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.6.29

Medical miscellany

Contents

Introduction: This medical compilation was copied by several hands in the first half of the 15th century. Aside from a single leaf at the beginning and at the end, the manuscript appears to fall into five groups of quires. Each scribe's work was confined to his own section; none of them is found elsewhere in the volume. In Quires 1-2 and Quire 3, more than one hand was involved in the copying. The manner in which the leaves were prepared for writing varies, as does the choice of script, and each section is set apart from the others by what would have originally been blank spaces and/or pages: f. 16v after the perpetual calendar and tables, ff. 25r-25v after the table of contents, f. 33v after the uroscopy texts, and ff. 106v-109v after the medical recipes. The inclusion in the Calendar (ff. 2v-13r) of Winwaloe and Withburga (3 and 6 March) and the translation of St Edmund in red (28 April) points to a possible East Anglian origin, while the scribal dialect of the treatises on urines (ff. 110r-124v) is apparently Herefordshire (though this is not necessarily indicative of place of origin). This evidence might cumulatively indicate that the manuscript is a composite, each part being of separate origin. On the other hand, the intellectual coherence of the volume's medical contents could also suggest that the manufacture of these 'codicological units' had been co-ordinated in some way, even if only loosely. This hypothesis is supported by the presence in one section of a table of contents (ff. 20r-25r) that refers to a collection of medical recipes and charms found in another (ff. 34r-106v). Although they were copied by different hands, the table must have been written specifically for this manuscript, since it directs the reader via rubricated page numbers that could only have been established after the recipe collection had been copied. The single largest unit in the manuscript is that occupied by this collection. It is composed almost entirely in Middle English, with some passages in Latin, and the recipes are arranged in a rough head-to-toe order. In both its contents and arrangement it closely resembles recipe collections found in a handful of other manuscripts in Cambridge (see the introduction to Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 95 for links and further discussion). The formality of its production - frames and lines ruled neatly in brown ink, the text copied in a textura script of consistent quality, and the presence of decorated initials - all point to commercial manufacture, as in the case of Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 9308 . The temptation is thus to propose that this was made first, or was at least the unit around which the other components coalesced. Reconstructing the order of production definitively may never be possible, but the other contents of the manuscript were certainly complementary. Sections both before and after the recipe collection are dedicated to various treatises on urine and its analysis for the purpose of diagnosing diseases. The first of these (ff. 26r-30r) describes the different colours of urine by analogy - 'white as water is clear', 'yellow as honey', 'red as right red blood' or (worst of all) 'black as coal' - before explaining what these indicate about a person's digestion, and how the four layers of urine relate to four areas of the body. Summative paragraphs are accompanied in the margins by coloured urine flasks, though the colours do not reliably correspond to the text, and there are thirteen more flasks than the 'xx colours of urines' the treatise announces in its opening line. It also differs from other 'twenty colours' treatises in describing some of these colours as being like yellow or red cloth. After the recipe collection comes a treatise on the 'regions' of urine that may be connected with the next text, a Middle English translation of Walter Agilon's Commentarium urinarum. It too contains textual variations, to such a degree that it may be a witness (albeit incomplete) to a third vernacular version of Agilon's treatise. There is plentiful evidence of use in the manuscript, with 15th-century hands quickly filling the blank spaces and margins with various medical recipes and charms, a herbal glossary and a prayer to the Virgin Mary. At first glance, a Calendar (ff. 2v-13r) might seem out of place in such a manuscript. It lists saints' days and religious festivals, the Dominical Letters and Golden Numbers (for calculating when Sundays and the date of Easter fall), as is typical - but on either side is accompanied by extensive tables of figures for astrological calculations. The single leaves that frame the contents of the volume, far from being peripheral, similarly confirm the connection in the late medieval period between medical practice and astrology: a Zodiac Man for guiding the timing of interventions such as bloodletting according to the position of the Moon relative to constellations (f. 1r), a lunar table (f. 1v), and a table of eclipses for 1406-1443 (ff. 126r-126v). Such astrological material is frequently found in combination with diagnostic uroscopic diagrams in the folding almanacs that were being produced around the same time. Their presentation here not only illustrates the transmission of this information in a different format. The translation of urine treatises into the vernacular enabled more people to access elements of a learned medicine that had previously been the preserve of educated physicians, while the inclusion of collections of recipes illustrated the integration of experience-based or 'empirical' remedies into broader astrological-medical practice. The owners of such a volume must nevertheless have been not only of sufficient means to commission its production or purchase it second-hand, but also learned enough to understand various contents written in Latin. A hitherto unrecorded clue as to their identity is on f. 14v, where the name 'Sir William Howheton' has been inscribed. This suggests the Hoghton family of Lancashire. There were two Sir William Hoghtons. Judging by the style of handwriting, the first is probably too early, having predeceased his father Sir Richard Hoghton (c. 1342-c. 1422). The second Sir William (d. 1501) seems a more likely match. It is notable that in the Calendar neither 'pape' nor the entries for the feast or translation of Thomas Becket have been erased. This suggests that the manuscript remained in recusant hands during the 16th century, which would tally with continued ownership by members of the Hoghton family. Dr James Freeman| Medieval Manuscripts Specialist| Cambridge University Library

