Catalogue of Durham University Library Cosin MS V.iv.8: medical recipes

Durham University Library Cosin MS V.iv.8Medical recipes
Held by: Durham University Library: Cosin Manuscripts

Manuscript codex containing medical recipes in English, written in West Yorkshire at the start of the 15th century. Owned by George Davenport and given by him to Bishop Cosin's Library around 1670.

Physical description of manuscript

Support

Parchment, smooth, of varying thickness; quires 1-2 with fleshside outermost, 3-4 with hairside.

Extent: ii+32+i f

Size: 157 mm x 120 mm

Foliation

foliated i, 1-32.

Secundo folio: [missing]

Collation

1-4⁸

Catchwords: Catchwords boxed in red.

Signatures: Quires numbered with small roman numbers in lower left corner of first recto, ij - v, on f.17^r boxed as catchwords.

Condition of manuscriptAll edges cropped, head by at least 5 mm, and foot by 12 mm, see corner dog-ears (f.15, 26, 29). Staining on f.24-26 and 32. Added matter on f.31^v-32^r washed out.

Layout

Written space 110-120 x 90-95 mm; framed in grey or brown. 24-26 long lines. Double rule in many upper and lower margins, utilised only for catchwords by main hand and for quire-numbers.

Script

Written in anglicana, with single-compartment a, and, for rubrics, larger, with double-compartment a, proficiently, by one hand, using y for þ. Additions in anglicana, by several hands, f.30^r/10 - 31^r/1, 31^r, 31^v, 32^r.

Decoration

Initial of each recipe touched with red, f.1-30.

Binding

Brown calf, late 17th century, with a pair of blind fillets round edges of sides and vertically on each side ca. 35 mm in from spine, and with Hugh Hutchinson's tool no. 6 blind in right-angles, and his dog-tooth roll D on board edges; original smooth spine with thirteen pairs of horizontal fillets, “IV 8” in ink in the fifth compartment down, 17th/18th century and full shelf-mark in gold at foot, preserved in late 20th century repair. A new pastedown and conjoint free endleaf added at front and back, mid 19th century.

Manuscript history

Creation

Written in England, Yorkshire, early 15th century.

Provenance

The language of the original texts, f.1-30, is assigned, LALME, i, 87, to the West Riding of Yorkshire. Inscription: “Iste liber constat Richard(o Helmyslay)”, mid 15th century, f.32^r, in the space between items (7b) and (7c), with the bracketed portion possibly over erasure; Helmsley is in the Vale of Pickering, N. Yorks., and a Richard Helmsley occurs in Cambridge Univ. Lib. Res. b.162, a printed Missale Ebor., given to Byland Abbey (N. Yorks.) by the executors of Martin Colins, Dean of York (died 1509). Marginal pen-trials in a secretary hand, mid-late 16th century, include “Anthone Withom”, “Anthone witham”, f.9^r, 11^v, 13^v; and “Thomas withom”, f.16^r; “EW” in italic, 16th/17th century, f.31^v; there was a Witham family in N. Yorks. 17th-19th century. “Chirurgicall Receipts”, in the hand of George Davenport, f.i^v; no ownership inscription by him visible, but recorded in his list of manuscripts. Ex-libris of library, as usual, by Thomas Rud, f.1^r.

Manuscript contents

(1) f.1^r-20^v

Modern title: Treatise on medical liquids

Incipit: ... all aboute þe nauyll & lat it lig iij days

Explicit: lay þerto & þat will hele it.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Beginning missing. "a tretise of oyles and of wateres medycynable how þei sall be made and for what maledy þei þe gode", according to the title to the same collection of recipes in BL MS Sloane 213, f.91^r-106^v, and Cambridge, Trinity Coll. MS O.2.13, f.100^r-112^r. Here 162 complete items remain, the first found almost halfway through Sloane, on f.98^va, and Trinity, f.105^r. Here, f.16^r, there is a charm For fallyng euele (“Take þe blode of þe litil fynger ...”) not found in Sloane, which contains three charms in French not found here, per T. M. Smallwood.

(2) f.20^v-21^r

Modern title: On favourable and unfavourable days

Incipit: Heere be þe parlous dayes of blode latyng And þe gode daies to blede on for diuerse eueles And þe parlous daies of birth of childre and of etyng of gees þat is for to wit In þe first iij dayes þat I tell

Explicit: þe iij day in þe begynnyng of Februare.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

As BL MSS Sloane 213 f.106^v-107^r, and 2270 f.375^v-376^v (16th century).

(3a) f.21^r-22^r

Modern title: Medical recipe

Incipit: For to make drynk of amitiage. Tak an handfull of bugle anoþer of strebery withes

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

As Sloane 213 f.107^r-109^r

(3b) f.21^r-22^r

Modern title: Medical recipe

Incipit: For to make sane on short maner

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

As Sloane 213 f.107^r-109^r

(3c) f.21^r-22^r

Modern title: Medical recipe

Incipit: For to make gode entrete

Explicit: and for cankyrs.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

As Sloane 213 f.107^r-109^r

(3d) f.22^r-22^v

Modern title: Charm

Incipit: A charme for þe wicked wight. In nomine patris

Explicit: amplius aliquo illorum vexetur. Amen.

