Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.6.17
Miscellany
Physical Description
19th- or 20th-century foliation:
[i] + 1-55 | 56-75 | 76-117 + [ii-iv]
Numbering in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the rectos. [54a]Collation
- Quire 128 (ff. 1-28)
- Quire 228-1 (ff. 29-55: 27th leaf, after f. 54, excised; perhaps blank) |
- Quire 320 (ff. 56-75) |
- Quire 4-68 (ff. 76-99)
- Quires 712 (ff. 100-111)
- Quire 88-2 (ff. 112-117: 7th and 8th leaves, after f. 117, missing)
Condition
Additions
Quire signatures ('1-8') in the bottom right-hand corner of the recto side of the first leaf of each quire, written in pencil by a hand of the 19th/20th century. '+' in the same position on the first leaf after the centre of the quire, also in pencil, perhaps added later by H.L. Pink.
Collation formula by the hand of H.L. Pink (rear pastedown).
Binding
Brown quarter leather with marbled paper sides. Bound by W.H. Smith and Son , London, June 1958 according to an inscription on the front pastedown. Classmark labels from the previous spine have been retained on the front pastedown.
Binding height: 160mm; width: 115mm; depth: 30mm.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
John Moore (1646-1714) , bishop of Ely: no. 217 (inscribed in ink 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 f. front pastedown.
Part 1: Medical texts and recipes [Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.6.17, ff. 1-55]
Contents
Language(s): Middle English and Latin
Definitions of Latin words in Latin and English: ‘Contaminor [...] polluor’; ‘Contaminor as to file’; and ‘Contemptor [...]’.
The heading that names the translator as ‘Master Bartholomew’ and the commissioners as Richard II and Queen Anne is apparently unique to this manuscript.
For gonorrhea.
Also part of a treatise on urine edited in C. H. Talbot, 'A Mediaeval Physician's Vade Mecum', Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 16:3 (1961), 213-233 (pp. 226-227).
See also:
- Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 405, f. 251r
- Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College College, MS 190/223, f. 1r
- Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.9.38, f. 63r
A Middle English recipe to treat the stomach occurs on f. 41r.
Other copies of this anonymous text appear to survive in: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 6891 , ff. 80v-82r; Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, MS 3599, ff. 69r-69v; and St Gallen, Kantonsbibliothek Vadianische Sammlung, MS 435, ff. 155r-156v.
The heading/rubric has been added by a later (16th-century) hand.
Collection of fourteen recipes, among which is an English version of the so-called Tres Boni Fratres charm for staunching blood on ff. 52v-53r (‘Medicina ad obturandum siue cessandum sanguinem’).
The recipes address the following:
- herbs to dissolve phlegm and expel heat from the liver (f. 47v)
- a laxative powder (f. 48r)
- to make 'oil of Exeter' (ff. 48r-49r)
- to expel morphea (f. 50v)
- against pestilence (ff. 50v-51r)
- for sciatica (f. 51v)
- against pain in women's breasts (f. 51v)
- against migraine / headache ('Medicina contra omestrum \ id est þe Migraine') (ff. 51v-52v)
- two recipes to stop bleeding (ff. 52v-53r)
- to heal new wounds (ff. 53r-53v)
- for haemorrhoids (ff. 53v-54r)
- to stop pain in the spine/back (f. 54r)
- for scalding or burning (f. 54v)
Ends imperfectly with an unfinished recipe entitled: 'A medicine for Wodenesse'.
For dropsy (f. 55r) and the stone (f. 55v). Added by two hands of the late 15th or 16th century.
Physical Description
Collation
128 228-1 (27th excised, perhaps blank)
Layout
105 × 70-80 mm. Ruled in leadpoint or hardpoint, frame only. Single columns, 19-25 lines to the page, written above or below top line.
Hand(s)
Written in Secretary, with Bastard Secretary used as a display script for rubrics and marginal content markers. Note the apparent French influence, from lettre bâtarde script, in the slanting form and swell/taper appearance of long letter forms (e.g. f and s.
Decoration
One four-line initial in ink, with simple infill and marginal flourishing, also in ink (f. 2r. The style is similar to that found in Part 2 (f. 56r), suggesting that they were added later.
Two- or three-line plain initials in red (ff. 25r-46r). One three-line plain initial in ink in Quire 1, presumably added at the same time as the flourished initial (f. 2r).
Occasionally gaps for two-line initials left unfilled.
History
Provenance
Rychard Lorans : his name inscribed in a late 15th- or early 16th-century script in the lower margin of 34r: 'Rychard Lorans', perhaps with another personal name: '? Ambrose Amare'.
John Kyngsouth (?) : his name inscribed in a late 15th- or early 16th-century script in the lower margin of 35r: 'John Kyng[?sou]th'.
Part 2: Formulary text [Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.6.17, ff. 56-75]
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Physical Description
Collation
320
Layout
80-85 × 60 mm. Ruled in leadpoint, frame only. Single columns, 18-22 lines to the page, written below top line.
Hand(s)
Written in hybrida.
Decoration
One five-line initial in ink, with simple infill and marginal flourishing also in ink (f. 56r). The style is similar to that found in Part 1 (f. 2r), suggesting that they were added later.
Gaps left for two-line initials.
History
Part 3: Legal, wisdom and epistolary texts [Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.6.17, ff. 76-117]
Contents
Language(s): Latin, Middle French and Middle English
Physical Description
Collation
4-68 712 88-2 (7th and 8th missing)
Catchwords.Layout
95-105 × 75-80 mm. Ruled in leadpoint, frame only. Single columns, 18-25 lines to the page, written above or below top line.
Hand(s)
Folios 80r-100r written in lettre bâtarde, with display scripts in littera textualis (f. 80r) and a larger module of lettre bâtarde for rubrics.
Folios 76r-79r and 100v-117v written in hybrida, by several hands, with display scripts in a larger module of lettre bâtarde for rubrics (incl. 'bastard' version that includes elements of littera textualis, f. 76r).
Decoration
Cadel (f. 89v
Gaps left for two- and three-line initials. Prompt letters written as litterae notabiliores (ff. 81v-90r).
History
Additional Information
Record Sources
Availability
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Bibliography
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Funding of Cataloguing
Wellcome
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Abbreviations
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