Language(s): Latin and Middle English (dialect of ff. 110r-118v) supposedly Herefordshire (LALME)

1. 1r
Zodiac figure
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 1r Aries . Caue ab incisione in capite uel in facie et ne insindes venam capitalem
Explicit: 1r Pisces . Caue ne insindaris in pedibus dum ibi manet luna scilicet februario et martio et sol
eTK 1089L
2. 1v
Lunar table
Language(s): Latin
2r
Medical recipes
Language(s): Latin

At least two or three medical recipes; text faded and no longer legible.

3. 2v-14r
Calendar with astrological tables
Language(s): Latin

Lacking February and June. Thomas of Canterbury and his translation not erased. The calendar includes prognostications based on thunder sounding in that month (written at the bottom, by the hand responsible for the feast days), as well as occasional annotations by a late 15th- or early 16th-century hand on unpropitious days for bloodletting (see f. 2v, below 'Ephania domini'; f. 4v, bottom margin; ff. 7v and 8v, below the rubric; f. 10v, within the calendar).

14v
Medical recipes
Language(s): Latin

Two recipes, the first for blockages of the spleen ('pro opilacione splenis'), getting rid of wind and for the colic; the second for an unstated purpose.

4. 17r-18v
Recipes for gilding and colouring
Language(s): Middle English
Rubric: 17r How þou schalt temper þi colourus to lymninge and how þou schal make a syse to kowche golt on bokus

24 recipes in early 15th-century hands.

IMEP 19, p. 31 no. 1.
Singer (1928), no. 941
5. 19r
Medical recipes
Language(s): Middle English and Latin

Added by several 15th-century hands. The recipes address the following:

  • two recipes for removing lice (one Middle English, one Latin), followed by advice on the causes and treatment of the same problem, for purging phlegm, for the pestilence, for migraine
  • Full transcription of Middle English remedy for removing lice: For to destrie lyse . on a mannus body . Take sowre appulles of þe sowrest þat þou may fyndon and take a lynnen clooth and weet hit in watur ; and wrappe hit in and putte hit in þe ymbres and lette him roste til hit be neyse . and þen take þe softenes of þe appul . ij . sponful to a . i . demi of quicseluer and stampe hem wel to gedur i tyl þe quicseluer be turned in to þe iusthe of þe apul . and anoynthe þer with þe body for þis wol destriȝe hem on warantise
  • Full translation: To destroy lice on a man's body. Take sour apples of the sourest that you may find, and take a linen cloth and wet it in water, and wrap the apples in it, and put it in the embers [of a fire] and let them roast until they be soft. And then take the softness of the apples, two spoonfuls [of it] to a half spoonful of quicksilver [i.e. mercury] and stamp them well together until the quicksilver be turned into the juice of the apples. And anoint therewith the body, for this will destroy them, on warranties [i.e. guaranteed].

IMEP 19, pp. 31-32 nos 2-5.
19v
Prayer to St Mary
Language(s): Latin

A shortened form of the Ave Maria.

6. 20r-25r
Table of contents
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 20r For þe heed ache
Explicit: 25v in an holde man

List of 231 entries for the collection of recipes on ff. 34r-106v. Page numbers in red ink on the top margins of these folios are used in the table of contents to indicate where particular recipes can be found.

