Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

A catalogue of Western manuscripts and papyri at Cambridge University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and selected Cambridge colleges

Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.5.76

Medical treatises and recipes

Contents

Introduction: Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.5.76, written on paper in various hands, shows in its first section how closely related recipes for writing and decorating books are to those for medical healing. At the same time, the compiler also asserted the intellectual value of such craft knowledge by reference to venerable philosophical and medical authorities. Subsequently, the manuscript became a repository for short extracts from notable medical texts, namely the Dome of uryne by Henry Daniel (ff. 28r-29v), a rare Middle English treatise on wounds (ff. 30r-38v) based on Book Two of Guglielmo da Saliceto's Latin Cyrurgia, and an extract from a Latin alphabetical treatise on the properties of herbs (ff. 76r-93v). Its longest entry is a collection of about 350 medical and surgical recipes (ff. 39r-75v). The manuscript had a long life as a resource for medical remedies and surgical treatments. A name or names of owners of a personal medical compilation ending on f. 26v have been erased from colophons on f. 27r. Johannes Bintreth/Buctreth is identified (f. 75r) as an owner of a book containing a rare Middle English wound treatise (ff. 30r-38v) and the larger collection of about 350 medical recipes (ff. 39r-75v). Throughout the manuscript, notes have been added by those through whose hands the manuscript passed, strongly suggesting that it was in use from the late 15th century into the 16th and early 17th centuries. To judge by repeated marginal notes to 'Take this', beginning on f. 7v, one reader intended to make his own compilation from the first collection of recipes. 16th- or 17th-century users added on a blank page (f. 27v) cures for stomach ailments attributed to doctors Smith, Lang, Walker and Barnesley. An anonymous user added occasional marginal clarifications to aid reading the text on the properties of herbs (ff. 76r-93v). Part 1 of MS Dd.5.76, ff. 1r-26v, is a remarkable, deliberate personal compilation of craft recipes and medical recipes, the latter primarily for cankers, fevers, and wound care. The table of contents is prefaced by a unique copy of a Middle English poem, much damaged, in ten rhymed stanzas, constituting a devout penitential prayer. The rubric to the recipe collection appears in bright red ink immediately after the end of the poem (f. 2r), and the text of both were written by the same hand. The rubric reads 'Here begins the book of diverse materials and medicines and ointments' ('Hic incipit liber de diversis rebus et medicinis ac unguentis'), leaving little doubt that the artisanal and medical recipes to follow were conceived as one unit. This rubric continues by announcing that 'in the first place' stands the letter of Aristotle, sent to King Alexander regarding maintenance of the health of the human body ('In primis epistula aristotelis missa ad alexandrem regem de conseruacione humani corporis'). The text begins with the only decorated initial in this part of the manuscript. Latin versions of the letter of Aristotle to Alexander, known as the Secretum secretorum, appear in other late medieval manuscripts. Here, the letter of advice concerns personal habits, good and bad digestion, and ends with a summary of the best foods to be eaten in each season of the year. There then follows the list of the recipes to be included, corresponding to those copied into the text. However, between the table of contents and the recipes proper, the compiler inserted four items, not accounted for in the table of copied texts, which reveal his own interests (ff. 6v-7r): a charm for fevers, a 'marvelous drink' for canker and fistulas as well as internal poisons, and two Latin prayers, one to be spoken when making a medicine, and another to recite when administering a medicine. The recipes identified in the table of contents cover eleven folios (ff. 7r-22r), and they begin with thirty craft recipes. Most of these would be useful to a scribe or illuminator of books, but there is also one for making soap that states at what point to 'set your mark on the cake', and one for dye to mark wool or wool sacks, both of which speak to wider commercial interests. One to retrieve gold or silver from an old ribbon even shows how to source these precious metals by recycling. Colour recipes as found in MS Dd.5.76 range from blacks, azure, vermilion, rose, white (ceruse), gold for illuminating letters, 'good' green, blue turnsole, and a colour 'like gold'. The ink recipes include 'Lombard ink', 'text ink' and 'black ink' as well as red, a 'fine rose' for writing and ruling pages. There are several recipes for making sizes or gums and recipes for multiplying the quantity of 'asure byce', turnsole, and wax. The series of craft and medical recipes is divided by a rubric on f. 12v that establishes the authority of the medical cures and clarifies their purpose: 'Here begynnes a boke of gode medicines proued with gode clerkes and oþere maysters of fesik and vsed be þam for for cancres gode medicines prowed be maystere henri arden and oþere mo mastres'. 