Gonville and Caius College : Medical texts

Gonville and Caius College

This is a composite manuscript with the Parts comprised of both parchment and paper quires. In addition, there are medieval parchment and paper binding fragments, and a loose parchment <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(375);return false;'>fragment</a> used as a bookmark in the volume. The volume contains primarily alchemical and medical texts, written between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. This manuscript, like many others included in the Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries project, was once owned or used by Roger Marchall (c. 1417-1477), a doctor and physician to Edward IV who wrote his name on p. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(12);return false;'>8</a>. In common with numerous other manuscripts he owned and used, Marchall added a table of contents to the beginning of the manuscript (p. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(12);return false;'>8</a>) as well as rubrics and running headings for some of the treatises in the volume (see e.g., p. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(13);return false;'>9</a>). Marchall's ownership and use of manuscripts is very well-attested, with forty-five surviving books (including this one) bearing evidence to connect him to them in some way, six others with plausible Marchall connections, and a further twelve that are recorded but not traced.In March 2024, Dr James Freeman, Medieval Manuscripts Specialist at CUL observed that pp. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(5);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(12);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. As described by Linda Voigts, the present manuscript is one of eighteen (possibly nineteen) manuscripts at Gonville and Caius College that may be linked to Marchall, and which were probably donated by him to Gonville Hall (as Gonville and Caius then was); King's College and Peterhouse, where the study of medicine was also supported, received gifts of books from him too. 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'>Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries</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>Dr Sarah Gilbert Project Cataloguer for the Curious Cures Project Cambridge University Library References: <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.), New science out of old books: studies in manuscripts and early printed books in honour of A.I. Doyle (Aldershot, 1995) pp. 249-314</div></div>