IMEP 19, p. 32 no. 6.
eVK2 5033.00 (v0058340000)
7. 25r-25v
Medical recipes
Language(s): Middle English and Latin

Added by several 15th-century hands. The recipes address the following:

  • f. 25r: hernia or rupture of some kind.
  • Full transcription: For a man or woman þat is borsten . Taak reed banworth þe leef þerof . id est . deysi . and selfhele . \ id est pimpurnolle / and gonfury crop and rote and wasch þam clene . and bray þan in a morter wel . and put þer to duste of barke . and temper hem vp with staale ale and strayne þam / and ich day ȝif þe seke to drinke fastynge and colde . xv . dayes a good sawserful . Then take þese forseyde ȝerbus . fresch and stampe þam . and fri þam with schepus talu . and as hot as he may suffur ley þe plastur to þe place þe broken komith out and ich day refreschid new on þe same wise as hit is seyde be fore . but put no dust of barke þer to . and . xv . dayes he most ise þis medicin to gedur . and alle þese . xv . dayes he most ligge vp riȝth day and niȝthe .
  • Full translation: For a man or woman that has burst [i.e. ruptured]. Take red bonewort, the leaf thereof — that is, daisy — and self-heal — that is, pimpernel — and comfrey, leaves and roots, and wash them clean, and crush them well in a mortar, and put thereto bark dust and temper it up with stale ale, and strain them. And each day, give [this] to the sick to drink, cold, while [they are] fasting, for fifteen days, a good saucerful. Then take these aforesaid herbs, fresh, and stamp them and fry them with sheep's tallow, and, as hot as he [the patient] may suffer, lay the plaster to the place the breakage comes out, and each day refreshed new in the same way as it is said before — but put no bark dust thereto. And [for] fifteen days he must use this medicine together, and all these fifteen days he must lie upright, day and night.
  • f. 25v: two recipes for 'le pocke' (presumably smallpox), attributed to a 'Master Fyndreum phesiciun'), the second involving making a plaster (ending 'et fiat emplastrum'); copied by the same hand as above, a medicine 'which priests used daily in the time of the prophet ?Elijah' ('Medicina que vtebantur sacerdotes tempore helie prophete [...] quotidie') for blindness or ?dizziness ('propter caliginem'), stopping and healing watering eyes ('lacrimae occulorum restringit et sanat'), and other ailments (text faded and not wholly legible), which involves taking the medicine before and after food ('ante cibum et post cibum')

IMEP 19, p. 32 no. 7.
8. 26r-30r
Treatise on urines
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 26r Her begynns þat is borston taak reed banworth
Explicit: 30r and red it signifiez þe flux of blod etcetera.

Treatise on the 20 colours of urine, the significance of the colours and division into four parts.

IMEP 19, p. 32 no. 8.
9. 30r-32v
Medical treatise 'Tokens of Ipocras'
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 30r Her begyns þe takyns þat ypocras þe leche wrot
Explicit: 32v þat he schal dye þe same day.
Final rubric: Hic explicit ypocras.
IMEP 19, p. 33 no. 9.
10. 32v-33r
Treatise on urine (extract from 'Letter of Ipocras')
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 32v þe urine þat is drowvy and whith sinifiez
Explicit: 33r he haue þe feuer agu be hit man or woman signifiez deeþ
IMEP 19, p. 33 no. 10.
11. 33r
Notes on health
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 33r Sunt enim cibis quatuor partes
Explicit: 33r fames fletus quoque pplendor[sic]
12. 33r
Treatise on urines (incomplete)
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 33r Fatnes on þe watur wastinge of flesch
Explicit: 33r signifies lijflynes.
IMEP 19, p. 34 no. 11.
13. 33v
Medical recipe to make oil roset
Language(s): Middle English
Rubric: 33v For to make oly roset
Incipit: 33v Take
Explicit: 33v a quarter of a ʒeer

Added by another 15th-century hand. Scribbles below, not obviously another medical recipe, added by a different hand, later crossed out and now barely visible.

IMEP 19, p. 34 no. 12.
14. 34r-106r
Medical recipes and charms
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 34r For þe heued ake take and sethe uerueyne
Explicit: 106r and drinke wiþ ale first and last.

The recipes and charms correspond closely to the table of contents on ff. 20r-25r.

Some text missing due to loss of ff. 51, 53, 59, 61 and 102.