'Master Henri Arden' is probably a misidentification of the surgeon, John Arderne. What follows are more than eighty medical recipes beginning with ten for 'canker' (that is, ulcers of various types), followed by recipes for similarly painful gout, fester, sores, wounds and an 'enposteme' (an inflammation or swelling of bad humours). Ringworms, head lice, and a skin disease called 'the fire of hell' appear later in the list. Besides such skin lesions, there are remedies for internal diseases such as stomach pains and constipation and for swellings of the neck and liver. Six recipes concern removing or growing hair or colouring it black or brown. Other diseases warrant one or two remedies, although migraine headaches receive a total of five. The forms of the remedies offered as cures comprise twenty-four ointments, fourteen plasters, twenty-five drinks, three lectuaries or soft sweetened medicines, four medicines to be taken in small doses, and three powders. Frequently, the same ingredients used in recipes for inks, sizing, colours (white, green, blue, red) are also found in cures for canker, fester, and other external lesions as well as for internal diseases that were perceived to derive from corrupted humours and biting poisons. Similarly, a charm to cure fevers requires the direct application of ink. In Part 2 of the manuscript, a scribe copied the first chapters of Henry Daniel's widely circulated Dome of uryne (ff. 28r-29v), which has been edited by M. Teresa Tavormina. The scribe elaborated the initial letter Ts with animal and human heads; these doodles are the only figural decoration in the whole manuscript. Whereas the rest of the manuscript's contents deal broadly with treatment, this text is the only one that addresses diagnosis, and specifically through urinoscopy. As the author explains, four elements belong to the 'dome of uryne' (i.e. the doom, or passing of judgement on, urine, from the Middle English verb 'domen'): the substance, colours, regions and contents. Is the substance thick or thin, or in between? If it is thin enough to see the joints of your fingers through it, Daniel wrote, 'that thynnes betokynneth a bad splene and a bad stomak and a watyr in the bowellys'. Thickness indicated a pain in the stomach, in the head and in the bowels, but somewhere in between indicated 'disease of the gall'. Of colour, Daniel explained that, 'as Masterys sayth', there were twenty possible colours of urine, and proceeded to describe these, beginning with the whitest, 'as clere watyr of the well'; unfortunately, the copy of the text preserved here ends imperfectly, part-way through the description of the sixteenth colour, which is 'as black wyne'. In Part 3, the Middle English treatise on wounds is a loose translation of excerpts taken from Book Two of Guglielmo da Saliceto's Chirurgia, which was written in late 13th-century Italy. The original Latin text describes how a surgeon should cleanse, suture, and treat piercing wounds caused by swords and arrows and the like with numerous recipes for cleansing, closing, and soothing. The Cambridge Middle English wounds treatise begins in the middle of a sentence (f. 30r) in Book Two, Chapter Nine, on wounds to the arms and hands. It continues with excerpts from Chapters Twelve through Sixteen, covering (in order) wounds to the breast and ribs, back, mouth of the stomach (where the scribe adds a potion of Master William Holme, 'for men and wymen that weren woundid in the stomac' (f. 35r-35v)), the lower stomach and bowels, and finally the waist and the hips. Guglielmo's chapter numbers are not given, and the excerpts are arbitrary, but brief transitions in Latin mark the movement from one topic to another. A surgical operation and successful cure of a 'knight of Pavia' (Papia), 'Sire Johannes Deperdella', whom a 'master' named Octobonus considered untreatable, is described in as much or more detail in Middle English as in the Latin original (f. 37r-37v). An acephalous collection of about 350 recipes and charms in Middle English (with some Latin in the charms) extends from f. 39r to f. 75v. The charms largely correspond to those found in other 15th-century medical recipe collections that are prefaced by a Middle English poem that promises medicines 'to hele sores boþ olde and newe', and 'To hele alle sores þat arn curable / Of swerd knif and of arue / Be þe wounde wyd or narue / Of spere of quarel of dagger of dart' (see also Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 9308 , f. 2r). This collection was copied by the same hand as the preceding treatise on wounds, and there is much here that addresses this same subject. There are directions for making the two cures named 'gracia dei', a salve or plaster for cleaning and healing wounds or ulcers. One, 'good for old sores and new', was used, it is claimed, by Lady Beauchamp, the wife of the earl of Warwick (f. 54r). Another 'the erle of hertford [sic] vsyd that was held a noble surgyn' (f. 54v). There are also instructions for constructing a surgical dressing for an open wound: it uses a lead plate etched with five crosses, which was to be prayed over and conjured with a charm by the virtue of the wounds of Christ. A small diagram of the plate itself is included (f. 67v; see also Cambridge, University Library, MS Ee.1.15 , f. 94v). Lea Olsan| Emerita Professor, Department of English| University of Louisiana at Monroe References
Steven J. Williams, The Secret of Secrets: the scholarly career of a pseudo-Aristotelian text in the Latin Middle Ages (Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press, 2003)
Lea T. Olsan, 'The corpus of charms in the Middle English leechcraft remedy books', in Charms, charmers and charming: international research on verbal magic', ed. by Jonathan Roper, Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 214-237
Lea T. Olsan, 'Pigmenta: materials for writing, painting and healing', in Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science, ed. by Stella Panayotova and Paola Ricciardi, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 2018), vol. 2, pp. 107-117
The dome of uryne: a reading edition of nine Middle English uroscopies, ed. by M. Teresa Tavormina (Oxford: University Press, 2019)

