Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex collection of medical recipes, urinoscopy and physiognomical notes, made up of three contemporaneous sections, written in England at the end of the 15th century. Owned by George Davenport, who presented it to Bishop Cosin's Library about 1670.
Paper, octavo, with many outer edges deckle at least up to f.33, top and bottom edges trimmed throughout.
Watermarks: (A) gothic letter p with forked foot (too cropped and common for identification); (B) crowned shield containing three fleurs-de-lis with quatrefoil above and gothic t below, like Briquet, nos 1744-6 (instances 1483-1506), Piccard XIII.iii.1633-8 (1483-1525); (C) quires 4-5, hand or glove with frilled cuff and five-point star on stem above, no similar form in Briquet etc. (twin marks). Flyleaves cf. Heawood 655, 661. 678: c.1673-93. Stains on f.41-42.
foliated (20th century) i-xi, 1-61 (54-61 = xii-xix), with a medieval foliation of f.1-6 in ink at the top outside corners, 4-9, cropped.
Full collation is very uncertain because of the tightness of the binding, the loss of leaves and difficulty in pairing watermarks: f.1-53: (A) (f.1-11) 116, lacks 1-3 (with text ?) before f.1 (medieval 4), 15-16 (blank ?) after f.11; (B) (f.12-27) 216; (C) (f.28-53) 38, lacks 2-3 (stubs visible) with text before f.29, 6 (stub of cancel?) after f.30; 42; 514?, lacks 7-9 with text after f.40, 12 with text after f.42; 612?, lacks 9-11 with text, 12 fragment of original blank. From the certain deckle edges it seems that quire 1 was probably of separated bifolia but quire 2 from two interfolded sheets, all the deckles being in the first half.
No evidence of pricking. Written space approximately 98 x 70 mm; framed in soft brown. 20-21 long lines, the first through top frame-line.
Written in secretary, often with anglicana g, competently, by one hand.
Initials in headings and to sections lined with red.
Overlapping pen-trials including "Jesum", and sums of money, "ijs iiijd xvjd vjd ixd, iiijs ijd", end of 15th century, f.28v. Unintelligible faded English pen-trial, "N saginary when phelȝ dyd" and "Iste lyber" twice, end 15th century, in different hands, f.28r. On f.53v "... missus erat ...", "Jesus nazarinus", etc.
Filled out with paper at each end, outermost endleaf 19th century, remainder late 17th century. Mill-boards covered with speckled calf, with a pair of blind fillets near edges of covers, two vertical pairs 23-35 mm from spine, Hutchinson's roll B gilt on edges; spine replaced, mid 19th century and late 20th century, perhaps reproducing earlier title "Physical Receipts", with gilt shelf-mark. Now in box.
Written in England, at the end of the 15th century. Spellings in section (A) "sho" and "ho" (for "she") and (ii) "hur" (for "her") indicate West Midland copyists or exemplars.
Inscription: "Jesu mercy lady helpe me Jhon caley Md þat I Jhon caley of", end 15th century, f.50v upper margin; also in the same hand and ink "Iste liber pertinet ad me J", f.28r, the first leaf of (C). List of contents in the hand of Davenport, f.xiv; perhaps no. 53 in his catalogue, c. 1670. Ex-libris by Rud on f.1r.
No evidence of pricking. Written space approximately 98 x 70 mm; framed in soft brown. 20-21 long lines, the first through top frame-line.
Written in secretary, often with anglicana g, competently, by one hand.
Initials in headings and to sections lined with red.
Introduction and January to beginning of March lost. Prognostications of physiognomy and fortune for men and women according to the months: from the description and near explicit apparently "the booke of destenarye of the 12 signes"' in San Marino (U.S.A.), Huntington Lib. HM 64, f.63v-72r (R. Hanna, IMEP I, 5). R. H. Robbins, Essays and Studies 1969, p. 4, quotes from f.11r, also Speculum 45 (1970), 398, describing the piece as "semi-humorous". Also Cambridge Gonville & Caius 336 f.43-53.
No evidence of pricking. Written space approximately 98 x 67 mm; framed in soft brown, or, f.16r-27v, without frame and written space more variable. 22-24 long lines.
Written in secretary, by three or more hands, the first set and neat, sometimes with long r; the second, f.15v/5-27, recurs as the first in (C).
On f.12r-15v only: initials to headings and to sections stroked, headings underlined and line-fillers in red.
12 items.
(a) For þe Mygrene. Take an handeffull croppes or leues. of ruwe ... (b) For the ston. Gyf hyt be in þe Reynes there is noon remedy ... (c) To ke[pe] þe ston of þe Reynes from þe ston of þe bleddur. The ston of þe renys is smother ... ... A gude powder for all maner of sekenes in mannys body. And yf a man be ouer cum by þe wey ... & of gynger & vse it fyrst & last.
Medical recipes (63) and a charm for childbirth (f.24v-25r), in English or, f.26v, two in Latin and one in French. Most begin "Thake"; three "pro pyssibus capiendis", f.16r-17r; one how to know "luenere'"(lunaria ?), f.17r-v; the last listed Singer and Anderson p.150.
For þe dropce. Thake parcele & swage & colombynde & peletur of spane ... And also thake parsley ... For þe tothe ake of blude. Thake þe leuys of wodbyne ... ... A gode Medicyn for þe pestelens. Thake scabyos elyncompane tansey bawme ... ... dryngke fyrste and laste euery day a gode drowthe mylke warme.