Language: Latin

Not in MS Sloane 213.

Edited: Heinrich, p.166 (ends differently) from BL MS Add. 33996

(3e-as) f.22^v-30^r

Modern title: Medical recipes

Incipit: For scabbes on mans hands or of womans. Tak and sethe þe horhowe and celidoyne

Explicit: and he sall sone be hole probatum est multociens.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

42 pieces, as Sloane 213 f.107^r-109^r, which lacks the last item here “For þe dymygrayne. Tak primerose rotes ...”. Two extra lines at f.24^v foot and eight words in f.29^r top margin supplied in pale ink, perhaps by the hand of the added item (6).

(4) f.30^r

Modern title: Recipe

Date: [Added mid 15th century]

Incipit: Tayk gromyll and the cropp of yuen

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added at foot of page, last line cropped.

(5a) f.30^r-30^v

Modern title: Charm

Date: [Added 15th century]

Incipit: Fo[r] to charme a wounde with oyle ande wolle. Thre gude brethere ȝede to þe mounte of olyuet

Explicit: with thre Pater noster and iij Aue marias In nomine patris et filij et spiritus sancti amen.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added by one hand and ink, perhaps as item (8). Occurs in verbally variant form in Cosin MS V.iv.1 f.28^v. A Latin version, from B.L. MS Add. 33996, printed Heinrich, p.162.

(5b) f.30^v

Modern title: Charm

Date: [Added 15th century]

Incipit: Anoþer. Take a dyschefull of fayr water ande say þes wordes

Explicit: and att þai be alway wete.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added by one hand and ink, perhaps as item (8). Includes a Latin blessing for cloths on a wound.

(5c) f.30^v-31^r

Modern title: Charm

Date: [Added 15th century]

Incipit: Fore þe Jawnesse þat es called þe Golsought. Take an appill ande scher it ouerthwerte in sunder

Explicit: ne beste ete it noughte. and he schall be hole.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added by one hand and ink, perhaps as item (8). Occurs in verbally variant form in Cosin MS V.iv.1 f.27^v

(5d) f.31^r

Modern title: Medical recipe

Date: [Added 15th century]

Incipit: Pro colica passio. Take a quartron of anneys sede ande a quartron of comyne sede

Explicit: he schalle be hole.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added by one hand and ink, perhaps as item (8).

(5e) f.30^r-30^v

Modern title: Medical recipe

Date: [Added 15th century]

Incipit: Fore wynde ande fleume in the stomake. Take a quartron of Gunla campanana

Explicit: and at euyn.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added by one hand and ink, perhaps as item (8).

(5f) f.30^r-30^v

Modern title: Medical recipe

Date: [Added 15th century]

Incipit: To staunche þe flyxe are if þat a mannes nature waste. Tak clene mylke of a gayte

Explicit: within thryes dryngenne.

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added by one hand and ink, perhaps as item (8).

(6a) f.31^v

Modern title: Culinary recipe

Date: [Added early 15th century]

Incipit: Fore to make gode composte. Tak hony ande clarifie it clene

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added in a smaller size of the same hand as item (5); very badly faded.

(6b) f.31^v

Modern title: Culinary recipe

Date: [Added early 15th century]

Incipit: To make wardoues or Coynes in Cyrope

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added in a smaller size of the same hand as item (5); very badly faded.

(7a) f.32^r

Modern title: Medical recipe

Date: [Added early 15th century]

Incipit: Medecyne fore the wynde and flewme in ye stomake

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added by the same hand as items (5) and (6).

(7b) f.32^r

Modern title: Medical recipe

Date: [Added early 15th century]

Incipit: Fore ye Cietica Passio

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added by a similar hand but in a browner ink.

(7c) f.32^r

Modern title: Medical recipe

Date: [Added mid 15th century]

Incipit: For to make whiett trett

Language: English, Middle (1100-1500)

Added in a different hand.

(8) f.33^v

Modern title: Pen drawings

Date: [Added 15th century?]

Crowned monogram of amalgamated gothic textura letter-forms, cruciform in the centre, with foliage extensions, nearly filling page. To the right towards the foot of the page, a smaller crowned or mitred shield? Both are badly faded, with some indistinct accompanying inscriptions.

Microfilm

Microfilmed in 1985/86 by the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, St John's Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota. Copies held by them and Durham University Library.

Bibliography

Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis dunelm. Catalogues of the library of Durham cathedral, at various periods, from the conquest to the dissolution, including catalogues of the library of the abbey of Hulne, and of the mss. , Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).

Heinrich, F., Ein mittelenglisches Medizinbuch (Halle: Niemeyer, 1896)

A linguistic atlas of late mediaeval English , ed. Macintosh et al. (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986)

Index terms