London, British Library, Additional 4698

| Shelfmark | Date and Language | Contents |
| Physical Description | History | Record History | Bibliography |


Shelfmark
Country:England
Settlement:London
Repository: British Library
Idno:Additional 4698
AltName:
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Date and Language
Date:s. xv
Language: English
Dialect:Main hand analysed. Scribal Dialect: Herefordshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 347 229, LP 7290 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 199).
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Contents
A fifteenth-century manuscript containing treatises on various medical subjects including Agnus Castus. Written in one main hand with later additions by various hands.







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Physical Description
Form:Codex
Support: Paper and parchment.
Extent:250 x 195 mm
Collation: 18; 2-712; 811; 9-1010.
Layout:Pricking: none apparent. Writing space of 195 x 130 mm. Single columns with 32 lines. Frame ruled in brown/purple crayon on the paper and parchment sections; lines ruled in drypoint on parchment.
Writing: Written by one main scribe with later additions, all fifteenth/sixteenth-century cursives. Recipes in the hand of Nicholas Watson, surgeon to Sir William Hylton, f. 108r (see Additions).
Decoration: Initial page: five-line gold (now white with remnants of gold) U with blue infill patterned with white-line foliate decoration (now oxidised). Initial ground of rose with (now oxidised) white line decoration; sprays of black feathering with void oval lobes extend from top and bottom of initial - bottom spray terminates in teasle-like flower. Other folios: two-line blue initial boxed in by red penwork made up of concentric squares.
Binding: Not medieval.
Foliation:ff. 111 + vii
Additions:F. 1v - two recipes (dated 1500) and a list of 'Precious waters'. F. 2r - text beginning, 'Thys [is] a rewyll off the speyr off pictagoras' (cf. London, British Library, Royal 17 A.xxxii, f. 3r). F. 3r - 'Liber urinarum valde utilis', inc. 'Now her begynnyth the waters', possibly intended as a preface to item 1. F. 3v - 'Unguentum diaflosmus (?)'. F. 4v - 'As ther is VII dayes of the weykes so ther is VII herbys pryncipall'. Other notes in various hands are on ff. 5r-v, 6r-v, 7r-v. Ff. 106-107v - short treatise on the treatment of wounds in a fifteenth-century hand beginning, 'He fyrste for to speke of a wound'. Ff. 108r-109r - recipes in the hand of Nicholas Watson, surgeon to Sir William Hylton, preceded by a recommendation by Sir William, 20th August, 1503. F. 110r - 'The properties of our daffodyls' written at 'yelyston', 14th May 1491, and further notes in Latin. Much later marginalia throughout.
Condition:Leaves are missing after ff. 102 (1), 103(6), 104(1).
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History
Origin:Unknown
Provenance:F. 4r - ; f. 68v (eighteenth century) - ; f. 111v (nineteenth century) - , , ; ff. 108r-109r - recipes in the hand of , surgeon to , preceded by a recommendation by Sir William, 20th August, 1503.
Acquisition:Presented by Dr. Charles Morton, 15th March, 1757.
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Record History
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, January 2004.
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Bibliography
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