London, British Library, Sloane 5
| Shelfmark | Date and Language | Contents |
| Physical Description | History | Record History | Bibliography |

Shelfmark
Country:England
Settlement:London
Repository: British Library
Idno:Sloane 5
AltName:
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Date and Language
Date:s. xivex and s. xv
Language: English
Dialect:Scribal Dialect: scribe of ff. 13-57 and ff. 61-193r - Herefordshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 344 233, LP 7361 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 199).
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Contents
A late fourteenth-century and fifteenth-century manuscript written by two scribes (or perhaps one) containing surgical and medical texts as well a Latin, French and English synonymy of herbs.

Item: 1
Locus:ff. 3r-v
Title:Of Urines
Incipit:'Urinis'.
Explicit:
Note:Late fourteenth-century text.
Bibliography:

Item: 2
Locus:ff. 4r-12v
Title:On herbs
Incipit:'Absintheum amarum deu maners gallice aoyne anglice weremod'.
Explicit:
Rubric:'Hic incipiunt synonyma de herbis latin gallice & anglice'.
Note:Late fourteenth-century alphabet of herbs.
Bibliography:

Item: 3
Locus:ff. 13r-57r
Title:Translation of Aemilius Macer's De virtutibus herbarum
Incipit:'Ache is hote'.
Explicit:'He prayeth with all his hart the santys to amende'.
Note:F. 55: 'God gracious of grauntis havythe yyeue and ygrauntid vertuys in woodys stonys and herbis of the which erbis macer the philzofure made a boke in latyne the whiche boke iohannes lelamoure scolemaistrere of herforde est [Hereford East] they he vnworthy was in the yere of oure Lorde a. m. ccc. lxxiij. tournyd into ynglis'. A table of contents for this text is on ff. 58vb-60vb.
Bibliography:

Item: 4
Locus:f. 57r
Title:Recipe for laxative
Incipit:'Take iij peny wheyght'.
Explicit:'poteagre & dropesy in mau[illegible]nd woundus'.
Rubric:'a powdre laskatyffe'.
Bibliography:

Item: 5
Locus:ff. 57va-60vb
Title:Table of contents
Incipit:
Explicit:
Note:Table of contents for items 3, 6, and 8.
Bibliography:

Item: 6
Locus:ff. 61r-156v
Title:Treatise on nature and cure of diseases
Incipit:'Age is moder of forretilhed'.
Explicit:'as is seide in že etyo ffaller'.
Note:F. 156 is an insert containing four medical recipes in a fifteenth-century hand on f. 156r, f. 156v is blank. Added on f. 157v in a Textura script is, 'Iste liber constat richardo dod de london sorior'. A table of contents for this text is on ff. 57va-58rb.
Bibliography:

Item: 7
Locus:ff. 157rb-157vb
Title:Medical Recipes
Incipit:
Explicit:
Note:Texts added by a later, fifteenth-century? hand.
Bibliography:

Item: 8
Locus:ff. 158ra-172vb
Title:Sickness of Women
Incipit:'Sires we shulle vnderstonde that womene haue lesse hete'.
Explicit:'and bynde hit faste žat hit fall not away'.
Rubric:'Greuance of wemen'. 'Explicit liber perucreseos Galieni'.
Note:A table of contents relating to this text is on f. 58va. The rubric is added in a later fifteenth-century hand. This text is the excerpted gynaecological chapters from Gilbertus Anglicus's Compendium medicine. Green (1992, p. 60). Other copies of this version of the text can be found in: New Haven, Yale University, Medical Library, MS 47 (ff. 60r-71v); London, British Library, MS Royal 18 A.vi, London, British Library, MS Sloane 3486; London, Society of Antiquaries, MS 338 (ff. 76v-85v). Green refers to the text found in these manuscripts as 'version 1'.
Bibliography:

Item: 9
Locus:ff. 173r-179ra
Title:A treatise of the houses of the planets
Incipit:'Here begynnethe the merueylous and sothefaste conynge of astrologye'.
Explicit:'and barly litell and shorte žat yere'.
Bibliography:

Item: 10
Locus:f. 179ra-b
Title:The Letting of the Moon
Incipit:'Nowe že man žat desireth to haue'.
Explicit:'libra scorpionis & sagittaris. Explicit'.
Rubric:'The lettynge of the mone'.
Bibliography:

Item: 11
Locus:f. 179rb-vb
Title:The Moon of Ptolome
Incipit:'Here begynnyth že mone'.
Explicit:'a yere soyrow'.
Rubric:'The mone of ptolome'.
Bibliography:

Item: 12
Locus:ff. 179v-181ra
Title:Seven Planets
Incipit:'Nowe ye moste vnderstonde that there ben 7 planetis'.
Explicit:'2 yere and a halfe'.
Bibliography:

Item: 13
Locus:ff. 181ra-187rb
Title:Tract of the government of planets
Incipit:'Evermore after other regnethe the 7 planetis'.
Explicit:'Schall be pale of hewe'.
Bibliography:

Item: 14
Locus:ff. 187va-190ra
Title:A treatise of urines
Incipit:'Carapos signifiethe the dropcye'.
Explicit:'a lytoll hony'.
Rubric:'Carapos'.
Note:With diagrams. F. 190v blank.
Bibliography:

Item: 15
Locus:ff. 191ra-193rb
Title:To Know Evils
Incipit:'Hou knowe euelles that comen of postoumes'.
Explicit:'venyn & le poysoun'.
Bibliography:
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Physical Description
Form:Codex
Support: Parchment and paper.
Extent:270 x 205 mm
Collation: Unascertained
Layout:Pricking not visible. Writing space of 190 x 135 mm; double columns, each column c. 190 x 65 mm. Single and double columns with lines of c. 29 single; 35 double. Frame ruled in brown crayon.
Writing: Scribe of ff. 13-57 writing in a fifteenth-century Secretary script. Characteristics: single compartment a; sigma s in final position; reversed B-shaped e in medial position; long s in medial position; ž; single compartment g; reversed B-shape s in final position. Body height: 2mm. Scribe of ff. 61-193r - fifteenth-century cursive Secretary script. Body height: 2mm. The hand is very similar to the first scribe and it is possible that only one scribe wrote ff. 13-193r.
Decoration: Item 1: paraphs and some letters tinted red. Item 2: red paraphs, brown ink. Item 3: text begins with a five-line blue initial with crude red penwork and infill; two-line red initials, red paraphs, running titles underlined in red. Item 5: three-line red initial A with red dots around, red paraphs, some initials and punctuation in red, two-line red lombardic capitals with crude red penwork. Item 7: four-line red lombardic capital, red paraphs, red underlining. Items: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12: two-line red capitals, underlining in red, some capitals tinted red, some punctuation red. Items 14: three-line red initial, red paraphs, initials tinted red.
Binding: Not medieval. Size: 290 x 235 mm. Brown leather with tan fabric and stamp of Sloane library on front. Five raised bands on spine.
Foliation:ff. 194. Modern pencil foliation. Really v + 189 + ii. There are five parchment flyleaves at the beginning with ii and iii foliated as 1 and 2, iv and v are not foliated and the text starts on f. 3r (previously f. 1).
Additions:
Condition:
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History
Origin:Unknown
Provenance: On f. 1v is written ' est possessor...' in the same hand on f. 2r is written, 'A compleat body of Physick for the cureinge of most diseases'. The manuscript formerly belonged to the barber-surgeon, , on f. 157v in a fifteenth-century Textura script is written 'Iste liber constat richardo dod de london barbor sorior'. Hanna (1994, p. 192) believes that this could be the same Richard Dod who owned San Marino (California), Huntington Library, MS HM 505, a copy of Henry Daniel's Liber uricrisiarum.
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Record History
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, March 2004.
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Bibliography
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