London, British Library, Royal 12 G.iv
| Shelfmark | Date and Language | Contents |
| Physical Description | History | Record History | Bibliography |

Shelfmark
Country:England
Settlement:London
Repository: British Library
Idno:Royal 12 G.iv
AltName:
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Date and Language
Date:s. xiii with material added until s. xvin
Language: English
Dialect:Scribe 1 (ff. 179v-181v, 185r, 187r, 188v-199v; 187v possibly in this hand) - Scribal Dialect: Warwickshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 435 280, LP 1306 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 244). Scribe 2 (ff. 200r-201va) - Scribal Dialect: not analysed. Scribe 3 (ff. 201vb-202vb) - Scribal Dialect: not analysed. Scribe 4 (ff. 203r-204v, 206r, 211r) - Scribal Dialect: Warwickshire, Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 435 280, LP 1307. Scribe 5 (ff. 205r-v, 212r-v, 215r-v) - Scribal Dialect: not analysed. Scribe 6 (ff. 209r-210v) - Scribal Dialect: not analysed. Scribe 7 (ff. 217r, 220v) - Scribal Dialect: not analysed. Scribe 8 (ff. 220v-221r) - Scribal Dialect: not analysed.
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Contents
A manuscript of medical texts and recipes made up of one original book written c. 1300 (items 2-4) with various medical texts added later. An inscription tells us that after the book was bought for St. Mary's Priory, Coventry it was added to by Brother John of Grenborough. Various medical texts were then added over the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Two separate books of the Practica are bound together one beginning at f. 188v the other at f. 203r although the beginning of the second text is missing.

Item: 1
Locus:ff. 1r-4v
Title:Medical Treatise
Incipit:
Explicit:
Note:Added to the flyleaves at the front of the original volume. Wormholes and staining make the incipit illegible.
Bibliography:

Item: 2
Locus:ff. 5r-127r
Title:Lilium/Laurea medicinae
Incipit:'Incipit liber morborum tam vniuersalium quam particularium'.
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 3
Locus:ff. 127r-129v
Title:Questions on various branches of natural science
Incipit:'Queritur quare equus redorsatus'.
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 4
Locus:ff. 129v-131v
Title:Notes from Aristotle
Incipit:'Quantum pluma in auibus'.
Explicit:
Rubric:'Incipiunt notabiles abstracciones de animalibus'.
Bibliography:

Item: 5.1
Locus:f. 132r
Title:Astrological table
Incipit:
Explicit:
Note:The place of the moon in the signs for every day of the year.
Bibliography:

Item: 5.2
Locus:f. 132r
Title:Astrological table: a wheel
Incipit:
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 6
Locus:ff. 132v-133r
Title:Table of chapters to item 1
Incipit:
Explicit:
Note:Written in an early fourteenth-century hand.
Bibliography:

Item: 7
Locus:ff. 134r-136v
Title:Alphabet of Herbs
Incipit:'Aaron barba aaron iarus pes vituli gallice iare anglice cokousepintul'.
Explicit:'Upia anglice canell'.
Note:A table of synonyms. Followed by a note on the 'herba que dicitur mortagon'
Bibliography:

Item: 8.1
Locus:ff. 137r-138va
Title:Tract on physiognomy
Incipit:'Elegans est nature congnicio'.
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 8.2
Locus:ff. 138vb-139v
Title:Physiognomical section of the Secreta Secretorum
Incipit:'Inter ceteras cogniciones'.
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 8.3
Locus:ff. 139v-140va
Title:Part of Rasis ad Almansorem
Incipit:'Color rubeus aut rufus'.
Explicit:
Note:The text is not distinguished from the others.
Bibliography:

Item: 9
Locus:ff. 140va-157b
Title:Remedies for all disorders of the body from the head downwards
Incipit:
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 10
Locus:ff. 157vb-158ra
Title:Tract on the Plague
Incipit:'Causa pestilencie est aer putridus'.
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 11
Locus:ff. 158ra-160ra
Title:Tract on the Plague
Incipit:'Post signa pestilencie sequitur cura pestilencie'.
Explicit:
Note:Another copy is in London, British Library, MS Sloane 134.
Bibliography:

Item: 12.1
Locus:f. 160ra
Title:Astrological tables: Place of the moon in the signs for every day of the year.
Incipit:
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 12.2
Locus:f. 160rb
Title:Circular diagram 'sphere' or 'wheel' with explanation in eight hexameters
Incipit:'Collige per numeros quicquid cupis esse probandum'.
Explicit:
Note:Cf. London, British Library, MS Sloane 416, f. 105.
Bibliography:

Item: 12.3
Locus:f. 160rb
Title:Table of the planetary influences for every hour in the week.
Incipit:
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 13
Locus:ff. 160va-167vb
Title:Recipes and Charms
Incipit:
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 14
Locus:ff. 168r-187v
Title:Medical recipes
Incipit:'Quando aliqui infirmantu sic debetis procedere in regemine illorum'.
Explicit:
Rubric:'Hic incipit modus de regemine informorum'.
Bibliography:

Item: 15
Locus:f. 188ra-188vb
Title:Medical Recipes
Incipit:
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 16
Locus:ff. 188vb-194rb
Title:Practica
Incipit:'Here bygynnes goode medicines žat goode leches haue founden and drawen owte of bokes of galiene'.
Explicit:'temper hit vp withal'.
Rubric:'Hic incipit practica edwardi vniuersitatis oxonie qui fuit optimus in illis partibus ciurgicus'.
Bibliography:Dawson 1934.

