Medieval Medical Recipes : Medical treatises and recipes

Medieval Medical Recipes

Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.14.32 is a medical compendium, made partly of parchment (ff. 1-66) and partly of paper (ff. 67-173), and was produced in England in the second half of the 15th century. The paper comes from the same stock, except for the last two quires (ff. 151-173; see Part 2), which are of a visibly different consistency. A single scribe copied the larger part of the texts in a mixed hand with elements of Anglicana and Secretary scripts (see Part 1), however other hands' interventions can be observed in this section of the manuscript (notably, a change of hand occurs at f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(155);return false;'>76r</a> in the middle of the 'Tractatus de urinis'). Part 2 contains a witness of the Latin herbal known as Circa instans, copied by a scribe not involved in the compilation of the previous texts. It is thus likely that originally these two quires had been a separate booklet and were added to the rest of the book at a later date. MS R.14.32 contains exclusively medical texts of different genres, from theoretical treatises to herbals and recipes, which are for the most part Middle English translations of Latin originals. Along with the vernacular writings, the manuscript includes a collection of thirteen medical recipes in Latin (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(283);return false;'>140r-144r</a>) and the aforementioned Circa instans (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(305);return false;'>151r-168r</a>). Many of the texts in MS R.14.32 were largely widespread in the late Middle Ages, however the forms in which they occur in this manuscript sometimes deviate from the textual tradition. For example, the herbal on ff. 1v-65r, which has been traditionally identified with a witness of the Middle English Agnus Castus is in fact an original compilation derived from the Agnus Castus, the Circa instans, and other sources still to be identified. Among the entries of the herbal some spaces have been left blank, probably to add other plants' descriptions or botanical drawings.Under the rubric 'Tractatus de urinis' (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(137);return false;'>67r-80v</a>), various texts on urines have been joined together to form a cohesive unity, very similar to the texts found in London, British Library, MS Sloane 121 and London, British Library, MS Sloane 706. The 'Tractatus de urinis' is followed by a small compendium made of nine texts, recorded in MS Sloane 706 and <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-JESUS-Q-D-00001/256'>Cambridge, Jesus College, MS Q.D.1</a> as well. The compendium begins with an abridged Middle English translation of the Letter of Ipocras merged with a dietary regimen (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(165);return false;'>81r-82r</a>), and continues with treatises on the body parts where ailments arise (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(168);return false;'>82v-83r</a>), the heartbeat (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(169);return false;'>83r-85v</a>), the leaves of sage (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(174);return false;'>85v</a>), bloodletting (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(175);return false;'>86r-88r</a>), the influence of planets on men's complexions (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(179);return false;'>88r-88v</a>), the four humours (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(180);return false;'>88v-89r</a>), and on the number of bones, veins and teeth in human body (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(182);return false;'>89v</a>), and finally the four-chapters version of the Middle English translation of John of Burgundy's treatise on the plague (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(183);return false;'>90r-92r</a>). Other texts include a treatise on the medical properties of distilled waters (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(189);return false;'>93r-93v</a>) and a fragmentary Middle English translation of the Circa instans (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(259);return false;'>128r-129v</a>). There are also excerpts from the Middle English version of Geoffrey of Vinsauf's commentary on Palladius, known as the Book of Trees and Wine (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(263);return false;'>130r-130v</a>), and relatedly from the Craft of Grafting by Nicolas Bollard (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(265);return false;'>131r</a>), a herbal in verse (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(272);return false;'>134v-139v</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(292);return false;'>144v-146v</a>), and a verse treatise on rosemary (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(297);return false;'>147r-148r</a>).The corpus of medieval medical recipes displayed in MS R.14.32 is substantial: there are 288 such texts in total, all but a few of which are gathered in thematically organized collections (for example, the receptarium known as The Alchemical Waters of Saint Giles on ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(195);return false;'>96r-99r</a>) or arranged according to the traditional head-to-foot order. The others were included as standalone items, such as the recipe for a well-known oral anaesthetic known as 'dwale' on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(188);return false;'>92v</a>, or added to blank spaces within or at the end of these by 15th- and 16th-century hands (see, for example, ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(191);return false;'>94r-95r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(210);return false;'>103v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(237);return false;'>117r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(242);return false;'>119v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(252);return false;'>124v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(300);return false;'>148v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(340);return false;'>168v-169r</a>). Two charms are also included: one to staunch blood (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(267);return false;'>132r</a>), crossed out by a later hand (probably of an early modern owner of the manuscript), and one 'Pro Spasmo' (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(271);return false;'>134r</a>), written in a pale, faded shade of ink. Little is known about the history of this compendium. The addition of recipes just mentioned, or supplementary entries to the Agnus Castus-derived herbal (e.g. on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(75);return false;'>36r</a>), and other occasional miscellaneous annotations (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(187);return false;'>92r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(341);return false;'>169r-173v</a>) are the only evidence of medieval use, and the manuscript contains no information as to the identity of its owners at that time. Further additions by sixteenth-century hands testify to its continued use in the early modern period and more specifically - given that most of these were remedies - a prolonged interest in medical practice. One of these, 'For the yellow jaundice', concludes with the inscription 'M[agister] R Arche a[nno] d[omi]ni 1548', which might be the name of the author of this addition (and others preceding it, which were written in a closely similar script) or the person from whom this particular recipe was obtained. The lack of evidence of medieval ownership notwithstanding, MS R.14.32 is a fascinating example of what is often described as a 'leechbook', a compendium of both theoretical medical texts as well as recipes, which practitioners of the healing arts might have used as a reference and commonplace book during their practice. The use of a single paper stock (aside from the later addition), the adoption of consistent layouts in the presentation of the texts, and their apparently purposeful arrangement in a sequence starting with general topics and concluding with specific remedies, suggests that the book was conceived as a whole from the outset by its owner-compiler, with empty spaces left deliberately in order to accommodate further additions as new medical remedies became known. Dr Laura Poggesi Post-Doctoral Research Fellow University of Florence