MEDICA (ENGLISH)
Vellum and paper, 7.75 x 5.75, ff. 2 + 56 + 51 + 52, several volumes. 15th and 14th cent.
Ex dono Magistri gent ecclesiae Barbrooke in Essexia Rectoris.
Collation: 2 flyleaves, 110 210 312 412 (7 canc.) 510 64 | 78 818 (one canc.) 912 (+2) 108 118 (5-8 gone) | 126 1312 1412 1510 1612.
On flyleaf, notes on 4 elements, etc.
Contents:
I. 1. A collection of receipts in English, beginning imperfectly . f. 1
In a prayer on 27b, mention of S. Edmund the martyr.
f. 29. Here ben wreten al ye names of diuerse receytes for
alle euelis but here fayleis mani for yc defaute of ye samplarte.
Aurea Alexandrina, etc.: ending f. 34.
Hand changes on f. 47. Latin receipts.
English receipts follow after 2 leaves. On 51b (so numbered) a
form of divination by odd and even numbers, like one in the
Canterbury Psalter. (Trin. Coll. B.17)
f. 53. Carta redemptoris (printed by Furnivall, E. E. T. S.).
Wetyth now alle that ben here
And after schal be leue and dere.
Spera apulei placonici (with diagram) . . . . . 53b
Prognostics for the year . . . . . . . 54
Another hand. Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria, Pater Noster,
verses on Love in English . . . . . . 55
Loue I desyre and loue me be gyle
loue sesyth stryue loue lesyt my lyue.
Diagram unlettered . . . . . . . 56
Verses: Munus fit iudex fraus est mercator in orbe, etc.
Anglice. (gh)eft is domusman and gyle is chapman, etc. . . 56b
Note on number of parishes in England.
Receipts. 57b blank.
II. 2. Another collection of receipts in English, beginning imperfectly 3
On 10b a (spurious) tract of Ipocras:
Of eyche maner euyl what eyuer yt be.
The foliation runs to 143 with many gaps. There are changes
of hand, and much is in Latin.
III. Vellum, 14th cent.
Kalendar in red, blue and black . . . . . . 1
Some notes in Greek letters, reminding one of Dr John Dee's.
The date 1607.
Sept. 24. Dedicacio eccl. Noruic. a. d. mo cco in red.
Nov. 17. Transl. S. Etheldrede.
Otherwise Sarum.
On f. 7 dates end. Liber M. Tomsun.
Antidotarium Nicholai in English . . . . . . 7
Alle mi(gh}te god {th}t made al {th}inge. Prologue in red.
Coarse initial of Christ with globe.
- as {th}is kalendar make{th} schewinge.
Capitula . . . . . . . . . . . 7b
Aurea dicitur ab auro, etc. it is god for rewme . . . . . 9
Initial, man holding vessel.
On f. 11 Robert Marrow.
From f. 40 text in Latin.
Hec sunt que subtili ingenio ac solerti studio.
Ends with list of herbs in double columns.
Zauara. bissoppis gresse. Expl. tract. herbarum.
Receipts in other hands.
This manuscript has been fully digitized and can be accessed on the Cambridge Digital Library and via the viewer below:
Negative microfilm in St John’s College Library.
Given by John Gent (d. 1651), BA St John’s College 1625-6, Rector of Birdbrook, Essex, 1632-51.
I. 1 f.51v-52v:
C.S.F. Burnett, 'The Eadwine Psalter and the western tradition of the onomancy in Pseudo-Aristotle's 'Secret of Secrets', Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age (1988), 143-67.
I. 1 f.53 Carta redemptoris:
Printed in M.C. Spalding, Middle English Charters of Christ (Bryan Mawr, 1914), p. 16.
II. 2 f.10v Ipocras:
H. Hargreaves, 'Additional information for the Brown-Robbins index', Notes and Queries 16 (1969), 446-7.
M.T. Tavormina, ‘The Middle English Letter of Ipocras’, English Studies 88:6 (Dec. 2007), 632-652.
