London, British Library, Additional 4698
England |
London |
British Library |
Additional 4698 |
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s. xv |
English |
Main hand analysed. Scribal Dialect: Herefordshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 347 229, LP 7290 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 199). |
A fifteenth-century manuscript containing treatises on various medical subjects including
Agnus Castus. Written in one main hand with later additions by various hands.
Item: iff. 5r-7v |
Index |
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Written in a later hand. Blank parchment leaf inserted before f. 8. |
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Item: 1ff. 8r-15v |
A Judicial of Urines |
'Uryne browne wiş a blake rynge is signe of deşe'. |
'expulciones of venemous maters it is signe of deşe'. |
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Item: 2ff. 15v-16v |
Recipes for coloured medicines |
'A medicyne for coloure'. |
'a litell hony and use it erly and late to drinke etcetera'. |
'A medicyne for coloure'. |
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Item: 3ff. 16v-42r |
Agnus Castus (IPMEP 38) |
'Agnus castus is an herbe şat men clepişe tutseyn'. |
Ends at the entry for 'Solatrum nigrum'. Explicit stained and difficult to read. |
'hic incipit liber herbarum'.'Agnus is an herbe şat men clepe tutseyn or ellis ...' |
Other manuscripts: London, British Library, Additional 4797; London, British Library, Arundel 272; London, British Library, Harley 3840; London, British Library, Royal 18 A.vi; London, British Library, Sloane 7, 120, 135, 297, 962, 1315, 2460, 2948, 3160, 3489. |
A version is printed in Brodin 1950, pp. 156-216.
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Item: 4ff. 42v-47r |
Table of Herbs |
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'Tabula herbaria' apparently intended as a supplement to item 3. The short index which precedes it is relevant to part of item 5. In a later hand. |
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Item: 5ff. 47r-91v |
Medical Recipes |
'The vertues of betonye'. |
'and drink it in ale'. |
'Medicynes'. |
A miscellaneous collection of recipes, a few of which (ff. 50v-52v) are in Latin. After f. 90r two leaves are missing. |
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Item: 6ff. 91v-105v |
Medical Recipes |
'Here biginnyth medicines gode'. |
'to drink'. |
Another copy of this text is in London, British Library, Royal 12 G.iv on ff. 188v-190r, with the title 'Practica Edwardi [Nigri], Universitatis Oxonie qui fuit...cirurgicus'. |
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Codex |
Paper and parchment. |
250 x 195 mm |
18; 2-712; 811; 9-1010.
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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. |
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).
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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.
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Not medieval.
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ff. 111 + vii |
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.
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Leaves are missing after ff. 102 (1), 103(6), 104(1). |
Unknown |
F. 4r - ; f. 68v (eighteenth century) - ; f. 111v (nineteenth century) - , , ; ff. 108r-109r - recipes in the hand of Nicholas Watson, surgeon to , preceded by a recommendation by Sir William, 20th August, 1503. |
Presented by Dr. Charles Morton, 15th March, 1757.
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Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, January 2004.
- http://searcharchives.bl.uk.
- Brodin, G., ed., 1950. Agnus Castus: A Middle English Herbal reconstructed from Various Manuscripts, Essays and Studies on English Language and Literature, 6, Uppsala Universitet: Engelska.
- McIntosh, A., Samuels, M. L. and Benskin, M. 1986. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English: County Dictionary, 4 vols, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 4.