Physical Description

Form: codex
Extent: Codex: ii + 29 | 46 | 14 + vi leaves.
Foliation:

Mid-20th-century foliation:

[i-ii] + 1-29 | 30-76 | 77-89 + 90-93 + [iii-iv]

Numbering in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the rectos. The folio numbers between f. 84 and f. 89 are out of sequence - 87, 88, 85, 86 - reflecting the correct order of the text. The last four foliated leaves (ff. 89-93) are blank modern paper leaves that originally served as flyleaves.

Collation

Whereas A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, 5 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1856-1867), I and Connolly (2009) divide the manuscript into five separate parts, this catalogue record identifies only four parts, and (again unlike these publications) it also identifies f. 27 not as a separate codicological unit but as part of Part 1, as is supported by the collation and watermarks.

  • Quire 110 (ff. 1-10)
  • Quire 212 (ff. 11-22)
  • Quire 312-7 (ff. 23r-27v: 5th leaf, after f. 26, and 7th-12th leaves, after f. 27, not present) |
  • Quire 42 (ff. 28-29) |
  • Quire 514-1 (ff. 30-42: 10th leaf, after f. 38, is not present)
  • Quire 612 (ff. 43-54)
  • Quire 710 (ff. 55-64)
  • Quire 812-1 (ff. 65-75: 12th leaf, after f. 64, not present) |
  • Quires 9-102 (ff. 76-79)
  • Quire 1110 (ff. 80-89)

110 212 312-7 (5th, 7th-12th not present) | 412 | 514-1 (10th not present) 612 710 812-1 (12th not present) | 9-102 1110

Additions

Quire signatures ('1-11') 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 a hand of the 19th/20th century.

Classmark and note on rebinding, written in pencil by the hand of H.L. Pink (front pastedown), and 'Collation before re-binding in 1956', also written by Pink (rear pastedown).

