Medieval Medical Recipes : Tabula medicine

Medieval Medical Recipes

This manuscript largely consists of a copy of the Tabula medicine, a vast compilation of medical remedies, which also includes charms and magical and alchemical recipes, all arranged in alphabetical order. According to Peter Jones, the original compilation of this work was made in an English mendicant community between 1416 and 1425, since these dates are given in the explicit of a copy of the work in <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://archives.ucl.ac.uk/CalmView/'>London, University College, MS Lat. 11</a>. The mendicant origin of the compiliation is suggested by the reference to various mendicant healers, including St Dominic, the Franciscan friars Robert Winstanton and William Holme. The Tabula medicine was subsequently adopted by English physicians and expanded with references to authorities in their field. As Jones notes, this manuscript contains notable references to Thomas Duncan (d. 1425, who studied medicine as a Fellow at Merton College, Oxford; and Gilbert Kymer (d. 1463), an Oxford M.D. (1423), who served as physician to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.This manuscript may be an early copy of the Tabula medicine, since it contains a nativity on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(629);return false;'>g recto</a> that is dated to 1428. Despite additions attributed to physicians, the manuscript may have been produced in a religious or monastic context. The latter is suggested by the quotation of theologial sayings and the repeated occurence of the 'IHS' monogram in the upper margins of the manuscript's first and final pages. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the manuscript's early provenance: an ownership inscription appears to have been removed by cutting out a rectangular piece of parchment from the lower margin of f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(21);return false;'>I</a>.Dr Clarck Drieshen Project Cataloguer in Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries Cambridge University Library