Additions by other 15th- and 16th-century hands, addressing the following:

  • f. 34v: unstated, but presumably for hearing loss / deafness
  • ff. 35r, 45r: unclear, text faded
  • f. 60v: a proven cure for haemorrhoids (and possibly others beneath, but text faded)
  • f. 79v: a remedy for the stone, and two for colic
  • f. 84v: unclear, text faded, but includes the word 'mulier' and may relate to menstrual flow (addressed by recipes in the main text) (top margin); further recipes, text faded, in left-hand margin
  • f. 85r: for strangury ('for hym þat may nott make vater') and suffocation of the womb ('Suffocatio matricis')
  • f. 85v: unclear, text faded
  • f. 86r: unclear, text faded (?menstrual flow; includes the word 'flores')
  • f. 106r: sore eyes, itching (x 2), sore eyes and keep one's sight and jaundice (continuing on f. 106v), all added by the same hand

Charm on fol. 62r, not in IMEV/S 624 (Ihesu þat was in bethleem born / and baptised was in flum iordan...).

IMEP 19, pp. 34-36 no. 13-17
eVK2 5033.00 (v0058340000)
eVK2 3272.00 (v0058360000)
15. 106v
Glossary of herbs
Language(s): Middle English, Latin, French
Incipit: Deisi habet nome peti consond brese wort mene consonde bursa pastor

Macaronic list added with the same 15th-century hand as the text above.

IMEP 19, p. 36 [C1] (on p. 377)
16. 106v-109v
Medical and culinary recipes
Language(s): Middle English
Incipit: 106v For þe colic take anys iij partyes
Explicit: 109v and þen caste þe foom awey.

31 recipes, mostly for the stomach and digestion, added by several 15th-century hands, addressing the following:

  • f. 106v: incomplete recipe for an unstated purpose ('take þe croppys off horhounde and ysope and loueach') (left-hand margin) and another for colic (bottom margin)
  • f. 107r: to burst any boil, for the colic, a plaster for the stomach, for dropsy and to cleanse the stomach
  • f. 107v: to clarify whey, to make a tisane, for aches, 'Drinkes for men þat been in þe (?)actes', and for the fevers (left-hand margin)
  • f. 108r: for fevers (incl. one in the top margin), a laxative potage, to make a syrup of centaury for the stomach, and a gargle for the head
  • f. 108v: ?constipation and vomiting ('for a man þat is komburde [?encumbered] in his stomac or þat may holde no mete'), a proper diet, in particular for a someone suffering from fever, a charm against cramp, for 'wastyng of kynde', to remove hair ('fot to putt hare away'), for itching (continuing on f. 109r), for the uterus and for chest pain ('for þe moder and þe cardyake') and for dysentery (both bottom margin)
  • f. 109r: two recipes for itching, for the stomach, for internal hernia / rupture
  • f. 109v: a further recipe for internal hernia / rupture, for gout, for a ?confection / compound medicine called ?'Michael' ('Michael confectione'), two recipes for the digestion, for a syrup for the lungs

IMEP 19, p. 36 no. 18
17. 110r-118v
Treatise on urines
Language(s): Middle English, Latin (title)
Rubric: 110r De regionibus urine of regions of þe uryne
Incipit: 110r Ureyne is a watur or a watury substance
Explicit: 118v bryngyth not in perel.

Unidentified treatise on urine, the following treatise might be part of the same composition.

Dialect supposedly Herefordshire (LALME) (Binski and Zutshi, no. 221).

IMEP 19, pp. 36 no. 19
117v
Two medical recipes
Language(s): Middle English

Added to the left-hand margin. The purpose of the first is unclear, owing to damage to the parchment and fading of the text. The second appears to be an electuary, which 'ys gude for þe gomoream passionem' (?gonorrhea).

18. 119r-125v
Commentarium urinarum Walter Agilon
Language(s): Middle English, Latin (title)
Rubric: 119r Iudicium vrinarium secundum magistrum Galterium agilon
Incipit: 119r Condiciouns þt we ow to kepe
Explicit: 125v and þerfor hit is ful perelus.

By the same hand as the previous item. The version here generally matches the forms of the long catalogue of uroscopic signs in other Middle English translation of Walter Agilon's treatise, though with differences that suggest that it might be a third and incomplete version of the same Latin original (see IMEP 19, p. 37; M. Connolly's personal communication with T. Tavormina).