Item: 17
Locus:ff. 194va-200ra
Title:Miscellaneous recipes and charms
Incipit:'Contra sticturam pectoris recipe elene'.
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 18
Locus:f. 200ra
Title:Tract on phlebotomy
Incipit:'Minue uenam in extremitate nasi'.
Explicit:
Bibliography:

Item: 19
Locus:ff. 201ra-202v
Title:Miscellaneous recipes and charms
Incipit:'Pour bresure in renibus bynde hym aboue že kne'.
Explicit:
Note:Some leaves lost after f. 202.
Bibliography:

Item: 20
Locus:ff. 215ra-216vb
Title:Medical Recipes
Incipit:
Explicit:
Note:Folio 217ra contains further medical recipes, f. 217rb and 217 are blank, f. 218ra-b contains a table added at a later date and f. 218v is blank.
Bibliography:

Item: 21
Locus:ff. 219r-222r
Title:Recipes
Incipit:'For the coleca passio take perytory and sethe hit'.
Explicit:
Rubric:'Subscriptas practicas [sic] medicinarum reperte fuerunt in quodam quaterno accommodato ricard [crosby] priori couentrie anno regni regis henrici VIti octauo' (1429-1430).
Note:This text in a hand of the fifteenth century. F. 222v is blank.
Bibliography:
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Physical Description
Form:Codex
Support: Parchment
Extent:325 x 210 mm
Collation: 14, 2-168, 177, 182, 19-2012, 218, 2212, 2310, 2412, rest doubtful.
Layout: Layout varies eg. Item 1: double columns, no pricking or ruling, each column 265 x 80 mm, 64 lines. Item 2: frame ruled in drypoint for 2 columns, each column 245 x c. 75 mm, 82 lines. Items 3 and 4 - layout as above. Items 7.1, 7.2: 2 columns, frame ruled in drypoint, very faint, each column 270 x 75 mm. Items 12: double columns, frame and lines in drypoint, columns 255 x c. 75 mm. Items 14: double columns, 260 x 75-80 mm.
Writing: Various cursives.
Decoration: Item 1: red paraphs, some words tinted red. Item 2: red paraphs, two-line blue initials with red penwork; eight-line red initials with mauve penwork (faded), three-line red initials with mauve penwork; initial letter A red and blue nine-line, with red patterned infill and blue dots; red incipits. Item 3: red paraphs red underlining. Item 7: two-line red initial begins text; each item first word underlined in red and capital tinted red. Item 7.1: two-line red initial A begins text; some capitals tinted red. Item 8: incipit underlined; red paraphs, some initials tinted red. Item 13: red underlining, red paraphs. Item 14: three-line blue initial P with red penwork, red paraphs, red tinted initials. Item 15: text initial - three-line blue initial with red penwork, blue and red paraphs, some initials tinted red;
Binding: Not medieval. Date: 1757. Size: 340 x 230 mm. Cover of burgundy leather with external decoration of a gold stamp and the date 1757.
Foliation:ff. 226
Additions:On f. 133v is the couplet 'A prest pomme beue nul homme A prest poire cheschun doit boire'. The flyleaves (ff. 223-226) are from a late thirteenth-century civil law MS, containing the end of lib. xvi and beginning of lib. xvii of the Digest. On other flyleaves (ff. 1-4) are copies of recipes found in the book. A recipe in the margin of f. 142v is assigned to 'magister Cardinalis'. At f. 42v is a draft of the beginning of a letter in French, 'A sa chere mere dame Ysabele Bockerel'.
Condition:Good
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History
Provenance:The original part of the manuscript, items 2-4, was written c. 1300 and contains two early pledgings: 'Caucio, Iohannis de Hauerton scilicent lilium medicine prec. vii s. iiii d.' (f. 131v), and 'Caucio Iohannis de Merton (?)...exposita in cista Wyntoniensi (?) pro tribus...anno dom. mccc. vicesimo quinto...' (f. 133r). An inscription on f. 187v records that the book was bought by (Grandborough, East Warwickshire) infirmerer at St. Mary's, Coventry for over thirty years. It also states that he added various medical material in 'new sections' (in nouis quaternis) to the book. The inscription reads, 'Frater iohannes de grenborough per xxx annos et plus nuper infirmarius emebat istum librum vocatum gilbertinum ad vtilitatem infirmorum in ecclesia couentre existentiu, et ea que in nouis quaternis sunt scripta compilauit a practicis phisicorum anglie hibernie iudeorum saracenorum lumbardorum et salernita[no]rum et expendebat multa in medicis circa compilationem illarum medicinarum. Multa in nouis quaternis suprascripta per practicam sunt vera, set plures phisici nolunt approbare ea, quia multi illorum ignorant practicam se multa verba et vacua in ventum seminant'. A further inscription, naming is written at the beginning on f. 219r and reads, 'Subscriptas practicas medicinarum Preperte fuerunt in quodam quaterno accommodato ricardo [crosby] priori couentrie anno regni regis henrici VIti octauo' (1429-1430). On f. 186v, a note on the cure of '' (Birmingham). At f. 42v is a draft of the beginning of a letter in French, 'A sa chere mere dame '. Afterwards belonged to Henry Fowler (notes on ff. 5, 132, 188v, 201v, in his hand) and to John Theyer. Theyer sale catalogue no. 28; CMA 6594.
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Record History
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, August 2003.
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Bibliography
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