Binding

Quarter binding of brown leather with marbled paper sides, bound by J.P. Gray and son of Cambridge in 1956, as indicated by a stamp on the front pastedown.

Binding height: 215mm width: 150mm depth: 30mm

History

Provenance and Acquisition

John Moore (1646-1714) , bishop of Ely: no. 772 (inscribed on f. 1r) in Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (c. 1697).

Presented to the University Library in 1715 by George I : donation bookplate engraved by John Pine in 1736 on the inside of the upper cover.

Part 1 [Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.5.76, ff. 1-27]

Contents

Language(s): Middle English and Latin

1. 1r-2r
Verse prayer on the Words of Christ from the Cross
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: || 1r And as þy worde ca[m] on þis wyse / To þe thefe with þ[e] in paradyse
Explicit: 2r Thorow prayer of þi modere fre / Maydene mare mylde Amen
IMEV 296.6
NIMEV TM 151
DIMEV 505
Person (1953; rev. edn 1962), pp. 6-8
2. 2r-3v
Table of contents listing 104 recipes
Language(s): Middle English
Rubric: 2r Hic incipit liber de diuersis rebus et medicinis ac unguentis in primis epistola aristotelis missa ad alexandrum regem de conseruacione humani corporis
Incipit: 2r ffor to make ynke lumbarde
Explicit: 3v for to mak oxuule
Singer (1928), II, p. 749, no. 1112: xxiii
3. 3v-5v
Letter to Alexander (Secretum Secretorum) Pseudo-Aristotle
Language(s): Latin
Rubric: 3v Epistola aristotelis missa ad alexandrem regem de conseruacione humani corporis sic incipit
Incipit: 3v Alexander cum corpus habes corruptibile
Explicit: 5v Et a medio decembris usque ad medium marcii yemps finitur ubi uer incipit. Vale
eTK 0078J (t0014940000)
4. 5v-6r
Charm for fever
Language(s): Latin text with a Middle English rubric
Rubric: 5v A gode charme for þe feuer profed
Incipit: 5v In nomine patris + et filij + et Christus sancti + Amen
Explicit: 6r libera famulum tuum uel famulam tuam .N. ab omni specie diuersarum februum ubiqucmque semper custodiat me die ac nocie Amen
5. 6r-6v
Medical recipe
Language(s): Middle English
Rubric: 6r A marueylious drynk and a gode for it helpes bothe cankere and fistila and also within as withoute and it wil do away þes scabbe in parti of þe body and it consumes venomes and clenses crosules and alle superfluytes of þe body þat comes of venomos humeros it destroyes alle maner of woundes newe olde it helis and clensis þam and it es made þusse
Incipit: 6r Take gencyan, diptayne. astrologie
Explicit: 6v and stop þe vessell mowthe well for þe ayre þat non ayre com þar to and use þis at euyn last and at morne fastande

For canker and fistula, both internal and external, scab, venom, ?crosule (?scrofula), excess humours, and removing and cleansing wounds

6. 6v-7r
Prayer to be recited when making medicines
Language(s): Latin prayer with a Middle English rubric
Rubric: 6v here begynnes a gode orysoun for to say when þou makes a medicyne to giffe or to do to any creature þat god has wrought and þus it begynnes
Incipit: 6v-7r Deus qui creasti hominem et mirabiliter reformasti et qui dedisti medicinam ad recupandam sanitatem humanorum corporum da benedictionem tuam super hoc antedotum ut in quorum corporum interuenerit sanitatem accipere mereantur Per dominum nostrum ihesum Christum et cetera

Full transcription.

7. 7r
Prayer to be recited when administraing medicines
Language(s): Latin prayer with a Middle English rubric
Rubric: 7r And when þou gefes any man or woman or any creature any medycine say to þam on þis wise
Incipit: 7r In nomine sancte et indiuidue trinitatis + sit tibi hec medicina causa sanitatis + In nomine patris et filij spiritus sancti Amen +

Full transcription.

