular piece of
thinner, flexible leather held together in numerous places and along tears by rough
stitching. Through this cover and through
the spine were punched numerous holes, grouped in rough clusters at four stations.
Through these holes have been looped fine
leather tackets that were then tied closed with knots. Onto these tackets were then
sewn the two quires of paper that comprise
this manuscript. Thin strips of parchment, placed along the fold on the outside of
the quire and at its centre, and through
which the stitching passes, provided the leaves with some additional reinforcement.
The leather wrapper was then folded along
its short edges, in order to enclose the paper quires. The fold on the part of the
wrapper at the back of the manuscript then
went around the right-hand part of the front cover. A looped leather thong attached
to this flap would have then been placed
around a simple toggle or button, probably made also of leather or perhaps bone, attached
to the front cover (this has since
been lost and only the leather tie remains, now split into two halves).
This constituted a practical, and cost-effective, form of binding: it comprised cheap
materials, and provided
the book with good protection against the elements. The survival of such 'limp' or
flexible covers is rare, especially since
they were more vulnerable to wear and tear than 'hard' bindings made from wooden boards,
and (like those) were also at risk of
being disbound and placed into more attractive or robust covers by later collectors
and libraries. The quires may have been
written on and held together in some temporary way before being bound together in
this wrapper. However, we know from other
surviving examples that such books could be made up and sold as blanks. This phenomenon
appears to have become increasingly
common in the later medieval period, in response to growing demand for the documentation
of land holdings, financial accounts
and the like, a demand fed by the increasing importation of paper to 15th-century
England (blank books of parchment leaves are
much less common). Either way, a remarkable characteristic of this binding was its
expandability: once all available space had
been used up, its owner could purchase further quires and have them sewn onto additional
tackets attached to the stiff leather
spine, enabling the book to function something like a modern-day ring binder file.
Information about the makers, owners and readers of these books is often frustratingly
elusive. We might infer
that they were owned by practitioners of the healing arts, or 'leeches', who learned
medicine not through academic study but
empirical experience, perhaps as a sort of apprentice at the side of a master. The
use of the vernacular instead of Latin
would have made the contents more accessible to such readers. The practical, portable
format of the binding suggests that it
was intended to be carried around, perhaps on visits to patients. There are examples
that appear to have been made
professionally (for example, Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 9308), suggesting
the existence of a commercial market for
such books - though in the case of the present manuscript it seems more likely that
it was made by its intended user. It is
written in a cursive script, with almost no decoration (only minor flourishes in the
same ink as the text), on pages that have
not been ruled for a regular layout. There are some tantalising clues as to who its
owners might have been in the form of
three, very faded inscriptions: one referring to someone not necessarily the volume's
copyist ('Iste liber constant [...]
scriptoris', f. 35v), another similarly recording ownership but where the name is no longer
legible ('Iste liber constant [...], inside of the front
cover), and a third mentioning the name 'Thomas Wortis leche' (inside of the rear cover, about an inch from the top edge). All three were first noticed in
2023 by Clarck Drieshen, Project Cataloguer for the Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries
Project. Advanced imaging techniques
undertaken by Cambridge University Library's Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory
have helped to reveal these inscriptions
further, and future analysis may provide further insights. Whether Thomas Wortis may
be identified with any individual known
in other records remains to be seen.
Dr James Freeman|Medieval Manuscripts Specialist|Cambridge University Library
Language(s): Middle English and Latin
1. 2r-35r
Medical recipes
Language(s): Middle English recipes, including a title in Latin on f. 28r (‘hec
est medicina bona pro morbo caduco’) and two Latin charms on f. 28v
Incipit: ||
3r and þe felth Also take a grene branche of brome and bren him and make þerof powdur
and do
to þat poudur \powdyr/ of brent alyme þe fourþe part and medyll ham well to gedur
and temper ham with fayr watur and frote
ofte þi teþe þerwith and hit schall do awey al þe blakmites of ham
Explicit:
35r ffor bytynge of an eddyr: Take lylly rote and pouer hit and drinke hit oþer drinke
pympernolle and hit wolle þe hole
The collection contains three charms: 1. an abracadabra-type of charm in Latin for
protection against evil that is called
‘Sigillum Salamonis’ (f. 28v). 2. A Latin charm for curing epilepsy (‘gutta
caduca’) that involves the Pater Noster and Ave Maria. 3. A charm against ‘Crampe’
that involves the formula
‘Ananizapta’ (ff. 28v-29r).