Dialect supposedly Herefordshire (LALME) (Binski and Zutshi, no. 221).

IMEP 19, pp. 36-37 no. 20
19. 126r-126v
Table of eclipses

The table contains figures, times and durations of 30 eclipses. The first is June 1406, the last in 1443.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 3r Ciclus Coniunctio
Form: codex
Support: Parchment
Extent: Codex: iii + 118 + iii leaves. 190 × 125-35 mm.
Foliation:

Mid-20th-century foliation:

[a-b] + i + 1-5, 7-14; 17-33; 34-50, 52, 54-58, 60, 62-101, 103-109; 110-126 + ii + [c-d]

Written in pencil by an unidentified hand of the 20th century, with occasional additions by H.L. Pink (see Additions). Folio numbers 6, 15, 16, 51, 53, 59, 61 and 102 assigned to leaves no longer present in the volume (as per historic foliation practice at Cambridge University Library - but cf. missing leaves that have not been assigned numbers in Quires 1, 2 and 3).

Collation

The manuscript comprises five codicological units, plus a single leaf at each end of the volume (ff. 1 and 126), as follows (and see Summary for further discussion):

  • Unit 1: ff. 2-14
  • Unit 2: ff. 17-25
  • Unit 3: ff. 26-33
  • Unit 4: ff. 34-109
  • Unit 5: ff. 110-125

  • Single leaf (f. 1) ;
  • Quire 18-2 (ff. 2-8: 2nd and 6th leaves missing)
  • Quire 28-2 (ff. 9-14: 7th and 8th leaves excised, probably blank) ;
  • Quire 310-1 (ff. 17-25: 1st leaf missing) ;
  • Quire 48 (ff. 26-33) ;
  • Quires 5-68 (ff. 34-49)
  • Quire 78-2 (ff. 50-57: 2nd and 4th leaves missing)
  • Quire 88-2 (ff. 58-65: 2nd and 4th leaves missing)
  • Quires 9-108 (ff. 66-81)
  • Quires 11-126 (ff. 82-93)
  • Quire 138 (ff. 94-101)
  • Quire 148-1 (ff. 103-109: 1st leaf missing) ;
  • Quires 15-168 (ff. 110-125) ;
  • Single leaf (f. 126)
Single leaf ; 18-2 (2nd and 6th leaves missing) 28 (7th and 8th leaves excised); 310 (1st leaf missing) 48 ; 5-68; 78-2 (2nd and 4th leaves missing) 88-2 (2nd and 4th leaves missing) 9-108 11-126 138 148-1 (1st leaf missing); 15-168 ; single leaf

Leaf signatures written in black ink: e, f and h plus Roman numerals for Quires 9, 10 and 12. Mostly cropped.

Catchwords in brown ink in the lower margins of last versos of quires 6-13 and 15 (ff. 49v, 57v, 65v, 73v, 81v, 87v, 93v, 102v, 117v), unframed (except framed in red at the end of quire 5, and framed in red and in brown at the end of quire 15). One catchword written in red ink (f. 41v), where the opening text on the following leaf is a rubric.

Layout

160 × 100 mm. Folios 2r-14r (Unit 1): frame- and line ruled in red ink. Calendar has 6 columns; astrological figures in 8 columns to the left and 21 columns to the right of the calendar. 36 lines to the page, with first and last double horizontal bounding lines extending to the margins, and first, fourth, seventh, tenth and thirteenth and last double vertical bounding lines with first and last extending to the margins. Written below top line. Folio 14v unruled.

130 × 90-100 mm. Folios 17r-19v (Unit 2): unruled, 30 lines to the page on f. 17, ad hoc thereafter.

125-130 × 100-110 mm. Folios 20r-25v (Unit 2): ruled faintly in red ink, frame only. Three columns (heading, text and page reference, though arrangement variable), 26 lines to the page.

130 × 80-95 mm. Folios 26r-33r (Unit 3): ruled first in red ink, from f. 27v onward in brown ink, frame only. Mainly in single columns (except ff. 27r-30r which is ruled for an additional narrow columns for urine flask illustrations). 26-28 lines to the page, written below top line.

