Medical anthology containing Henry Daniel's Uricrisiae and various recipes; England, 15th century, first half.1.

Title

Medical anthology containing Henry Daniel's Uricrisiae and various recipes; England, 15th century, first half.1.

Shelfmark

MS. Ashmole 1404

Place of origin

English

Date

15th century, first half

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Latin

English

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment with paper flyleaves (without watermark)

Physical extent

ii (modern endleaf, paper, i formerly pasted to the boards) + 205 (parchment) + ii (modern endleaf, paper, both formerly pasted to the boards)

Hands

One principle scribe writes folios 2r-208r: anglicana with secretary a and g, in a neat and consistent hand, from the first half of the fifteenth century. Contemporary glosses in the same hand and script. A second hand writes the medical recipes on folio 208v: anglicana, in a less formal hand, from the mid fifteenth century.

Decoration

For diagrams in the manuscript, see above.

Rubrication throughout all texts in the manuscript: for roman numeral running titles in the upper margin, to highlight the first initial of sentences, for numbers, and for incipits/explicits.

Throughout all texts indented spaces of two or three lines have been left for initials but remain unfilled.

Binding

The manuscript is now in two pieces, divided between folios 83 and 84. Both parts have their cover and half of the spine attached. This damage likely happened after 1845, as W. H. Black does not mention it in the Quarto Catalogue. The two pieces are now stored in the same box and under the same shelf-mark, but in separate protective folders.

Late seventeenth-century binding typical of Elias Ashmole's collection. Brown leather over pasteboard, blind tooled fillets on boards and spine, with four raised sewing supports. Primary sewn endbands of blue and white thread over a core, now lacking the lower endband on the first part of the codex. The spine lacks Ashmole's crest (as is conventional in his bindings) due to the closeness of the bands, but the shelf mark ASH 1404 uses the typeface and gold colour typical of an Ashmole binding.

Acquisition

The manuscript was kept in the Ashmolean until the 1830’s, when the Bodleian Library acquired the collection.

Provenance

The manuscript shows evidence of heavy use, especially in the Uricrisiae. The later additions to the diagrams and tables suggest that it was likely owned by an individual who practiced medicine, astronomy, and astrology in the late fifteenth/early sixteenth century who was literate in English and Latin. This hand also annotates the text throughout and adds chapter titles and running titles.

The initial R appears twice (fols. 3r, 14r), perhaps an ownership mark.

The manuscript was later owned by Elias Ashmole, who bequeathed it as part of his donation of 1,100 printed books and 600 manuscripts to the Ashmolean Museum in 1692.