8. 7r-12v
Collection of 28 recipes for making black and coloured ink, glue and gilt
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 7r For to make ynke lombarde do þusse take a nounce of gallis and breke þam in a morter all
Explicit: 12v makyng þat it sand no lengar on þe fir þanne it be moltoun for if it do it will waste and wax blak and noght worth
9. 12v-22r
Collection of ninety medical recipes
Language(s): Middle English
Rubric: 12v Here begynnes a boke of gode medicines proued wiþ gode clerkes and oþer maystres of fesik and used be þam for cancres gode medicines prowed be mayster henri arden and oþer mo maystres
Incipit: 12v Take þe hede of a crawe and þe fete and þe boweles and drye þam in a nowen til it be al to powder
Explicit: 22r and so if þou will hafe it laxatife or constipatyfe take of þe herbes þat are of þat vertu and do wiþ þam as y sayde of þe squylle

'henri arden' is likely a misidentification of the surgeon, John Arderne.

10. 22r-22v
Explanation of terms
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 22r Oximellum est due partes aceti
Explicit: 22v Scrupulus est pondus unius denarij
11. 22v
On the weight of coins
Language(s): Latin text with a Middle English rubric
Rubric: 22v þe weght of a peny
Incipit: 22v Scrupulus est pondus unius denarij
Explicit: 22v Et nota [...] quia omnia qui in mortare teneritur debent ponderari per libram maiorem .i. xxv s'.
12. 22v-25r
Collection of twenty recipes
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 22v ffor to withe if a man schall lif or die of alle maner of sekenes: Take a handefulle of rew and stampe it in oyle of roses
Explicit: 22v and menge it wiþ wyne and wiþ water bot þe two partes sall be wyne and gif him to drynke before þe acces come on him

The collection opens with prognostic recipes to determine whether a patient shall live or die. It also includes a charm against all fevers on ff. 24r.

For other copies, see Connolly (2009), p. 28.
Olsan (2018), p. 19
13. 25r
Reference to a fever charm
Language(s): Middle English and latin
Rubric: 25r Seke in þe .vij. lef of þe furste quayere a faire charme for þe feueres

The reference is rubricated in red ink.

14. 25r-26r
Rules for accounting
Language(s): Latin
Rubric: 25r Dies sunt in anno CCClxv
Incipit: 25r Quadrantes sabbato quotquot expendivus anno / Tot crescunt solidi cum tot nummis numerati
Explicit: 26r xl li. per diem - xiij Ml .vj.C li
Final rubric: 26r Ista summa finita est
15. 26v
List of English kings from William I to Henry VI
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 26v Memorandum de regibus a conquestu et quot annos regnauerunt.
Explicit: 26v Henricus Sextus filius eius regnauit
16. 26v
Sum of taxes from the Province of Canterbury and York
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 26v Summe taxacionis temporalium et spiritualium cantuariensis prouincie
Explicit: 26v Summa totius utriusque prouinciae [...]
17. 27r
List of payments
Language(s): Latin
Rubric: 27r Debita Johanne Notwyn
Incipit: 27r In primis de Johanne nottwyn per ffratri - vj s
Explicit: 27r Item de maryana led[...]

Added in the late 15th century or early 16th century.

18. 27v
Medical recipes
Language(s): English
Incipit: || 27v for the preservation of your stomach
Explicit: 27v A draught of burnt malmesye otherwhiles, wilbe good for the stomacke

Added in the late 16th or early 17th century and attributed to Doctors Smith, Lang, Walker, and Barnesley. They address the following issues:

  • for the preservation of the stomach
  • to make pills of aloes
  • for the rheume and wind in the stomach
  • to keep your belly loose
  • to provoke urine speedily
  • for the stomach
  • to comfort your stomach

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 2r Here salle þou wone with myne Angelis
Form: codex
Support: Paper folded in quarto. Human head (?) . Paper folded in quarto. Leopard .
Extent: Codex: 27 leaves. 205 × 145 mm.