125 × 80 mm. Folios 34r-109v (Unit 4): Frame- and line ruled in brown ink. Single columns. 22 lines to page, written below top line. The vertical bounding lines, and the first two and last two horizontal bounding lines extending to the margins. Pricking visible on the top and bottom margin, and occasionally on outer margins. Added material on ff. 106r-109v written on ruled pages, but not always following the lines.

140-145 × 85-90 mm. Folios 110r-125v (Unit 5): Frame- and line ruled in brown ink. Single column, 22 lines to page, written below top line. The vertical bounding lines, and the first two and the last horizontal bounding lines occasionally extending to the margins. Pricking visible on the top margin, and outer margins.

Hand(s)

Several hands were involved in copying the contents of this manuscript, however each scribe's work was confined to his own section; none of them is found elsewhere in the volume. The description of these hands and the scripts that they used follows the division of the manuscript into four codicological units (as given in Collation).

Folio 1r: Labels accompanying Zodiac Man copied in Anglicana.

Folio 1v: Lunar table copied in Anglicana Formata.

Unit 1: Calendar copied in Textura, with the headings in accompanying tables copied by another hand in Anglicana Formata.

Unit 2: Recipes for gilding and colouring (ff. 17r-18v) copied in Anglicana; the table of contents for the later recipe compilation (ff. 20r-25r) copied by another hand in Textura.

Unit 3: Uroscopy texts copied in Anglicana Formata by a single hand.

Unit 4: Collection of medical recipes and charms copied in Textura Quadrata by a single hand.

Unit 5: Uroscopy texts copied in Anglicana Formata by a single hand.

Decoration

1r: Zodiac Man: a male figure with animals representing the twelve zodiac signs, distributed across his body; with captions.

27r-30r: Thirty-four coloured jordans (urinary flasks); ff. 32v-33r three additional jordans without colour.

2v-14r: each calendar month on the verso is followed by an astronomical table on the facing recto, with additional astronomical tables on ff. 13v-14r. Numbers and writing in red ink in calendars and the diagrams.

126r-v: diagrams of eclipses coloured in red and oxidized silver(?).

Raised burnished gold initials, filled and surrounded by purple penwork flourishes (ff. 2v, 3v, 4v, 5v, 7v, 8v, 9v, 10v, 11v, 34r, 110r).

Pen-work initials in blue with red florishes (ff. 20r, 111r-119v).

Alternating gold and blue one-line initials with purple or red flourishes (ff. 2v, 3v, 4v, 5v, 7v, 8v, 9v, 10v, 11v).

Blue or red penwork initials throughout.

Red and blue line fillers (ff. 26r-32v, 119v-125v).

Initials in the margin occasionally filled with yellow ink (ff. 120r-124r).

Additions

Quire signatures ('1-16') 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 one or more hands of the 19th/20th century. Another hand has added quire signatures ('a-k') for Quires 5-14.

Classmark on front pastedown, notes about a missing leaf on ff. 58v and 101v, and a collation formula on the rear pastedown, all written in pencil by the hand of H.L. Pink , c. 1958.

Binding

Binding by J.P. Gray and son of Cambridge, dated 1958 by a note on the front pastedown. Millboard quarter binding with marbled paper covering and brown leather spine. The title and classmark are tooled in gold on the spine.

History

Origin: Late 14th century and the first half of the 15th century. ; England, perhaps East Anglia.

Calendar principally Sarum with variations pointing to East Anglia: Winwaloe, Withburga (3, 16 March), translation of Edmund, in red (28 April), Radegund (13 Aug.); also Dominic (5 Aug.).

Binski and Zutshi (2011), no. 221

Provenance and Acquisition

'Sir William Howheton': name inscribed on f. 14v (not noted by Binski and Zutshi), perhaps a member of the Hoghton family of Lancashire. There were two Sir William Hoghtons. Judging by the style of handwriting, the first is probably too early, having predeceased his father Sir Richard Hoghton (c. 1342-c. 1422). The second, Sir William Hoghton (d. 1501) , seems a more likely match. In the calendar, neither 'pape' (Gregory, f. 3v, glossed by a late 15th- / 16th-century hand 'ver', for 'vere'? ('truly'); Stephen, Sixtus, f. 8v; Marcus, f. 10v; Silvester, f. 12v) nor entries for the feast (f. 12v) and translation of St Thomas Becket (f. 7v) have been erased. This suggests that the manuscript remained in recusant hands during the 16th century, which would tally with continued ownership by the Hoghton family.