One or two users have marked the recipes in different ways: with crosses and with
the astronomical symbol for Cancer
(♋).
eVK2 5989.00 (v0060500000)
eVK2 5989.00 (v0060510000)
eVK2 5989.00 (v0060520000)
eVK2 1260.00 (v0060530000)
eVK2 2363.00 (v0060540000)
eVK2 4063.00 (v0060550000)
eVK2 5463.00 (v0060560000)
2. 35r
Account of a soul's seven-day journey after death
Language(s): Latin
Incipit:
35r De exitu anime per septem dies primo quidam die quando exit a corpore tendit ad
hierusalem ubi Christus passus pro se
Explicit:
35r septa die ad habitaculum proprium si vixerit male ad pena si bona ad requiem
Added in the second half of the 15th century by a different hand to that of
the medical recipes. The text appears to be unique, but probably derives from the
Visio Sancti Pauli,
which describes a similar seven-day journey of a soul after death: ‘Si quidem quando
vadit anima de corpore primo ad
orientem, diende ad Iherusalem, deinde ad domum quam edificavit Adam, deinde ad Iordanem,
deinde ad templum Salomonis,
deinde ad Bethleem Iuda, deinde ad montem Oliveti, deinde ascendit scalam ad superna,
ubi conveniunt ei quatuor milia
angelorum et archangelorum de tartaris preliantes circa anima hominis. Deinde venit
ad Ierusalem celestum in septem diebus
et die VII iudicatur in conspectu troni, prout gessit sive bonum sive malum’ (see
Lenka Jiroušková, Die Visio Pauli: Wege und Wandlungen einer orientalischen Apokryphe im lateinischen
Mittelalter. Unter
Einschluß der alttsechischen und deutschsprachigen Textzeugen, Mittellateinische Studien und Text, XXXIV (Leiden:
Brill, 2006), p. 538.
3. 35r
Poem against women
Guido Faba
Language(s): Latin
Incipit:
35r Femina fax sathane fetens rosa dulce venenum / Si tanges tangit si tanget cederes
[?]nes
Full transcription. Added in the second half of the 15th century by the same
hand that copied the previous item. The first line is an extract from Guido Faba,
Summa de vitiis et virtutibus (1.10.4).
Virgilio Pini, 'La Summa de vitiis et virtutibus di Guido Faba', Quadrivium 1 (1956), 41-152 (p. 124)
3. inside rear cover
Note
Language(s): Latin and Middle English
Incipit:
35r Hoc ornamentum for a dranc
The note is twice repeated, perhaps referring to the concentric circles above the
inscriptions.
Secundo Folio:
4r be closed with a clothe downe to þe erthe þat þe hete may passe
Form: codex
Support:
Paper, folded in quarto:
Tête de bœuf (ff. 2-19) (
50 × 30 mm.
), in the centre of the inner margin of the folio. Bull's head with eyes and nostrils, surmounted
with a line topped with a star in the shape of an X: Bull's head similar to Briquet
nos 15096-15097, but with
longer straight muzzle, which are dated to 1455
and 1470.
Tête de bœuf (ff. 20-25) (
50-55 × 25-30 mm.
), in the centre of the inner margin of the folio. Different types of bull's heads with eyes and
nostrils, surmounted with a line topped with a star in the shape of an X: similar
to Briquet nos 15096-1509, and
15098, which are dated to 1455, 1470, and 1478.