Collation

  • Quire 110 (ff. 1-10)
  • Quire 212 (ff. 11-22)
  • Quire 312-7 (ff. 23r-27v: 5th leaf, after f. 26, and 7th-12th leaves, after f. 27, not present)

Catchwords in the lower right-hand corner of the verso side of the last leaf of each quire.

Condition

The first leaf is fragmentary and has lost a section of its lower half, which has been repaired with blank paper. The upper right-hand corners of most leaves (except ff. 16-18) have been torn off and replaced with blank paper.

Layout

165 × 100 mm. Ruled in ink, frame only. Single columns. 27 lines to the page, written below top line.

Hand(s)

ff. 1r-26r is written by a single hand writing in an Anglicana script.

f. 26v is written by a single hand writing in an Anglicana script.

ff. 27r-27v contain additions by two hands writing in Secretary scripts, the first one dating to the late 15th or early 16th century and the second one to the late 16th or early 17th century .

Decoration

One large (3-line) initial in red ink on f. 3v.

Titles and headings rubricated throughout.

History

Origin: 15th century. ; England.

Provenance

An unknown owner of the late 15th or early 16th century: their incomplete ownership inscription on f. 27r: ‘Iste liber constat’. Another such inscription, of similar date and written above this one, has since been erased.

Part 2 [Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.5.76, ff. 28r-29v]

Contents

Language(s): Middle English

1. 28r-29v
The Doom of Urines (incomplete)
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 28r In the begynnyng thow shalt tak hede to foure that longyth to dome of uryn þat is to say to the substans to the colours to regions and to the contentis
Explicit: 29v The syxtene coloure is as blak wyne or the syxtene c||
For other copies, see Connolly (2009), pp. 28-29
Tavormina (2014).

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 29r thyn in harwyst and in wyntyr
Form: codex
Support: Paper. No watermark visible.
Extent: Codex: 2 leaves 205 × 140 mm.

Collation

  • Quire 42 (ff. 28-29)

Condition

The pages contain stains and dirt, especially affecting the text's legibility on f. 29v. The upper right-hand corners have been torn off and replaced with blank paper.

Layout

155-160 × 115-120 mm. No ruling. Single columns. 21-22 lines to the page.

Hand(s)

Written by a single hand in a Secretary script.

Decoration

Large (6-line) initial in red ink with crosses in brown ink drawn inside the letter and featuring a human face (f. 28r).

Large (2-line) initials in brown ink with human, zoomorphic or hybrid heads protruding from them into the margins throughout.

History

Origin: 15th century. ; England.

Part 3 [Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.5.76, ff. 30r-75v]

Contents

Language(s): Middle English

1. 30r-38v
On the Treatment of Wounds Guglielmo da Saliceto
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: || 30r and thou schalt putte alle thine entent forto conforte the place aboute with bole armoniak and oile of rose a litil vineger medlid togedir
Explicit: 38v he schalle be domede to be deed for the bleddir may take no confondinge for it is a sinowy place at the sinowis

Extracts from Book Two, Chapters 9 and 12-16, of Saliceto's Latin Chirurgia . One recipe on f. 35r is entitled ‘Pocio Magistri Wilhelmi Holme’ (presumably the Franciscan William Holme, author of Tractatus de medicinis (c. 1400) and De simplicibus medicinis (c. 1415)).

eVK2 0529.00 (v0058160000)
2. 39r-75v
Collection of c. 350 medical recipes and charms
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 39r ffor the cynke: Take the Roote of horshelue and the roote of conseoie of euery iliche and grinde hem smalle in a morter
Explicit: 75v whanne thou haste so doo cast theron francencens mastic mirre of eche half an ounce and so lat it boyle oon the fyre sayinge thre pater noster etcaetera

The collection includes a recipe for ‘Gracia dei’ on f. 54r that is said to have bene used by ‘the lady beauchampe the erlys wife of warwik’.