A certain date of accession is not known, however the manuscript is first recorded among the collections of Cambridge University Library in a catalogue compiled in 1754-56 by Thomas Goodall (now Cambridge, University Library, MS Oo.7.53-55). The manuscript may have belonged to John Moore (1646-1714) , bishop of Ely, and it contains the donation bookplate engraved by John Pine (1690-1756) in 1736, in commemoration of the purchase and donation of Moore's library by George I (1660-1727) (front pastedown). However, it has not been possible to identify this manuscript among Moore's collections as recorded in Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (c. 1697) or in the handwritten supplementary list of Moore's manuscripts (now MS Oo.7.50(2)) compiled by Thomas Tanner (1674-1735) after its publication, and these bookplates are not wholly reliable guides to a manuscript's provenance and acquisition.

D. McKitterick, Cambridge University Library: A History. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 141, 215

Additional Information

Record Sources

This catalogue entry draws on the description provided by Paul Binski and Patrick Zutshi, with the collaboration of Stella Panayotova, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: A Catalogue of the Collection in Cambridge University Library (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) (used here by kind permission of Cambridge University Press); 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. 18v-19r and 24v-25r).

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) Medical illustrations in medieval manuscripts Publications of the Wellcome Historical Medical Library. New series, MacKinney, Loren (London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1965) La technique de l'enluminure d'après les textes medievaux: essai de bibliographie La technique de l'enluminure d'après les textes medievaux, Avril, François (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1967) Medical Manuscripts in Middle English Speculum, Robbins, Rossell Hope (45, 3, 393-415, 1970, 2014-04-15T11:50:20Z, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2853500) Petri Philomenae de Dacia et Petri de S. Audomaro opera quadrivialia Corpus philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi, (Copenhagen, Gad, 1983) Les encres noires au Moyen Âge (jusqu'à 1600) Documents, études et répertoires / publiés par l'Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes, Zerdoun Bat-Yehouda, Monique (Paris, Éditions du CNRS, 1983) A linguistic atlas of late mediaeval English, McIntosh, AngusSamuels, M.L.Benskin, Michael (Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Press, 1986) "A drynke Þat men callen dwale to make a man to slepe whyle men kerven him": a surgical anesthetic from late medieval England Health, Disease and Healing in Medieval Culture, Voigts, Linda EhrsamHudson, Robert P. (Basingstoke, 34-56, Macmillan, 1992) The art of all colours: mediaeval recipe books for painters and illuminators, Clarke, Mark (London, Archetype Publications, 2001) Manuscripts of the West Midlands Catalogue: CUL MS Dd.6.29 Manuscripts of the West Midlands Catalogue, Scase, WendyFarnham, Rebecca (2004) 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 Middle English Letter of Ipocras English Studies, Tavormina, M. Teresa (88, 6, 632-652, 2007, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00138380701706526) Manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge (Dd-Oo) Index of Middle English prose, Connolly, Margaret (Woodbridge, D.S. Brewer, 2009) A Late Middle English remedy-book: (MS Wellcome 542, ff. 1r-20v): a scholarly edition Late Middle English texts, (Bern, Peter Lang, 2013, https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0351-0541-4) Uroscopy in Middle English: A Guide to the Texts and Manuscripts Studies in medieval and renaissance history, Tavormina, M. Teresa ([Michigan?], 2014) <hi rend="italics">The crafte of lymmyng</hi> and <hi rend="italics">The maner of steynyng</hi>: Middle English Recipes for Painters, Stainers, Scribes and Illuminators Early English Text Society (Series). Original series, (Oxford, Published for the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 2016) Due manoscritti veneti inediti del XIV secolo di argomento medico. Analisi comparativa ed edizioni della Lettera di Ippocrate a Cesare e delle ricette del Thesaurus pauperum, Guidi, Flavia (Pisa, 2019) The Capsula eburnea in several Middle English witnesses Token: A journal of English Linguistics, De La Cruz-Cabanillas, IsabelDiego-Rodríguez, Irene (13, 5-26, 2021, https://bibliotekacyfrowa.ujk.edu.pl/dlibra/publication/4818)

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