Gonville and Caius College : Medical treatises and recipes

Gonville and Caius College

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript contains a collection of Latin medical treatises and recipes but also three previously unrecorded recipes in Middle English against head maladies (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(547);return false;'>267r</a>).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript is one of the forty-five manuscripts that bear ownership and/or user marks in the hand of Roger Marchall (d. 1477), physician to Edward IV. It is one of the eighteen manuscripts that Marchall is thought to have donated to Gonville Hall (later Gonville and Caius College), alongside other manuscripts to King's College and Peterhouse (see Voigts (1995)). Thirteen manuscripts owned or used by Marchall (and another with possible Marchall connections) have been digitised, catalogued and conserved as part of the <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/medievalmedicalrecipes'><i>Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries</i></a> project: <ul><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00059-00153/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 59/153</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 2) </li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00098-00050/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 98/50</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 4) </li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00105-00057/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 105/57</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 5)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00159-00209/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 159/209</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 9)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00178-00211/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 178/211</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 10)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00181-00214/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 181/214</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 11)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00345-00620/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 345/620</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 12)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00373-00593/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 373/593</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 13)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00379-00599/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 379/599</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 14)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00401-00623/1'>Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 401/623</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 16)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-PETERHOUSE-00095/1'>Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS 95</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 24)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-PETERHOUSE-00222/1'>Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS 222</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 28)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manuscript/O.8.31'>Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.8.31</a> (Voigts 1995, no. 29)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-09213/1'>Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 9213</a> (possible Marchall connections) (Voigts 1995, no. 48)</li></ul></p><p style='text-align: justify;'>In March 2024, Dr James Freeman, Medieval Manuscripts Specialist at CUL, observed that pp. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(1);return false;'>1-8</a> in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius, MS 181/214 derive from the same manuscript source as <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-GONVILLE-AND-CAIUS-00178-00211/1'>Gonville and Caius College, MS 178/211</a>, ff. [i]-[iv], another Marchall manuscript. In both MS 178/211 and MS 181/214 leaves from the same legal manuscript have been inserted sideways and reused as flyleaves at the beginning of a volume of scientific texts. In both MS 178/211 and MS 181/214, Marchall made use of the generous marginal space common to legal manuscripts to record his name and a list of the contents of the respective volumes on the last page of that group of endleaves (i.e., Gonville and Caius MS 181/214, p. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(1);return false;'>8</a> and Gonville and Caius MS 178/211, f. [iv] verso). Both volumes have been rebound since Marchall's death in 1477, but it is plausible that each had a binding that resembled the other's in Marchall's lifetime as the shared endleaves, both with Marchall annotations, suggest that they were both bound by the same workshop on Marchall's behalf. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Clarck Drieshen<br /> Project Cataloguer<br /> Cambridge University Library</p><p style='text-align: justify;'><b>References</b>: <div style='list-style-type: disc;'><div style='display: list-item; margin-left: 20px;'>See L. Voigts, 'A doctor and his books: the manuscripts of Roger Marchall (d. 1477)', in R. Beadle and A. J. Piper (eds.), <i>New science out of old books: studies in manuscripts and early printed books in honour of A.I. Doyle</i> (Aldershot, 1995) pp. 249-314</div></div><br /></p>