Introduction:
This manuscript contains an abridgement of statutes from the reign of King Edward
III (reg. 1327–1377),
written in Latin and French. A single medical recipe was added in the 15th century
to some blank space after the end
of the Statute of Ireland: entitled 'To remove a blemish in the eye' ('Ad delendam
maculam in Oculo'), it prescribes a
herbal remedy comprising 'þynroske', 'lushes', red fennel, celandine, rosemary, sage
and other plants, which were to
be crushed together and tempered with breast milk from a woman who has given birth
to a male child. This concoction
should then be wrung through a linen cloth and applied to the sore eye.
It is not unusual to find such cures in manuscripts that otherwise have no medical
contents.
Nevertheless, it is noticeable that legal manuscripts were a frequent repository for
this kind of information, with
several other examples included among the corpus covered by the Curious Cures project.
For example, Cambridge, University Library, MS
Add. 2994 - a legal compendium comprising the Novel Tenures, the Natura brevium and various other standard texts, owned and partly written by Edward Cushyn (fl.
1512) - contains a collection of fifteen remedies for gout. Cambridge, University Library, MS Add.
7912 - a legal commonplace book compiled by Sir Edmund Jenney (d. 1522) and members of
his family -
has recipes to purge excess phlegm or choler, cures for breathlessness ('schortnes
of wynd') and the pestilence, and a
'gargarison for the fumys in the head'. Cambridge, University Library, MS
Ee.1.3 - principally a copy of Common Pleas entries compiled by Simon Elryngton of Hackney
(d.
1481/85) - has recipes for a plaster to stop aches, laxatives and costives, cures
for quartan fever, migraine and
burns. Similarly, Cambridge, University Library, MS Ee.5.18 - a compilation of Readings and other legal texts
copied wholly or largely by Walter Atwell (fl. c. 1520), lawyer of Staple Inn - also
includes a mnemonic about
stranguary, diarrhoea and dysentery and a recipe for purging the humours, both attributed
to the apothecary John
Cokkys (d. 1475). Strikingly, Cambridge, University Library, MS
Ee.5.22 - another compilation of Readings on Statutes - contains treatments apparently for
pregnant
women suffering from womb pain or morning sickness as well as for infants, thus placing
the manuscript in both a
domestic as well as a professional context.
Rather than attributing this pattern to lawyerly hypochondria, a more likely explanation
is that medieval
legal practitioners were literate men, had parchment or paper and pen to hand, and
were accustomed to writing useful
information down: in all of the above manuscripts, the recipes were copied into blank
space around the legal texts
that formed their principal contents. These notes might be prescriptions they had
received from medical practitioners
or ones recommended to them by acquaintances. As professionals, lawyers also possessed
the means to pay for medical
treatments, though the fact they troubled to record them suggests that they or their
households may have tried to make
the formulations themselves. In the case of MS Kk.6.6, one can easily imagine a medieval
lawyer suffering from sore
eyes as a consequence of poring over the necessities of legal bureaucracy in his poorly
lit chambers.
Dr James Freeman|Medieval Manuscripts Specialist|Cambridge University Library
Language(s): Latin and Middle French
1. 2r-6v
Precedents of writs founded on the Ordinance of the Labourers 1349, and a commission
for justices of
labourers in the parts of Holland, Linconshire
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 2r-2r Rex vicecomiti salutem
Explicit: 6v iuxta tenore ordinacionis supradicte
2. 7v
Exhortation to St Katherine
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 7v O Sancta Kat[erina]
Full transcription. Added in the (?) 15th-century.
3. 9r-45v
Chronological abridgement of statutes, 1-45 Edward III
Language(s): Middle French and Latin
Rubric: 9r Anno primo Edwardi Tercij
Incipit: 9r Fait asauoir qe lan le Roi
Explicit: 45v come ad este use avaunt cez hurez etcaetera
4. 45v-46r
Nota exceptionis [Modus exceptionum]
Language(s): Latin
Rubric: 45v Sequitur quot modus dicitur excepcio
Incipit: 45r Notandum quod quatuor modis dicitur exceptio
Explicit: 46r et post illam non valeant ad aliam resortire responcionem
For other copies of this mnemonic note see Baker and Ringrose, Catalogue of English Legal
Manuscripts (1996), pp. 96-97.