Bœuf (ff. 27-28) (
50 × 55 mm.
), in the centre of the inner margin of the folio. Bull with long tail with three ends, head
turned and face visible, similar to Briquet nos 2782 and 2783, which are dated to
1446-1448 and 1447.
Extent:
Codex:
34 leaves. Only small portions of the second leaf (f. 2r-2v and f. [2a]) remain. A single
fragment of another missing leaf features after f. 19 (f. [19a]).
175 × 135-145 mm.
Foliation:
Late 20th/early 21st-century foliation:
2, [2a], 3-19, [19a], 20-35 (for ff. 2-35)
Written in pencil in the upper right corner of each recto by Jayne Ringrose.
Foliation:
15th-century foliation:
iii-xxxv (for ff. 3-35)
Written in brown ink in the upper margin of each recto.
Collation
The manuscript comprises two quires of unequal size, the first lacking its opening
and closing leaves. Comparison with
Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 9308, f.
67v
confirms that the 20th leaf is missing (not cancelled; see Additions). The text for
another remedy for excessive
menstrual flow that uses comfrey boiled in white wine breaks off after the instruction
to lay a plaster made of these
ingredients to her navel (in MS Add. 9308, the reader is instructed to lay a further
plaster to the woman's kidneys).
The text on f. 20r begins part way through instructions for preparing 'papilionne',
as may be seen in the corresponding
recipe on f. 60v of MS Add. 9308.
- Quire 120-2 (ff. 2r-19v: 1st and 20th leaves
missing)
- Quire 216 (ff. 20-35)
120-2 (1 missing, 20 missing or cancelled) 216
Condition
Paper in a brittle state with water damage on every page and with many tears throughout,
especially ff. 3-14.
Layout
185 × 120-125 mm.
No ruling. Single columns. 30 lines to the page.
Hand(s)
The medical recipes are written in a cursive Secretary script with Anglicana features.
A larger module script, slightly more formal in its execution and often including
the
Anglicana double-compartment 'a', is used for rubrics.
The added Latin text on f. 35r is written in a cursive Anglicana script.
Decoration
One large (5-line) initial in brown ink decorated with cadels and a fish on f. 8v.
One large (3-line) initial in brown ink with penwork flourishing on f. 8v.
Line-fillers consisting of fern-like leaves in brown ink throughout.
Sketch of a castle in brown ink on the inside of the front
cover, visible below a sewn-down sheet of parchment, on which are also sketches of human
and animal figures.
Decorated rectangular 'frame' drawn on f. 35v in brown ink, but heavily rubbed.
Geometric figures drawn in brown ink on the inside of the rear
cover.
Additions
A note on the manuscipt in brown ink written in a 17th-century hand on the
inside upper cover: '33 Leaves [...]', possibly
followed by a date 'September 1670 [or 1870]' and the initials 'A.J.W'.
Quire signatures ('1-2') in the bottom right-hand corner of the recto side of the
first leaf of each quire, and '+' in the
same position on the first leaf after the centre of the quire, written in pencil by
J.S. Ringrose
. A further note by her hand - 'a leaf missing or cancelled' - is on f. 19v (see
Collation).
Binding
Rough binding of vellum pieces stitched together, including a flap secured with vellum
ties; spine formed of a rigid strip
of leather. Probably the original binding.
Origin:
15th century.
; England.
Provenance and Acquisition
Unknown English owner, their name illegible in a 15th-century inscription on the inside upper cover: 'Iste liber constat [...]'.
Unknown English owner, their name erased in a 15th-century inscription on f. 35v: 'Iste liber constat [...] scriptoris'
Unknown English owner, their name erased in a 15th-century inscription on f. 35v: '[...] est bonus puer quem deus amat'.
?
Thomas Wortis
, his name inscribed in a 15th-century inscription on the inside lower cover: 'Thomas wort[is] Leche'.
Purchased by the University Library at Bonham's Sale on 23 May 1995.