Full transcription of a charm to cure dysentery (f. 43v):| A charme for the blody fflixe [.] In nomine patris + et filii + et spiritus sancti + amen [.] Stabat Ihesus contra flumen iordanis et posuit pedem suum et dixit 'sta aqua' [.] per deum te coniuro sanguinem ut restes in hoc homine quemadmodum restitit aqua ad saluatoris mandatum [.] longinus miles latus domini nostri + Ihesus Christi + perforauit et continuo exiuit sanguis et aqua [:] sanguis redempcionis et aqua baptismatis . In nomine Patris + restet sanguis . In nomine filii + cesset sanguis [.] + In nomine spiritus sancti + non exeat sanguis gutta ab hoc famulo dei N ['nomen', i.e. 'name'] sicut credimus quod sancta maria vera mater dei et virgo est et verum infantem genuit Christum [.] sic retineat veneos sanguine sine plene sic restet sanguis . sicut restabat aqua iordanis quando christus in ea baptizatus fuit. In nomine Patris + et filii + et spiritus sancti + Amen.| Translation: A charm for the bloody flux [dysentery]. [In Latin] In the name of the Father + and the Son + and the Holy Spirit + Amen. Jesus stood against the River Jordan and set down his feet and said, 'Water, stand still!' Through God, I command you blood, remain in this man, just as the water stood at the command of Our Saviour. The soldier Longinus pierced the side of our Lord Jesus Christ and there immediately flowed blood and water: the blood of redemption and the water of baptism. In the name of the Father + the blood should stay. + In the name of the Son + the blood should cease. + In the name of the Holy Spirit + not a drop of blood should leave. By this family of God, [name], just as we believe that St Mary is the true mother of God and virgin, and truly gave birth to the infant Christ, so the veins should be restrained or the blood should stay entirely, just as the water of the Jordan stood still because Christ was baptised in it. In the name of the Father + and the Son + and the Holy Spirit + Amen.

Full transcription of a charm to cure insomnia (f. 47r):| For hym that may not sleepe for seeke [.] Write thise wordis in a lorene leef + ysmael + profindel + ysmale + adiuro vooz per angelum vt soporetur homo iste N ['nomen', i.e. 'name'] and putte the leef vndir his heed not witinge hym and do hym eye letuse and drink poppe with ale. | Translation: For him that may not sleep for sickness. Write these words on a laurel leaf: [in Latin] + Ishmael + Profindel + Ishmael + I adjure you Vooz by the angel that this man [name] should sleep. And put the leaf under his head without telling him, and make him eat lettuce and drink poppy with ale.

eVK2 6229.00 (v0058170000)
eVK2 6229.00 (v0058180000)
eVK2 6229.00 (v0058190000)
eVK2 6229.00 (v0058200000)

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 32r and it schalle be drawen
Form: codex
Support: Paper folded in quarto. Two-headed unicorn (?) .
Extent: Codex: 46 leaves. 200-205 × 140 mm.

Collation

  • Quire 514-1 (ff. 30-42: 10th leaf, after f. 38, is not present)
  • Quire 612 (ff. 43-54)
  • Quire 710 (ff. 55-64)
  • Quire 812-1 (ff. 65-75: 12th leaf, after f. 64, not present)

Condition

The upper right-hand corner of f. 55 and the upper edge of f. 74 have been torn off and replaced with blank paper.

Layout

170 × 115-120 mm. Ruled in ink, frames only. Double columns. 27-35 lines to the page, below the top line.

Hand(s)

Written by a single hand writing in a cursive script with both Anglicana and Secretary features.

Decoration

Spaces left blank for small (1-line) initials throughout.

History

Origin: 15th century. ; England.

Provenance

Johannes Bintreth/Buctreth : his name in a colophon on f. 75v: ‘Iste lybro constat Johannes Buctre [th] [Connolly: ‘Bintreth’] quod Johannes Bradley’.

