St John's College : Medical Treatises

St John's College

Cambridge, St John's College MS D.3, is a collection of medical texts made in England in the 13th century. The manuscript was probably made at the abbey of St Augustine's in Canterbury, and was certainly part of its extensive library collection there: it bears two St Augustine's pressmarks in different hands on its opening leaves, ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(5);return false;'>[ii] recto</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(6);return false;'>[ii] verso</a>. In addition to these, there is a medieval list of the contents of the volume on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(5);return false;'>[ii] recto</a> written in a neat early 15th century hand which lists the contents of the volume as follows: <ul><li>Rasis in Almasorio</li><li>Diuisiones Rasis</li><li>Tractatus de flebotomia</li><li>Megategni Galieni</li><li>De regimine acutorum</li><li>Diagnosticon Galieni</li><li>Liber epidamarum(!)</li><li>Lucidarius Bertrandi</li><li>Liber pronosticorum</li><li>Liber de signis complexionis</li><li>Regule ad sciendum cuius complexionis sit medicamen</li></ul> This list of the contents indicates that Cambridge, St John's College MS D.3 was mutilated or damaged after the list was added to f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(5);return false;'>[ii] recto</a> in the 15th century, since the 'Rasis in Almasorio' (Rāzī, Liber almansoris) is no longer present in the volume, and the 'Diuisiones Rasis' (Rāzī, Liber diuisionum) lacks its opening leaves, indicating the loss of probably two or more quires from the original contents. The medical texts in St John's MS D.3 are a combination of the 'best' old and new medicine available in north-western Europe at the time: classic medical treatises by Galen are encountered alongside the medicine of the Persian physician Rāzī, whose works were translated into Latin in the 12th and 13th centuries. Interspersed with the larger medical treatises and medicinal preparations are occasional additional medical recipes added to the margins and blank spaces, e.g., ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(59);return false;'>27r</a> (blank space between texts) and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(62);return false;'>28v</a> (lower margin), and these recipes show an extended influence in Greek, Arab, and Persian medicine in England: these recipes are for preparations involving sugar, aloe-wood, galangal, cubeb, saffron, and many other ingredients native to Africa and Asia rather than north-western Europe, and which were only just becoming available in England in the 13th century through complex multi-step trade routes. Although it is damaged, the binding of St John's MS D.3 is notable as an example of an English strap-and-pin binding, a type popular in England in the high middle ages. The binding materials consist of alum-tawed skin over wood boards, the typical binding resources for monastic bindings in England at this time. The volume was originally fastened by two tawed-skin straps anchored into the fore edge of the <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(1);return false;'>front board</a>, which would have terminated in small metal endpieces with a hole punched through, or with a metal ring looped through the end of the strap. The punched-holes, or metal rings at the ends of the straps would have hooked over small metal pins protruding from the centre of the <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(280);return false;'>rear cover</a>, and held the book closed when not in use; both the straps and the pins have been lost, but two puncture marks from the pin plates can be seen just offset from the centre-vertical of the <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(280);return false;'>rear cover</a>. The mounting positions of the straps and pins are often an indication of the origin of the binding as English bindings typically anchored the straps to the front board and pierced the pin-plates through the rear board, with the reverse arrangement much more common in mainland European bindings. There is a similar binding on <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-SJC-D-00024/1'>Cambridge, St John's College, MS D.24</a>, another 13th-century medical manuscript owned by the community of St Augustine's, although like MS D.3, its strap-and-pin fastenings are now only visible as mounting-grooves and punctures for the pin-plates. Dr Sarah Gilbert Project Cataloguer for the Curious Cures Project Cambridge University Library