5. 47r-55v
Statute of Ireland (31 Edward III, statute 4)
Language(s): Latin
Rubric: 47r Incipit statutum de Hibernia
Incipit: 47r Edwardus etcaetera Archiepiscopis Abbatibus Prioribus Ministri nostri tam
maioribus quam minoribus et quibuscumque aliis de terra nostra Hibernia fidelibus
nostris
Explicit: 55v In cuius rei testimonium etcaetera Rege apud Westmonasterium vicesimo
sexto die Octobri per ipsum et consilium etcaetera
Final rubric: 55v Explicit de Hibernia
SR 1: 357
6. 55v
Medical recipe
Language(s): Middle English and Latin
Rubric: 55v Ad delendam maculam in oculo
Incipit: 55v Take iij plontys of þynroske and v plontis of [...?] ?lushes and iij
plontis of rede fenell and take alytyll sorell and alytyll of salodyne and ij croppus
or iij of rosemary and v lewys
of fysh sage and bray all these erbis well in a morter and temper hit with womanys
milke þat haþ borrer a knawe child
and wryng all this throw a lynnyn cloþ and þen put hit euery day in to the sore eyy
For a blemish in the eye. Added in the 15th-century. Full transcription.
Translation: Take three plants of primrose and five plants of ?luskres and three plants
of red fennel and take a
little sorrel, and a little of celandine, and two sprigs or three of rosemary, and
five leaves of thistle sage and
crush all these herbs well in a mortar and temper it with the milk of woman who has
given birth to a boy, and wring
all this through a linen cloth, and then put it every day into the sore eye.
Connolly, Manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge (Dd-Oo) (2009), p. 281
7. 56r
31 Edward III, statute 1, c. 15 (abridged)
Language(s): Middle French and Latin
Incipit: 56r Anno xxxio. Item, pur ceo que lez viscountes ount vse de tenir lour tourns
en qaresme
Explicit: 56ret sils lez teignent en autre manere qadonqes ils perdent
lours tourne par le temps||
SR 1: 352
8. 56r-58v
Statutum de moneta
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 56r Per discretionem totius Anglie fuit mensura domini regis composita
videlicet quod denarius Anglicus qui vocatur sterlingus rotundus et sine tonsura ponderabit
xxxii grana frumenti rubij
et rotundi in medio spice
Explicit: 58v Et Clx partice qualitercumque tacent faciunt j acre terre
For other copies of this mnemonic note see Baker and Ringrose, Catalogue of English
Legal Manuscripts (1996), p.
96.
SR 1: 200
9. 58v
Note from the year book for the Easter term of 17 Edward III
Language(s): Middle French
Rubric: 58v De corona
Incipit: 58v En case de corone si le defendant challenge generalment iii enquestez
saunz cause
Explicit: 58v et ne serra pas noumbre vt patet in anno xvijo Edwardi tercij termino Pasche
For an edition of the text from another manuscript, see Year Books of the Reign of King Edward the
Third: Year XVII, ed. by Luke Owen Pike, Rolls Series 31 (London: Printed by Mackie for Her Majesty's
Stationery Office, 1901), p. 281, pl. 8.
Secundo Folio:
2r ab eodem a recepit
Form: codex
Support:
Parchment (HFFH)
Extent:
Codex:
ii + 58 +
ii leaves.
155 × 110 mm.
Foliation:
20th-century foliation (before 1987)
[i-ii] + 1-58 + [iii-iv]
Numbering in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the rectos.
Collation
- Quire 18 (ff. 1-8)
- Quire 218 (ff. 19-26)
- Quire 316 (ff. 27-42)
- Quire 48 (ff. 43-50)
- Quire 58 (ff. 51-58)
18 218 316 48 58
Condition
Some staining, especially on ff. 50v-51r, but without affecting the text
Layout
125 × 80 mm.
Ruling in crayon, frame only. Single columns. 22-31 lines to the page, written below
top
line.
Hand(s)
Writen in several current Anglicana hands, the main ones are on ff. 2r-6v; 9r-21v; 21v-45v;
47r-52r; 52r-52v.
The medical recipe on f. 55v is written in Anglicana.
Decoration
One heading in blue ink on f. 9r.
Underlining in blue or red.
Paragraph marks in red or blue.
Capitals occasionally touched with red.
Additions
Quire signatures ('1-5') 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.
Binding
Full white leather binding that replaces the old binding described by Baker and Ringrose,
Catalogue of English
Legal Manuscripts (1987), 422.
The previous 18th-century binding is kept separately: quarter brown leather with marbled
paper sides. These include
an engraved donation bookplate (see Acquisition), ten endleaves (ff. i-x), and a spine label of Red Russia leather gold-stamped with the letters 'Edward
3.D. M.S.'.
Origin:
Late 14th century.
; England.
Provenance and Acquisition
Richard Pygot (fl. 15th century)
: his name inscribed in a 15th-century hand on f. 58v: 'per me Ricardum Pygot'.
John Moore (1646-1714)
, bishop of Ely: no. 783 (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 front pastedown
of the former 18th-century binding.