Part 4 [Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.6.76, ff. 76r-93v]

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1. 76r-89v
Treatise on the properties of herbs, alphabetically organised (fragment)
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: || 76r [...] et scorp[iones]. Carnes [...]
Explicit: 89v et incarnat et consolidat ea et abs[...]it obscuritatem"||

The treatise starts in the letter 'C' ('Crisomila meliora') and ends in the letter 'E' ('Es').

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 77r ca. etcaetera
Form: codex
Support: Paper folded in quarto. Ring .
Extent: Codex: 15 leaves. 205 × 145 mm.
Foliation:

15th-century foliation:

'67', '57'-'63','66'

Arabic numbers in brown ink right-hand corner of the rectos of ff. 79r-89r.

Collation

  • Quires 9-102 (ff. 76-79)
  • Quire 1110 (ff. 80-89)

Catchwords in the lower right-hand corner of the verso side of the last leaf of each quire.

Condition

The upper edges of most leaves have been torn and replaced with blank paper.

Layout

155 × 100 mm. No ruling visible. Single columns. 29 lines to the page.

Hand(s)

Copied by a single hand in a Secretary script.

Decoration

The names of herbs have been underlined in red throughout.

History

Origin: 15th century. ; England.

Additional Information

Record Sources

This catalogue entry draws on the description provided by Margaret Connolly, Manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge (Dd-Oo), The Index of Middle English Prose (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2009), pp. 26-30, and an unpublished description of the manuscript composed between 1926 and 1930 by M.R. James , now held in the University Archives (UA ULIB 7/3/74).

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card. 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.

Custodial History

The manuscript was displayed as part of the exhibition Curious Cures: Medicine in the Medieval World (Cambridge University Library, 29 March-6 December 2025) (ff. 46v-47r and 43v-44r).

Bibliography

    Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland dating from before the XVI century, Singer, Dorothea WaleyAnderson, Annie (Brussels, Maurice Lamertin, 1928) Cambridge Middle English lyrics, Person, Henry Axel (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1953) Review of Cambridge Middle English Lyrics by Henry A. Person Speculum, Greene, Richard L. (29, 3, 602-605, 1954, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2846821) Medical Manuscripts in Middle English Speculum, Robbins, Rossell Hope (45, 3, 393-415, 1970, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2853500) Hippocrates Latinus: repertorium of Hippocratic writings in the Latin Middle Ages (V) Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion, Kibre, Pearl (35, 273-302, 1979) Les traités médievaux sur le soin des chiens: une littérature technique méconnue Inquirens subtilia diversa: Dietrich Lohrmann zum 65. Geburtstag, Van den Abeele, BaudouinLoncke, Jérémy (Aachen, 281-296, Shaker, 2002) Practical Reading for Body and Soul in Some Later Medieval Manuscript Miscellanies Journal of the Early Book Society, Connolly, Margaret (10, 151-174, 2007) The Corpus of Charms in the Middle English Leechcraft Remedy Books Charms, Charmers and Charming: International Research on Verbal Magic Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic, Olsan, Lea T. (Basingstoke, 214-237, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230583535_15) Manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge (Dd-Oo) Index of Middle English prose, Connolly, Margaret (Woodbridge, D.S. Brewer, 2009) Uroscopy in Middle English: A Guide to the Texts and Manuscripts Studies in medieval and renaissance history, Tavormina, M. Teresa ([Michigan?], 2014) Evidence for the Continued Use of Medieval Medical Prescriptions in the Sixteenth Century: A Fifteenth-Century Remedy Book and Its Later Owner Medical History, Connolly, Margaret (60, 2, 133-154, 2016) <hi rend="italics">Pigmenta</hi>: materials for writing, painting and healing Manuscripts in the making: art & science, Olsan, Lea (London, 2, 107-117, Harvey Miller, 2018) Writing on the Hand in Ink: A Late Medieval Innovation in Fever Charms in England Incantatio, Olsan, Lea (7, 2018, https://ojs.folklore.ee/incantatio/article/view/68)

Funding of Cataloguing

Wellcome

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Cambridge Digital Library

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