Medical recipes (2), in English; added by two hands, pens and inks at different times.
No evidence of pricking. Written space 95-105 x 74 or, for second hand, 83 mm; framed in soft brown or, f.35-53, drypoint. 18-21 long lines.
Written in secretary, currently, by two hands, the first being the second in (B), changing at f.31/3, for the better.
None
Apparently regarded as a single treatise, see "Explicit iste liber", and found together in other copies: see The dome of uryne: a reading edition of nine middle English uroscopies. Perhaps as result of the excision of leaves before f.29 there is no preface (In the beginning thou shalt take heed to four things that longeth to the doom of urine ...), as there is in San Marino (U.S.A.), Huntington Library MS HM 64, f.38v-50r (see Hanna, p.4-5), Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 95, f.101v-103v, and BL MS Sloane 374, f.5v-13v. Sloane 374 has some of the sections in a different order from here; Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Hatton 29, f.61-68, is defective at the beginning but has most of the remainder of the treatise, as does London, Wellcome Institute MS 409, f.55-60; cf. Cosin MS V.iii.10, f.4r-7v (nouus tractatus de Judicio Vrinarum). All these have various omissions and alterations; various other manuscripts have selections.
f.28r-v originally blank, with added jottings 15th/16th century. There is a loss of leaves containing text between f.40 and 41: f.40v breaks off at Cosin MS V.iii.10 f.6v/10, but (5e) on f.41 does not fit in there and is probably the end of a different piece.
Recites twenty colours (or in the scheme of the treatise rather substances) with added medieval marginal numbers running 3, 4, 6, 5, 7, 8, 9, X; 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8; 2, 9, X, 1, presumably referring to alternative orders (in other treatises). Nos 1 and 2 were probably on the leaf lost immediately before f.29. This treatise (chapter 1?) is in BL MS Sloane 374, f.5v-7r, London, Wellcome Institute MS 409, f.55-57, Oxford, Bodleian Library MSS Selden supra 73, f.107v-108v, and Rawl.C.506, f.54 (defective at beginning).
Giving ten signs, corresponds with Oxford, Bodleian Library MSS Hatton 29, f.61r-v (chapter 2), Digby 95, f.103r-v, Selden supra 73, f.111v, Ashmole 1438 (i), p.79-80, Cambridge, Magdalene College MS Pepys 1307, f.61, and BL MS Sloane 374, f.13v; Cosin MS V.iii.10, f.4-5, conflates the eighth and ninth. Digby has lost all after f.103v. Hatton ends with (5e). (5b & 5c) are in Bodleian Rawl.C.506 f.58v-60r, Wellcome 409 f.64. (5f) is in Wellcome 409, f.60r, Sloane 374, f.9r, HM 64, f.16v-17r, and Rawl.D.1221, f.48v. R. H. Robbins, Speculum 45 (1970), p.400, noting also Cambridge, Jesus College MS 43. f.129-31, and Trinity College MS 905, f.83r-85v, and BL Sloane 706, f.97v-100r, says the V.v.13 piece is incomplete; Wellcome 409 f.59 has a longer English opening and HM 64 goes on further.
On urinoscopy
End missing.
Beginning missing.
On the pulse
Based at the start on the pseudo-Aristotelian Secreta Secretorum. Also in BL MSS Sloane 213 f.117v-118 (without Latin heading) and Sloane 635, f.94v-95. Breaks off before end. Calculation from the texts of items (6) and (7a) in Sloane 213 shows that one leaf must be lost here between f.42 and 43.
Both in BL MSS Sloane 213, f.118r/b-118v/a, and Harley 1735, f.35r-v.
The ten colurs of urine. Begins imperfectly.
On the contents of urine.
On four types of human organs. As BL MS Sloane 213, f.118v; also Cambridge UL MS Ee.I.13, f.98, in the middle of ten contents of urine, BL Egerton 2572 f.54v-56v
This section is chapter 7 of a treatise in 8 chapters, being a translation from the fuller Latin version by Philippus Tripolitanus, see Manzalaoui p.xv, xxvi and xlvii, not mentioning this copy or Yale Univ. Med. Lib. MS 47, f.105-9. Manzalaoui has observed that the text here is, like that in BL MS Sloane 213, f.118v-120, from a prototype with a displacement of text, here on f.48v, see p.12n.
Medical recipes; first five lines only (ends imperfectly)
15th/16th century additions, written sideways from top, outer two-thirds torn away.
(a) recto ... vnkindenes the w<hych you ? ...> shewid vn to me in time p<ast ? ...> I thank you newer a dele.
(Remains of a communication in simple cipher: substitution of subsequent letters for vowels)
(b) verso "Jesus nazarinus" by the same hand; other rubbed pen-trials in Latin by a different, secretary, hand
C.-M. Briquet, Les filigranes: dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600 
(Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1968)
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]).
The dome of uryne: a reading edition of nine middle English uroscopies , ed. Tavormina, M. T., Early English Text Society os 354 (Oxford: OUP, 2019)
E. Heawood, Watermarks: mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries (Hilversum: Paper Publications Society, 1950)
Manzalaoui, M., ed.,
Secretum secretorum: nine English versions ,
EETS OS 276 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977)
Piccard, G., Die Wasserzeichenkartei Piccard im Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart: Findbuch (Stuttgart : Kohlhammer, 1961-97)